Congress

Shutdown risk grows as Democrats revolt after Minneapolis shooting

Published

5 months ago

January 24, 2026

The odds of a partial government shutdown next week are growing after federal immigration agents shot and killed a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident Saturday.

Several Democratic senators who voted to advance previous government funding measures under President Donald Trump are now vowing to oppose funding for immigration enforcement agencies. Funding for ICE and Border Patrol, agencies under the Department of Homeland Security which have both been involved in the Minnesota operation, is included in a six-bill package the Senate will vote on next week.

Congress has already passed full-year funding for some agencies — including the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Interior and Justice — but not for several of the largest, including the Pentagon. Temporary funding for those departments, representing more than 75 percent of federal discretionary spending, expires midnight Friday.

“I am voting against any funding for DHS until and unless more controls are put in place to hold ICE accountable,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) in a statement Saturday. “These repeated incidents of violence across the country are unlawful, needlessly escalatory, and making all of us less safe.”

Schatz helped advance a funding bill in March, and Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), who voted to end the 43-day shutdown in November, also both said Saturday that they will oppose the DHS funding bill.

“I have the responsibility to hold the Trump Administration accountable when I see abuses of power — like we are seeing from ICE right now,” Rosen said on X. “That is why I’ll be voting against any government funding package that contains the bill that funds this agency, until we have guardrails in place to curtail these abuses of power and ensure more accountability and transparency.”

The DHS bill passed the House Thursday 220-207, with only seven Democrats voting for it. But Republican House leaders merged it with five other bills funding the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services and State, among others, sending it to the Senate as one package.

To get the package through the Senate, Republicans expect to need at least eight votes from Democrats to overcome a 60-vote hurdle to advance the legislation. They’ll also need all 100 senators to agree to speed up the bill in order to meet Friday night’s deadline.

More than half of the 47-member Democratic caucus has already vowed to oppose the package, many before Saturday’s shooting. And that number is likely to grow as Democrats’ re-evaluate the legislation in the wake of the shooting and as they face pressure from House Democrats and their Senate colleagues, not to mention outside voices close to the party base.

Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic candidate seeking a Senate seat in Michigan, said in an interview Saturday he saw no way for any Democrat to justify a vote for DHS funding.

“How many more people do they need to shoot?” he asked.

A group of senators, including Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), have been whipping colleagues for days to oppose the DHS bill, according to two aides granted anonymity to discuss their private effort. And two people familiar with the plans said House Democrats are scheduled to hold a private caucus call Sunday morning to discuss a response to the shooting.

Cortez Masto, in a statement, suggested dropping the Department of Homeland Security bill from the larger package, noting there is a “bipartisan agreement on 96% of the budget.”

“Let’s pass the remaining five bipartisan bills and fund essential agencies while we continue to fight for a Department of Homeland Security that respects Americans’ constitutional rights and preserves federal law enforcement’s essential role to keep us safe,” she said.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said he would agree to “immediately pass” the other five bills while providing “short term funding for DHS so the Senate can fully debate and vote on common sense reforms to ICE that bolster the rule of law.”

But stripping out the DHS bill before the Friday deadline would require every senator to agree — something Republicans aren’t likely to be able to get. Any changes to the package, meanwhile, will require sending it back to the House, which has already left town until after the shutdown deadline.

Instead, Republicans believe it’s up to Democrats to decide whether or not to vote against the funding package and avoid a partial shutdown. GOP leaders aren’t currently expected to bring the House back early from its break, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy.

Democratic aides, meanwhile, privately acknowledged Saturday that the odds of a shutdown were rising, though some questioned what alternatives are available if Democrats block the pending six-bill package.

Heading into the weekend, some Democrats acknowledged they were conflicted.

“I’m relieved, inspired, that we’ve actually managed to get to a point where we are on the verge of voting on an entire annual appropriations package — and there’s a lot of significant wins in these bills for Democratic priorities,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told reporters Friday.

“I don’t know the details of exactly what the language is in the Homeland Security bills in terms of trying to hold ICE accountable and trying to minimize their misconduct, and I don’t know whether it is worse to have a continuing resolution and how that might be misused,” added Coons, a senior appropriator who championed Congress’ ability to reverse many of Trump’s foreign aid cuts.

Many Senate Democrats, meanwhile, condemned the shooting and called for a federal withdrawal from Minneapolis without specifically weighing in on the funding bill.

“ICE out of Minnesota NOW,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer posted on X.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democratic leader, later posted, “ICE’s egregious, reckless behavior in our communities must come to an end.”

Adam Wren, Meredith Lee Hill and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

Congress

Congressional Black Caucus blasts Slotkin over her calls for new leadership in the House

Published

9 hours ago

June 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Congressional Black Caucus is emphatically declaring its support for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — and denouncing Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s call for new leadership in Congress.

In a statement posted to social media on Friday, the entirely Democratic CBC declared that it stands united behind the nation’s first Black minority leader of the House. The caucus accused the Michigan senator of “posturing for higher office in 2028” and called attention to her votes to approve multiple members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.

“House Democrats don’t need a lesson on reading the political moment from someone who handed Donald Trump one of the most corrupt Cabinets in American history,” the CBC said. “Voting to confirm Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, and five other Trump Cabinet secretaries is not the posture of someone who understood the moment’ after 2024.”

The CBC closed its defense of Jeffries with a sharp parting shot of remaining focused on providing for Americans rather than “engaging in distractions that only serve to divide Democrats at a moment when unity and resolve are essential.”

A spokesperson for Slotkin, who has repeatedly called for a new generation of leadership in Congress, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Congress

Key Democrats urge House to reject kids’ safety proposal

Published

12 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Commerce Committee’s top Democrat Maria Cantwell (Wash.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) warned House lawmakers against advancing their chamber’s version of the Kids Online Safety Act, arguing it would face intense lobbying from tech companies in the Senate and risk unraveling years of bipartisan work.

“If it is passed by the House it will come to the Senate,” Blumenthal, the bill’s Senate cosponsor, told reporters at a Friday press briefing. The Connecticut Democrat said he is concerned senators will be influenced by the tech industry’s “armies of lawyers and lobbyists” who may “confuse and exploit” misunderstandings about a House bill with the same name as a Senate version but excludes key provisions, such as the “duty of care.” (This concept requires online companies to design social media platforms with an eye for children’s safety.)

“We’re not going to let bad legislation with a good title just get across and think somebody’s done something,” Cantwell said.

The House version of KOSA — which is included in the KIDS Act, a revised bipartisan package that the Energy and Commerce Committee advanced along party lines in March — is scheduled to be considered on the House floor next week under suspension of the rules.

“We need to stop this bill in the House, and we need to prevent the White House from forming an alliance with Big Tech on this issue,” said Blumenthal, who characterized the version of KOSA that House leadership is pushing as a “sham.”

Both Democratic lawmakers also expressed concern that Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) could adopt the House version of KOSA in a kids’ safety package he has yet to publicly release but has pledged to markup by August recess. Cruz said “negotiations are ongoing” earlier this week when asked by Blue Light News whether he would be open to incorporating such changes put forward in the House.

Cruz’s package is expected to include KOSA as well legislation barring companies from using minors’ personal data for targeted advertising, banning kids under age 13 from social media, and providing greater oversight for how children interact with AI chatbots.

Although Blumenthal remains hopeful that Cruz will “stay true to his first vote in favor of KOSA,” which overwhelmingly passed in the Senate last Congress, the Connecticut Democrat said Friday he’s worried Cruz and others may be tempted to “take the bait” and abandon the bill’s basic principles.

Congress

Moderates beware: Mamdani coalition portends a dramatically different Democratic Party in NYC

Published

15 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

NEW YORK — A coalition powered by Mayor Zohran Mamdani expanded the left’s reach Tuesday, winning younger voters across racial and ethnic lines and once again upending conventional wisdom about elections in New York City.

A series of hotly contested congressional and state elections pit a slate of Mamdani-backed democratic socialists and progressives against establishment candidates who, in several cases, differed little on policy aside from U.S.-Israel relations.

The results were staggering.

Midterm election cycles in deep-blue New York City tend to be sleepy affairs. Both this year and in 2022, just over 500,000 people cast ballots, less than 20 percent of eligible voters. But turnout within a congressional district spanning Upper Manhattan and the Bronx increased by roughly 50 percent between 2022 and Tuesday, with more than 66,000 voters heading to the polls.

In another seat covering parts of Brooklyn and Queens, turnout more than doubled from 2022, though state and federal elections were held on different days that year and the seat was not competitive, which would have reduced the number of voters going to the polls.

Congressional candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America were able to replicate the mayor’s success by winning younger Latino voters in Brooklyn and a majority of Black voters in Harlem. Combined with the DSA’s base in relatively wealthy neighborhoods, the result charted the far left’s broadening appeal and a potential reorientation of the electorate that will influence races for years to come.

“This was a big wave for DSA and they did a good job capitalizing on it,” said Evan Roth Smith, a pollster with Slingshot Strategies. “The question now is: Was this a wave cycle that will abate, or is it the start of the takeover?”

Much of Mamdani’s base is concentrated in the so-called “commie-corridor,” a series of neighborhoods along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront filled with young, educated and affluent voters who’ve propelled several DSA candidates into office. They went gaga over Mamdani’s candidacy and, as Tuesday’s results show, will turn out for candidates he supports.

The area was crucial to Assemblymember Claire Valdez’s crushing 56-38 defeat of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.

“The factor that felt most significant to me were all of these New Yorkers who got activated and politicized in the mayor’s race last year who were looking for the next fight,” said Andrew Epstein, a political adviser to Mamdani who worked on Valdez’ campaign. “Those people didn’t go away. And they want to keep going.”

Valdez also won several heavily Latino areas that were expected to break for her opponent.

Reynoso was born in Brooklyn to Dominican parents and just a few years ago was a City Council member representing Bushwick, a long-gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood that’s home to Latino families and young hipsters. Valdez was born in Texas, moved to New York City in 2015 and served in the state Assembly for just one term before launching her Mamdani-backed bid for retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez’s seat.

She ended up winning areas of Bushwick by even greater margins than the total results — in some election districts winning upwards of 80 percent of the vote.

“You don’t win the district by 35 points if you don’t have broad advantages across age and demographic groups,” said Michael Lange, an election analyst and Mamdani supporter who has tracked several contested races with extreme granularity. “Is she blowing him out of the water with Hispanic voters under 50? I see tons of evidence that the answer is yes.”

The age advantage was the common thread across several other races.

In Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, for example, younger Black voters in Harlem were key to Darializa Avila Chevalier’s win over Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who had built a small political empire in the district.

While gentrifying, the neighborhood remains a seat of Black political power and is home to younger households who tend to rent. That particular demographic is a strong indicator of why Mamdani won the area in 2025, even as he lost the Black vote overall to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose support was concentrated among older Black homeowners in Brooklyn and Queens.

While Espaillat never healed a rift with the Black community in upper Manhattan opened during his election in 2016, which contributed to his weak performance, Avila Chevalier demonstrated Tuesday that a significant share of voters there were not just supportive of Mamdani the person, but of the broader political movement he’s now leading.

Overall, she edged out Espaillat with Black voters 48-46, according to an analysis from The New York Times, which charted demographic breakdowns for several contested races.

Three winning congressional candidates endorsed by Mamdani — including former city Comptroller Brad Lander in Brooklyn, who unseated incumbent Dan Goldman — share several similarities. They won younger, college-educated and wealthier voters by huge margins, in several cases by 30 points or more, and lost lower-income voters to incumbents or candidates affiliated with incumbents — a sign that the movement seeking to boost struggling New Yorkers has not won them over.

While the DSA was able to win three state races without the support of Mamdani — a testament to the organizing prowess of the left that was essential to reactivating the mayor’s coalition — there were limits to the city’s leftward shift.

Rep. Grace Meng won her reelection race, though she only vanquished challenger Chuck Park by 14 points, an uncomfortable margin for an incumbent of her stature. Park, who ran to Meng’s left, was boosted by a huge turnout in Woodside, Queens, a multiethnic neighborhood that went heavily for Mamdani in last year’s mayoral race.

Elsewhere in the Bronx, however, incumbents remained strong. Rep. Ritchie Torres handily won reelection with 72 percent of the vote, though it was a low-turnout affair more consistent with an uncompetitive midterm. Nevertheless, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries touted the results — even as he watched a series of his endorsed candidates fall to the DSA in Brooklyn, his home borough, in a preview of the intraparty battles to come.

“In some higher-income districts, there was an outsized focus on the Middle East. In other districts, for instance, in the South Bronx, Ritchie Torres ran against somebody who was heavily critical of his position on Israel, and he won by fifty points,” Jeffries told MS NOW on Wednesday.