Congress

Congress ends record-shattering DHS shutdown

Published

6 months ago

April 30, 2026

On the 76th day since Department of Homeland Security funding lapsed, Congress passed a bill Thursday restoring the flow of federal dollars to most of its agencies — without solving any of the policy disagreements that led to the record-breaking shutdown.

The House approved by voice vote the partial DHS funding measure the Senate passed more than a month ago. President Donald Trump is expected to swiftly sign the bipartisan legislation, fully funding the Coast Guard, TSA, Secret Service, FEMA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, along with other offices within DHS that don’t deal with immigration enforcement.

Now congressional Republicans turn their attention to enacting tens of billions of dollars for Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a party-line package. They jump-started the process this week with the adoption of a framework unlocking special budget power to skirt the Senate filibuster.

Trump is demanding that bill, which would fund the controversial agencies for the remainder of his term, land on his desk by June 1. ICE and Border Patrol have been operating largely as normal during the shutdown due to funding previously provided in last year’s GOP megabill.

The upshot of the two-track approach to funding DHS is that there will be no changes to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics, which led to the shutdown stalemate that began in February after federal immigration agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens in Minnesota.

In the more than 10 weeks since DHS funding lapsed, Democrats have remained largely united in refusing to support funding for the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement activities without new guardrails. Republicans, meanwhile, are doubling down on funding those agencies without strings — emphasizing a blunt partisan divide five months before the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

House GOP leaders sat on the bipartisan package for weeks, scoffing at the late-night decision Senate leaders made last month to fund DHS through the two-step maneuver without consulting their House counterparts.

“You don’t dump things on the other chamber in the middle of the night without talking to the speaker about it,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters this week. “This is created by bad management in Senate leadership and by not being transparent and open with us in the House.”

But pressure from the White House and some Republican lawmakers prompted House GOP leaders to ultimately pass the package unchanged, even after floating the idea of tweaking the bill and sending it back across the Capitol.

Trump administration officials have grown increasingly antsy to see the legislation enacted after nearly draining the $10 billion fund they have been tapping to cover paychecks for DHS workers. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin warned last week that his department would run out of payroll money in the coming days.

Under the package, all of DHS except ICE and Border Patrol will be funded through September, the end of the fiscal year.

The legislation includes some new guardrails on immigration enforcement tactics negotiated early this year. But it does not contain any of the additional rules Democrats sought, including barring immigration officers from wearing masks and requiring judicial warrants to make arrests or enter private property.

The end result of the funding lapse is largely what top Democrats have advocated for months as a fallback plan if Republicans wouldn’t agree to any new enforcement restrictions. Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the House’s top Democratic appropriator, introduced a bill more than two months ago to fund all but ICE, Customs and Border Protection and the Office of the Secretary at DHS.

Instead, House Republicans repeatedly passed legislation to fund all of DHS throughout the shutdown, daring lawmakers on the other side of the aisle to oppose it. While a few Democrats broke ranks, the Republican attempts were met with consistent opposition among Democrats in the Senate, where the bills inevitably ran up against the filibuster.

Off Blue Light News, TSA agents and other DHS workers who aren’t considered law enforcement personnel worked for weeks without pay, until Trump directed DHS to temporarily cover their paychecks last month.

Since the funding lapse began, more than 1,100 agents have quit at TSA and some homeland security efforts have been halted, including preparations for the World Cup soccer games being hosted in U.S. cities this summer.

Andres Picon contributed to this report.

Congress

Scalise heads to Florida to boost several GOP candidates

Published

5 hours ago

October 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is heading to Florida to boost a raft of Republicans as the House GOP campaign arm launches new spending across the ruby-red state.

Republicans are working to ensure they prevail in a series of tight Florida races after they redrew several districts in their favor. Several GOP incumbents have warned the party needs to do more to help put out fires across these areas. Scalise is just the latest Republican leader who is looking to shore up candidates in once-thought-to-be-safe red territory.

Scalise will hold a GOTV rally Thursday with Republican Dan Green who is challenging Democratic Rep. Darren Soto in central Florida’s 9th District, according to an invite obtained by Blue Light News. Soto should be toast from the GOP redistricting effort, but he’s still hauling in significant fundraising and Democrats say their internal polling shows a tight race.

Over on the Gulf Coast, the National Republican Congressional Committee is also launching its first coordinated ad spending for Rep. Anna Paulina Luna on Wednesday. House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, GOP governor nominee Rep. Byron Donalds and Sen. Ashley Moody, who is also up for reelection, are appearing at a Saturday rally with Luna.

President Donald Trump won Luna’s district by 13 points and Democrats have tried and failed to target her before. But Republicans are warning the headwinds are stronger this year and forcing a tighter than expected race.

Republicans are also working to shore up key seats in South Florida. Scalise will be with GOP Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar in the Miami area Friday, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter, granted anonymity to share not yet public details. Salazar has raised alarm about Republican erosion with Hispanic voters in his district and other states over the Trump administration’s mass deportations.

Scalise will boost Ryan Elijah, the Republican who beat scandal-ridden Rep. Cory Mills in the primary in Florida’s 7th District, according to another person with direct knowledge of the matter, granted anonymity to speak candidly. The party feels better about the seat in recent weeks, especially more than they would have if Mills had won the GOP nomination.

The House Majority Leader will also hold events with Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Brian Mast and Rep. Gus Bilirakis, according to the person.

Congress

Capitol agenda: The unknowns of a Sherrod Brown return

Published

11 hours ago

October 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats may be rooting for Sherrod Brown’s comeback, but they are not exactly prepared for what’d happen next.

If Brown wins on Election Day, Democrats likely face an uncomfortable choice: break longstanding party rules to restore his seniority on powerful committees like Banking, Agriculture and Finance or potentially make him start over at the bottom.

Complicating the issue: Brown will immediately need to prepare for a grueling re-election fight in 2028 and his campaign could greatly benefit from two years with a high-profile gavel. That’s because this midterm is Ohio’s special election where voters are selecting a senator to serve out the remainder of Vice President JD Vance‘s term.

Brown’s post, therefore, may not only deeply impact Democrats’ policy agenda but could also play a key role in the party’s success in winning the battleground seat in 2028.

Some members are already suggesting the party should try to find a middle ground.

“Some accommodation that recognizes he would not be a rank freshman would make sense. But that’s distinct from handing him back a leadership role at Banking,” said Sen. Chris Coons.

The Ohio Democrat served as the top Democrat on the Banking panel for a decade. He was also a longtime member of Finance as well as Agriculture, where he would also be the most senior member if his previous service counted.

To give Brown a gavel on Agriculture or Banking could set up clashes with the Democrats now expected to lead their party on the panels: Sens. Michael Bennet and Elizabeth Warren, respectively.

It would also break Senate Democrats’ caucus rules, and precedent is not on Brown’s side when it comes to making exceptions.

Still, aides and lobbyists around the panels expect Democrats will be eager to give Brown some sort of perch.

Those close to him have been encouraging him to seek the Agriculture gavel. It’d allow him to deliver valuable policy wins for Ohio’s rural areas, influence the farm bill if it gets punted to next year and help guide the direction of cryptocurrency regulation.

Another possibility that avoids an intraparty clash: hand Brown a seat on Appropriations, which could potentially give him a subcommittee gavel and federal funding clout.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has avoided any firm commitments on Brown’s seniority, saying last month when asked: “Let’s win back the Senate first.”

What else we’re watching:

— OMAR RAID RAISES QUESTIONS FOR GOP: House Republicans — including Majority Whip Tom Emmer — have publicly cheered on the Trump administration’s investigation of GOP boogeyman Rep. Ilhan Omar. But the raid raises thorny questions for GOP leaders about how aggressively Congress wants to defend itself — regardless of party — from encroaching federal prosecutors. Lawmakers’ work communications are protected from prosecutors’ scrutiny, with few exceptions, under the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause. That draws into question whether the emails, texts, and materials on Omar’s phone, which was seized in the raid, could legally be reviewed by Trump officials. So far, Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to weigh in on how the House’s legal team may defend Omar.

— TRUMP’S TRICKY FARM MONEY PROMISE: Trump’s move Monday to turn out GOP voters by promising to send farmers $8 billion in taxpayer money is already facing a reality check. The internal USDA taxpayer-funded account Trump is tapping doesn’t actually have enough money in it right now to make the payments, meaning Congress will have to approve new funds or the administration will have to take it from another program, according to three Trump officials granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. Plus, farmers wouldn’t receive the payments until late November or early December at the earliest — well past Election Day, according to three people close to the plans.

Jasper Goodman, Grace Yarrow, Kyle Cheney and Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Congress

This member is so frustrated with Congress he wants voters to sidestep it

Published

11 hours ago

October 21, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

At the end of one of the least productive Congresses in modern history, freshman Rep. Johnny Olszewski is so sick of the gridlock on Capitol Hill that he wants voters to bypass it entirely.

“It’s been a long two years,” the Maryland Democrat said in a Tuesday interview.

“One of the things that’s made it difficult as a new member is to see not only the dysfunction, but also the missed opportunities,” he added. “There are so many issues out there that Americans support that this Congress and frankly prior Congresses have failed to act on.”

Fed up with the lack of progress on popular policies like banning congressional stock trading, equipping police with body cameras or protecting in vitro fertilization, Olszewski is introducing a constitutional amendment Thursday, first shared with POLITICO, that would create a mechanism for voters to make federal law directly.

The measure would give voters 18 months to gather signatures from at least 5% of people who participated in the most recent presidential election in 25 states. Then any qualifying direct-democracy measure would be put on ballots for the next national election and need a 60% national majority to pass.

Votes to declare war or direct federal spending would not be eligible under the proposal.

“If we were acting, there’d be no need for this to come into play,” Olszewski said. “It would create a really important backstop for the American people to say, ‘You know what … irrespective of which party is in power, Congress is failing to meet not just our everyday needs but act on issues that we overwhelmingly support and want to see acted upon.’”

The amendment — which itself would require support from two-thirds of the House and Senate as well as three-quarters of states — is an incredible longshot and would create serious implementation headaches, but Olszewski — a former civics teacher — hopes his proposal will spark a discussion about congressional reform.

“I understand that any constitutional amendment is going to be difficult,” Olszewski said. “But I’m hopeful that at least for the lame duck session, this is an opportunity to create a conversation around the fact that we have been so gridlocked that we have failed to address the needs of the American people.”