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Inside the House vs. Senate rifts threatening the GOP agenda

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Republicans have a major obstacle to clear if they are going to avoid a legislative pileup in the months before the midterms: each other.

Intraparty tensions between House and Senate Republicans have boiled over in recent weeks. It has spilled into public view in the form of finger-pointing, shade-throwing and warnings that Republicans either need to figure out how to play nice or risk paying a price in what is already shaping up to be a rough election year.

“We control Washington. When … we don’t get things done, we’re making a huge mistake,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said about his House counterparts. “We’ve got to deliver.”

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) also lamented the recent divisions within the GOP’s ranks: “You can either be part of a functional majority and get almost everything or you can hold out and get nothing and be in the minority next time.”

“I guess we can all vote ‘no’ together — that’ll be exciting,” the House Appropriations chair added.

Republicans managed to resolve one long and particularly nasty disagreement late last month when Speaker Mike Johnson and his conference finally approved a Senate-passed Department of Homeland Security funding bill he previously had described as a “crap sandwich.”

But the two chambers return to session Monday after a short recess with Republicans at odds on everything from housing to a soon-to-expire surveillance law to a long-shot election proposal. And they are facing a shrinking window to either get on the same page or leave much of their legislative agenda stuck in limbo as Republicans prepare to spend more time back home campaigning.

Who is at fault? The answer mostly depends on which side of the building the question is asked.

Some Senate Republicans have started to doubt that the House will be able to pass much of anything for the rest of the year. Their exasperation was fueled watching the DHS and surveillance bills languish last month as rank-and-file House GOP lawmakers went to war with each other — and with Johnson.

And while the House Republicans spent much of the past month fighting amongst themselves, senior members of the conference are trying to channel some of the rank-and-file anger at the Senate, rather than at Johnson, who fights day-to-day to control his tiny majority. A growing chorus of House GOP lawmakers also want the Senate to eliminate the filibuster — something Republicans don’t have the votes to do — and have otherwise kvetched about their perception that senators have cut them out of big decisions over the past year.

“The House is doing its job,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said. “Sometimes it gets a little tense, but we’re still getting stuff done. We’re sending it over to the Senate, so we look forward to them doing their job.”

Cole, no one’s idea of an ideological rabble-rouser, also accused Senate GOP leaders of not coordinating enough with Johnson. The tensions, he said, have been “created by bad management in Senate leadership and by not being transparent and open with us in the House.”

Interchamber sniping is a perennial fact of life in Washington. Due to its 60-vote filibuster rule, the Senate requires a modicum of bipartisanship to do most legislating, while the majoritarian House does not. Democrats faced similar divides when they had a trifecta government under former President Joe Biden — complete with rampant calls to eliminate the filibuster and a failed attempt to make a carve-out for voting rights legislation.

Under the GOP trifecta, Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune meet regularly to coordinate the Republican agenda, with their staffers also keeping in close touch. But recent weeks have tested their relationship.

Johnson has occasionally joined ultraconservatives in trashing Senate bills, while the typically mild-mannered Thune, in turn, delivered increasingly blunt assessments of the House’s decision to sit on the DHS funding bill. However, when the House ultimately passed it by voice vote — the same way the Senate did weeks earlier — Thune declined to rub it in Johnson’s face.

“He has to do what he has to do, I know that, and he knows the kind of the challenges we face over here,” Thune said about Johnson. “He needs every Republican and that’s a real challenge on a good day, and sometimes there aren’t a lot of good days around here.”

Johnson acknowledged “emotion” and “frustration” within his own conference but downplayed the drama, attributing it to a “cumbersome” legislative process in comments to reporters.

The GOP’s most pressing task is meeting President Donald Trump’s self-imposed June 1 deadline to get an immigration enforcement funding bill to his desk. House and Senate Republicans, after weeks of jockeying, managed to sign off on the same budget blueprint, a key prerequisite.

But they now need to navigate a political firestorm after Senate Republicans released draft legislation last week that included $1 billion in Secret Service security funding that can be used for at least parts of Trump’s proposed White House ballroom. Some GOP lawmakers and aides have privately lamented the inclusion of funding for a project voters have shown little support for and are questioning whether the provision should be removed.

Even the bigger intraparty fights could be coming.

Republicans bought themselves until mid-June to figure out how to extend the hot-button spy authority known as Section 702. The House passed a three-year extension of the surveillance law last month but married it to a permanent ban on a Federal Reserve digital currency that is DOA in the Senate.

Negotiations are ongoing over how to extend Section 702, which is aimed at foreigners abroad but has the ability to sweep in communications with Americans. But House hard-liners, with support from some GOP senators, are doubling down.

“The Senate is going to have to address the central bank digital currency,” Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) said. “I think the public is going to demand it.”

Burlison warned Republicans to start negotiating early and that if they “want to push it all the way to the end like they did these last two times, they’re going to get the same result.”

The digital currency provision is also implicated in another intra-GOP standoff, this one over housing legislation. The Senate passed a five-year ban on a government-backed digital currency as part of a bipartisan housing package it passed last year, but that bill is now stalled in the House.

That has frustrated Senate Republicans, who believe getting a housing bill to Trump’s desk would be an easy way to show voters that the party is responsive to their affordability anxieties.

“It’s being held up by one or two members of Congress, and I respect their opinion, but I’d like to see the president call them up and say, ‘Hey guys, what’s the problem here?’” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).

Trump has in fact considered getting involved — but not to urge the House to pass the Senate bill as-is. Instead, he has privately raised objections to some provisions in the Senate-passed version that would place curbs on corporate ownership of some single-family homes.

While they wait for Trump to go public with his concerns, House GOP leaders have made clear the Senate bill won’t pass their chamber, and they’re now working through a plan to amend the contentious parts of the Senate product and send it back.

“Conversations continue,” House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) said before the recess. “We just are looking for the path to get a bicameral bill.”

But “bicameral” is an especially loaded word right now, given the ongoing GOP sniping that reached a crescendo during the DHS funding drama.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer unloaded on the Senate after Republicans there left out immigration enforcement funding that Democrats fiercely opposed.

“This is what Americans get so upset with about politicians. This is literally what they’re mad about,” he said. “These guys won’t do their jobs.”

Andres Picon contributed to this report.

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Congress

Ryan backs Bores to replace Rep. Nadler, citing the battle over AI’s future

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NEW YORK — Rep. Pat Ryan is backing state Assemblymember Alex Bores to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler, making him the latest member of the New York delegation to weigh in on one of the state’s most competitive primary elections.

In making his endorsement, obtained exclusively by Blue Light News ahead of its formal announcement, the Hudson Valley Democrat cited the high-profile AI fight that’s become a central theme of the race as a key reason for backing Bores.

“A handful of the richest people in the history of the world are spending millions to defeat him because they’re terrified of a true leader with the courage and the expertise to take them on,” Ryan said in his endorsement, referring to spending against Bores by a pro-artificial intelligence super PAC. “That’s all the proof I need to know I’m on the right side. With courageous leaders like Alex paving the way, we can and we will win this fight.”

Ryan’s rationale for backing Bores underscores just how much the debate over the future of artificial intelligence has dominated the race to represent one of the wealthiest, most highly-educated congressional districts in the country. And Ryan isn’t the only one who based his decision at least in part on Bores’ record on AI.

When the United Federation of Teachers endorsed Bores last week, union president Michael Mulgrew predicted he “won’t back down” as “Big Tech billionaires” try to “silence him.” Our Revolution, a group founded by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), praised Bores in its endorsement for not being “afraid to name or take on the oligarchy that’s rigging the system against working people.”

The millions of dollars in spending against Bores, an alum-turned-critic of data analytics company Palantir and a sponsor of the AI safety RAISE Act in the state Legislature, has also drawn an influx of money from regulation-friendly AI and tech-affiliated groups to boost him.

In Bores’ first ad of the campaign, which he released Monday morning, he highlights beating “Trump and his megadonors to pass the toughest AI safety law in the nation.”

Bores’ campaign said that both he and Ryan “share a belief that the next Congress must take decisive action to regulate artificial intelligence before this transformative technology outpaces the rules meant to govern it” — a debate that continues to rage on in Washington and globally.

Bores is viewed as one of the top contenders for the 12th District, which covers a large swath of Manhattan. He’s up against Assemblymember Micah Lasher, Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg and anti-Trump commentator George Conway, as well as a handful of lesser-known challengers. Public polling has been sparse in the race, and internal polls from earlier this year don’t show a clear frontrunner.

Ryan is Bores’ first endorsement from a sitting member of the New York delegation; he previously earned the support of former Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Steve Israel.

Many prominent Democrats have rallied around Lasher, who has a long career in New York politics. That includes Nadler — his former boss — as well as retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez. He also has the backing of Gov. Kathy Hochul and former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, both of whom he worked for.

Other members of the New York congressional delegation have not had much of a public presence in the primary. But Schlossberg has the backing of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose support he touted in his first campaign spot.

Ryan, who first won his swing seat in the Hudson Valley in 2022 and has been floated as a contender for higher office, is making an effort to boost his national profile by supporting candidates with public service backgrounds. Bores said in a statement that the Democratic Party will be “lucky” if Ryan is “its new face.”

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Jeffries guarantees Democratic House win in midterms despite ‘undemocratic’ rulings

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The top House Democrat guaranteed a victory for his party in the November midterms in a message to lawmakers Monday, seeking to settle nerves after a pair of redistricting-related court decisions threatened to hand several seats to Republicans.

“Democrats will take control of the House of Representatives in November,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote in the “Dear Colleague” letter.

Jeffries also announced a Thursday House Democratic Caucus meeting to discuss “the steps Democrats are taking to advance the largest voter protection effort in modern American history.” Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, will help lead the briefing.

“Given the highly unfavorable political environment confronting House Republicans, the extremists will not meaningfully benefit from their scandalous gerrymandering scheme,” Jeffries said. “Quite the opposite. Democratic enthusiasm and resolve have grown more intense.”

The Virginia Supreme Court struck down a new voter-approved map Friday that would have created four Democratic-friendly districts. The Supreme Court earlier this month limited the effect of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that gives Republicans leeway to redraw majority-minority districts in the South.

Jeffries called these “blatantly undemocratic court decisions” but added “the failed GOP majority will not be able to gerrymander themselves back into power.”

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Secret Service chief to brief senators

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Secret Service Director Sean Curran will attend the Senate GOP lunch Tuesday, according to two people granted anonymity to share details about the closed-door gathering.

The private meeting comes as Senate Republicans consider whether to provide $1 billion in new Secret Service funding that could be used for parts of President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project as part of a party-line immigration enforcement bill.

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