Congress
Boozman set to hold another committee farm bill vote next week
Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman (R-Ark.) is planning to hold another committee vote on his farm bill plans next week, in a new attempt to squeeze the farmer-friendly policies through to the full chamber ahead of November’s midterms.
The panel first met in early August to debate and vote on the GOP-led package. But the legislation stalled due to opposition from committee Democrats and the continued absence of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) from the Capitol.
Boozman hasn’t set a firm date for a committee meeting next week, he told Blue Light News on Thursday. He recessed the committee before the Senate’s summer break so he could call them back for another vote without a lengthy amendment and debate process.
“I really feel like it’s important to continue to have members express where they’re at on this, and so we are going to vote again next week,” Boozman said.
McConnell, who had been in the hospital since June and returned home for rehab in August, is hoping to be present in committee to vote for the package “if it’s humanly possible,” Boozman said.
“I haven’t talked to him personally since the markup, but I know my staff has been communicating with his staff,” Boozman said.
“It seems like Sen. McConnell is continuing to recover and doing well. So hopefully, we’ll get him back. We don’t have any assurance of that, but we do have the assurance that he is doing better,” he said.
Boozman said he will still call for next week’s vote regardless of whether McConnell is well enough to attend — potentially leaving the fate of the chamber’s farm bill again in Democrats’ hands.
Democrats voted against the package in August due to ongoing frustration over the GOP’s massive spending cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Their top demand is for Republicans to give all states two extra years before the onset of a new requirement that will require state governments to pay for part of SNAP benefits. Such a delay would put all states on the same timeline as a group of states with the highest rates of erroneous SNAP benefit payments, which were given a carve-out in the GOP’s policy megabill passed last summer.
Boozman’s bill includes a one-year delay of the cost-share implementation. He told Blue Light News that offer is still his best, and final, one to Democrats.
Sen. Ron Johnson is sending a letter Monday requesting a conference meeting to discuss the midterm results and a delay in the leadership election.
Johnson has gathered enough signatures to force the meeting under the Senate GOP’s rules and is proposing the gathering for 9 a.m. Tuesday.
“Tuesday’s result was a stunning defeat,” Johnson and his backers write in the letter to Conference Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO. “Holding leadership elections without engaging in a robust discussion and evaluation of how those running for leadership intend to lead would be political malpractice”
Republicans still expect their leadership election to be held Tuesday, where Majority Leader John Thune is so far unopposed to lead the party next year in the minority.
Sen. Chris Murphy announced Friday that he has been released from the hospital after suffering a stroke last week, but will miss “several weeks” of Senate votes while he continues to recover.
“The doctors are very encouraged by the progress I’ve made so far,” the Connecticut Democrat said in a statement. “In order to take my recovery seriously and get back to work on the quickest timeline possible, I will be spending several weeks at a rehabilitation center after being discharged from the hospital today.”
He added that he remains in touch remotely with his staff and colleagues.
Murphy, who was hospitalized last weekend, said Friday that he was “diagnosed with a small bleed in the thalamus region of my brain.” Jose Suarez, the Chief of Neurosciences Critical Care at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, said in a separate statement released by Murphy’s office that the senator “experienced a small hemorrhagic stroke.”
“He has shown tremendous progress, and at the current rate of improvement, we expect that he will make a full recovery following rehabilitation,” Suarez added.
Murphy is the latest senator to suffer a stroke in recent years. Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) were both hospitalized for strokes in 2022. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), at that time a Senate candidate, also had a stroke in 2022 that he later described as near fatal.
The head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said his group will still be power brokers in a massive Democratic majority in a strategy memo previewing plans for next term.
“While some in the press have speculated that a majority of this size undermines our influence within the caucus, they have it exactly backwards,” Rep. Greg Casar of Texas said in the Friday memo obtained by Blue Light News. “Big majorities are good for getting big things done. Our goal is not to win a battle against other Democratic caucuses. It is to pass longstanding progressive priorities that bring down costs, root out corruption, and boost wages.”
The CPC will have at least 105 members next term, according to the memo. If Democrats had a narrow majority, progressives — and any other faction in the caucus — could have used their votes as leverage. Now that presumptive speaker Hakeem Jeffries will have as many 30 votes to spare, Democrats broadly are recalibrating their approach next term.
Casar laid out a “three-pronged” strategy for the CPC to “wield our power” in the three-page memo — tackling legislation, oversight and “holding Donald Trump to his word on populist economic policies.”
“Small majorities give corporate special interest groups the ability to block popular populist policies by recruiting a small number of opponents; a big majority gives us the advantage,” he said.
Casar previewed how the CPC can engage with Trump, noting that “one of the few bright spots for bipartisan lawmaking” was a housing bill that banned private equity firms from buying homes. He noted the caucus should push Trump to cap credit card interest rates, lower credit card fees for small businesses and lower prescription drug costs.
“While we oppose [Trump] strongly on the vast majority of fronts, we should send bills to his desk that would lower prices and raise paychecks. If he signs them, good. If he vetoes those bills, that will propel us to a continued Democratic majority and a trifecta where a Democratic president can sign these proposals into law,” he said.
Casar also outlined oversight targets beyond the administration, urging Democrats to specifically investigate corporations that use customer data for “surveillance pricing,” health care companies that are “taking advantage of seniors” through the Medicare Advantage program and artificial intelligence labs who are “putting jobs and lives at risk.”
“By focusing not just on the Trump administration but also on big corporations and billionaires, we will show the American people we are not just anti-Trump but also pro-worker and pro-consumer,” he said.
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