Congress

Johnson needs Dems to pass a stopgap spending bill. Here’s what they want.

Published

1 year ago

December 9, 2024

Lawmakers only have nine working days left to figure out government funding before the shutdown deadline, and Speaker Mike Johnson will almost certainly need House Democratic votes to pass it.

Congress is likely to pass a stopgap government funding measure before Dec. 20, likely to fund the government until March of next year at its current levels. But considering Johnson’s razor-thin margin and a notable conservative faction of his conference that doesn’t generally support stopgap spending bills, known as continuing resolutions, House Democrats will likely be the ones to get the legislation over the finish line.

Typically, punting a funding deadline into a new year when Republicans will control every lever of power would make Democrats shudder. But they’re not putting up much of a fight this time around.

While leadership negotiations are ongoing at this point, Democrats have made clear that they have one main demand for the stopgap: a robust supplemental package to address disaster aid. They also want to ensure that there are no cuts or partisan riders included in the stopgap measure.

The White House requested nearly $100 billion to aid in recovery from several natural disasters across the country, including hurricanes Helene and Milton, the Maui wildfires and tornadoes in the Midwest.

To be clear: Democrats are not going to provoke a shutdown over the supplemental package and prevent Congress from going home for the holidays. If the continuing resolution is “clean,” as lawmakers put it, they’re going to work to keep the government open.

But they are trying to negotiate for as much funding as they can to get to the number requested by the White House, making clear it’s a priority that the funds reach the states impacted the most by natural disasters. Expect some last-minute dustups if this number comes in too low.

And Republican appropriators have hinted that the supplemental funding total could be much less than what the White House requested. When asked for details on where negotiations stood on Monday, appropriators on both sides said they weren’t willing to share the topline number — a signal of potential trouble ahead.

Some news: Two key pieces of legislation — the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which funds the bulk of the nation’s work training programs, and the Older Americans Act, which funds a range of services for seniors — could ride on the continuing resolution. Both have sign off from the top four committee leaders, a person familiar with the negotiations told Blue Light News.

Either way, don’t expect text until the weekend: As we reported on Friday, the soft deadline for releasing bill text is typically the Sunday prior to the shutdown cliff — Dec. 15 in this case.

And a reminder: The less time lawmakers have to review legislation, the greater its chances of passing the chambers quickly.

Jennifer Scholtes and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

Congress

Kiley switches parties, loses committees

Published

32 minutes ago

March 18, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Kevin Kiley, the former Republican who recently registered as an Independent, said in an interview Wednesday he plans to caucus with the House GOP and will seek to regain his committee assignments.

The California lawmaker was formally removed from his panels Wednesday after giving official notice he was switching parties to serve as an Independent and run in a new district after his state redrew congressional maps.

The House GOP Steering Committee will need to approve Kiley’s effort to take back his seats on Education and the Workforce, Transportation and Infrastructure and Judiciary. Kiley told reporters this was “completely expected” and that he looked “forward to being reappointed as an Independent.”

Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.

Congress

Tim Scott to run for reelection to the Senate

Published

2 hours ago

March 18, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) will run for reelection in 2028, his campaign told Blue Light News on Wednesday, reversing a promise to serve just two full terms in the chamber.

Appointed by then-Gov. Nikki Haley to serve out the last two years of outgoing Sen. Jim DeMint’s Senate term in 2012, Scott had long said that 2022 would mark his final bid for the Senate.

He easily won reelection that year, besting Democratic state lawmaker Krystle Matthews by more than 25 percentage points. Scott then ran for president but abandoned his short-lived bid for the White House before the Iowa caucuses.

He was briefly considered to serve as now-President Donald Trump’s running mate and has since emerged as a key White House ally in the Senate.

“And I’ll say without any question that as I think about my own reelection in 2028, I think about all the lessons I’ve learned on the campaign trail for all these other candidates, and frankly, even in South Carolina,” Scott told the Charleston, South Carolina-based Post and Courier, which was first to report his reelection plans.

Congress

Quick vote on Mullin’s DHS nomination hangs on classified briefing

Published

2 hours ago

March 18, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Hopes for a quick vote on Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s nomination as Homeland Security secretary hang on questions about secretive travel the Oklahoma Republican undertook as a House member a decade ago that are now being examined by his Senate colleagues.

Mullin was questioned extensively about the matter Wednesday by Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the chair and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Testifying under oath Wednesday, Mullin said he participated in what he described as “official travel” and a “classified trip” as part of a “special program inside the House” that went from 2015 to 2016. He said he was not a member of the House Intelligence Committee at the time and refused to answer further questions outside of a classified setting.

The attention on the matter came after Peters raised questions about Mullin’s past claims suggesting he had traveled to war zones and had first-hand exposure to combat environments despite his lack of a military background.

After the hearing adjourned Wednesday afternoon, Mullin joined Paul, Peters and other members of the committee in the Senate’s classified briefing facility.

“I’m one of these people who think that we silo off too much information from the public,” Paul told reporters after the hearing. “When we’re going to war, they tell eight people, it’s like, ‘Oh, we’ve notified Congress.’ So I don’t think that is adequate.”

“It makes people curious when you say, I’m doing secret missions for somebody, but I won’t tell you who, and only four people in the world know about those,” Paul added.

Mullin said only four people were “read into” the program in question and declined to say publicly what agencies or committees were involved.

“It’s a little difficult for us to go ask about a program that has no name and we have nobody that we know to talk to about it,” Peters said before Mullin agreed to the classified meeting. “So I don’t know how we would begin doing this without your cooperation.”

The questions about the shadowy travel erupted after Mullin’s nomination suddenly turned rocky after Paul questioned his temperament and fitness for office based on his past comments and behavior.

Paul later confirmed he would oppose Mullin’s nomination but said he still intended to hold a committee vote Thursday. To get through the panel with Paul opposed, Mullin will need the support of at least one Democrat.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) has suggested he is inclined to support Mullin but declined to confirm Wednesday he would vote for him. Fetterman was among the senators spotted entering the classified meeting following the hearing.

“I’m willing to hold the vote tomorrow, but you brought this up that you were on a super secret mission,” Paul told Mullin at the hearing.

“No, I did not say super secret,” Mullin responded. “I said it was classified.”