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Congress

Carter to lie in state at the Capitol

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1 year ago

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Former President Jimmy Carter will lie in state in the U.S. Capitol’s rotunda at the invitation of congressional leaders, the Carter Center announced Monday.

The memorial services and honors for the former president are expected to span several days and include public events in Atlanta and Washington, followed by a private burial ceremony in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.

Days for public viewing of Carter’s casket at the Capitol have not been announced, but the Carter Center confirmed that plans are underway. President Joe Biden has already announced a proclamation declaring a national day of mourning on Jan. 9, which could coincide with lying in state or the large public funeral service expected in Washington. He also ordered U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff for 30 days on federal buildings, military posts and naval stations, as well as all naval vessels.

It is customary for the Capitol to be open around the clock to allow visitors to pay respects to former presidents. At the conclusion of the public viewing, Carter’s body would then be taken to the state funeral, likely at the National Cathedral. Since Congress approved the cathedral’s charter in 1893, nearly all memorial services for U.S. presidents have been held there.

“We’re going to do a major service in Washington, D.C.,” Biden said Sunday. “That’s a formal procedure that’s underway.”

A concurrent resolution is required from the House and Senate to approve the use of the rotunda and the Lincoln catafalque for a lying-in-state ceremony. Those could be taken up this week and are usually cleared without controversy or objection.

Capitol Hill is heading into a month of heightened security with both the certification of the presidential election results on Jan. 6 and President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 designated as national special security events. Fencing is already going up around the Capitol complex in anticipation of those events.

The elevated security posture may impact how the public is allowed to enter the Capitol to pay respects to Carter. The last former president to lie in state was George H.W. Bush in 2018, which drew thousands of mourners. Capitol security and operations personnel are familiar with hosting major events in shifting circumstances. Multiple lying-in-honor ceremonies were held during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Congress

Thune is ‘hopeful’ Mitch McConnell will return this week

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47 minutes ago

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June 15, 2026

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday he hopes his predecessor as top Republican, Mitch McConnell, returns this week from a hospitalization.

Thune said he had not yet spoken directly with the 84-year-old Kentuckian but is getting “readouts from his staff.”

Asked about McConnell’s condition or if he knew if he would be back this week, Thune told reporters, “I’m hopeful that he’ll be back this week.”

A McConnell spokesperson said Sunday that he had been admitted to the hospital but did not provide details on his condition or why he was hospitalized — a break from recent prior instances where the seven-term senator was hospitalized.

A former McConnell staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity was told the senator was doing much better Monday without any further details on what put him in the hospital.

Daniel Desrochers contributed to this report.

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Senate to confirm Jay Clayton as soon as Thursday

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3 hours ago

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June 15, 2026

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The Senate could vote as soon as Thursday on Jay Clayton’s nomination to serve as director of national intelligence — a lightning speed pace that will necessitate buy-in from all 100 senators.

Confirming Clayton could help shore up enough votes from Democrats to extend a government surveillance program that expired last Friday over opposition to Trump’s pick for acting director, Bill Pulte.

“He will come out of the committee Thursday, at least hopefully, and then if we get consent, we can move,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview Monday about Clayton, who Trump only nominated for the job late last week.

Democrats “ought to be happy with Clayton,” said Thune, adding that he’s a “good” and “solid” pick.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, floated Sunday to CBS News that Clayton could be confirmed this week if every senator cooperates.

Senate Intelligence will hold a hearing Wednesday on Clayton’s nomination. If every member of the panel agrees, he could then get a committee vote Thursday. Confirming Clayton on the Senate floor hours later would require getting agreement from every senator to speed up the process. Opposition from a single member will punt Clayton’s confirmation to next week.

Confirming Clayton Thursday would, crucially, limit — and potentially circumvent — Pulte from becoming acting director of national intelligence, which Trump has slated to take place Friday, June 19.

The president’s decision to put Pulte in charge after Tulsi Gabbard’s departure at the helm of the Office of National Intelligence sparked bipartisan pushback, with Democrats saying they will withhold support for extending Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act while Pulte is in the acting role. Congress allowed the key government spy authority lapse last Friday without a deal.

Trump threw another curveball into a FISA extension over the weekend when he posted on social media that he was against reauthorizing Section 702 unless a GOP elections bill is attached. That bill, known as the SAVE America Act, does not have the votes to get through Congress.

Thune threw cold water Monday on tying the two issues together.

“Yeah, he’s, as you know, passionate about getting that done and wants to use every opportunity to take a shot at it,” Thune said of Trump and his desire to enact the elections bill.

But, Thune said, “we can’t get FISA done” if the policies are linked.

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Congress

Senate eyes vote on updated housing affordability legislation

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5 hours ago

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June 15, 2026

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune is planning to put an updated version of a bipartisan housing affordability bill on the Senate floor for a vote this week, according to two people familiar with the bill dynamics and two Senate Democratic aides granted anonymity to discuss ongoing plans.

The version of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act that the Senate will vote on will include most of the House-passed language, including a provision restricting large institutional investors from buying single-family homes. The legislation would also add back Senate bills that were dropped from the House package that passed last month, the two people and the two aides said.

The Senate legislation comes after talks between Thune, Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and ranking member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). The updated Senate package was also discussed with the House and the White House, the aides said.

Still, it’s unclear if House leadership and the White House have signed off on the legislation.

The Senate and House have gone back and forth for months on language for a housing affordability bill as lawmakers on both sides look for a win to tout during a midterm election season dominated by cost-of-living issues.

Both chambers overwhelmingly passed their own versions of the housing bill — the Senate 89-10 in March, and the House 396-13 in May. The White House supported the Senate-passed bill and then backed the House-passed bill after it retained most of the Senate’s language on reining in private equity and other large Wall Street investors in the housing market — a top priority for President Donald Trump.

The Senate’s updated legislation would remove two of the House’s community banking deregulation bills due to budget scoring concerns, said two of the people familiar: two bills that would modify the Federal Deposit Insurance Act around failed insured depository institutions. The Senate bill also added back a provision to authorize the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program for seven years, as opposed to a permanent reauthorization in the Senate’s March legislation.

The Senate additionally re-inserted several upper-chamber priorities, including the BUILD NOW Act, which would incentivize communities to build more housing through the Community Development Block Grant program; the Rental Assistance Demonstration bill, which would raise the cap on housing authorities to convert voucher-based assistance; the Moving to Work bill, which would aim to add a new cohort of MTW public housing agencies; and the VALID Act, which would require Federal Housing Administration mortgage disclosures to include cost comparison information for veterans.

The package retains core wins for the leaders of both the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees and their members and reflects input from all four leaders of those panels, one of the people familiar said.

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