Congress

Boozman set to hold another committee farm bill vote next week

Published

1 day ago

September 10, 2026

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.

Congress

House sets vote on Russia sanctions bill

Published

3 hours ago

September 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House lawmakers are set to vote on the sweeping Russia sanctions bill that senators overwhelmingly voted to approve in August, but now faces a tough test in the House where Democrats fear the bill will give President Donald Trump too much tariff power.

The Senate-passed and White House-backed measure is finally getting consideration from the House, after GOP leaders omitted it from their agenda when lawmakers returned from August recess. Many House Democrats — including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — have voiced opposition for fear that it would give Trump expansive and risky new tariff authorities.

House GOP enthusiasm for the measure has also been tepid, after a boost following the sudden death of its champion, Sen. Lindsey Graham, wore off.

The House Rules Committee scheduled a meeting to consider the bill Monday afternoon.

Advocates of the legislation argue the bill would give Trump the tools he needs to pressure Russian leader Vladimir Putin to end the war on Ukraine. The bill would issue mandatory sanctions on Russian leadership and its energy sector — as well as collaborators in Moscow’s defense industry and so-called shadow fleet.

But it would also give Trump the ability to hit top buyers of Russian oil with 100% tariffs, a move that Democrats say is dangerous given the White House’s eagerness to slap tariffs on U.S. friends and foes alike.

“Donald Trump already has ample authority to impose sanctions on the companies, individuals, and vessels propping up a Russian war machine that continues its deadly attacks on Ukraine,” Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Richard Neal (D-Mass.) wrote in a joint statement with Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia and Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) earlier this month. “Congress does not need to greenlight new tariff authority for the President to impose those sanctions on Russia today.”

Backers of the bill were quick to encourage its passage after the vote was announced on Friday.

“Great news that the House will vote on the much-needed Russia sanctions bill,” Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) wrote on social media. “Ukrainian civilians continue to be killed by Putin’s war machine, and this bill hits the Kremlin’s coffers hard. Now is the time to pass it and force Putin to the negotiating table.”

The measure passed in an 86-11 vote in the Senate in August.

Congress

House eyes Tuesday vote on bill to curb data center costs

Published

4 hours ago

September 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House GOP leaders have picked Tuesday as the day to vote on legislation intended to shield Americans from the potential costs associated with the data center boom, according to two people granted anonymity to share private scheduling plans.

The upcoming floor action comes after a healthy number of vulnerable Republicans signed onto the measure in recent days, a sign that fears about the issue’s political volatility ahead of the midterms are continuing to grow as voters complain about rising energy prices as a result of data center proliferation.

The bipartisan Ratepayer Protection Act, which aims to compel tech companies to pay for the infrastructure associated with data center development, passed unanimously out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee this summer. Senior Republicans, however, said last week they were still weighing whether to bring the bill to the floor before the House recesses until after the November elections.

The decision to proceed this coming week signals that pressure has been building on leaders to act, underscored by the at least five House GOP frontliners who have signed on as cosponsors since September 1: Reps. Bill Huizenga and Tom Barrett of Michigan, David Valadao of California, Jen Kiggans of Virginia and Mónica de la Cruz of Texas.

Valadao, in an interview a week before he signed on as a cosponsor, called such measures “fine” but balked at the idea House Democratic leaders were trying to politicize data centers right before an election.

“Obviously it has to be addressed — making sure that we’re protecting our natural resources like water in my district,” he said. “Obviously, with California and their regulatory process, they’ve made energy more expensive than anywhere else in the country. So those are major concerns that need to be addressed, and I think those pieces of legislation will make sense.”

But, he added, allowing Democrats “to turn this into a political issue, I would say, is pretty irresponsible.”

The total number of cosponsors on the bill, championed by Reps. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.) and Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), to 42 Democrats and Republicans combined.

The Tuesday vote will take place under an expedited procedure that requires a two-thirds majority of those present and voting to secure passage.

Mia McCarthy and Amelia Davidson contributed to this report.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Trump tells Republicans to vote or ‘go to hell’

Published

11 hours ago

September 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

He’s promising to pay you $5,000. He’s asking you to swear an oath. He’s telling you you’ll “go to hell” if you don’t vote November 3.

President Donald Trump spent the last two days in Dallas trying every which way to convince his GOP base to turn out for the midterms and re-elect a Republican Congress.

We’ll know in 53 days if it worked.

Republicans who attended the party’s midterm convention said they hope it drives Americans to the polls this November. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer said in an interview he’s confident the GOP holds the House majority but acknowledged it’ll come down to Republican voter turnout.

“Do we have some headwinds? Absolutely. Is this the greatest environment we’ve ever run in? No,” Emmer said. “If our people show up, we’ll do just fine. If they sit back at home, we’re going to have some bumps that we got to deal with.”

Trump began the convention by surprising even senior Republicans with a pledge to distribute $5,000 checks to Americans if they re-elect a GOP House and Senate majority. Republicans are now left grappling with the practicality of the proposal and whether to make promises to voters on the campaign trail.

Then the president ended evening No. 2 leading the crowd in swearing an oath that they would bring their family and friends to the polls to vote for Republicans in November.

“You know what happens if you don’t vote? You go to hell,” Trump told Dallas’ American Airlines Center. “Go out and vote, go out and vote!”

Republicans’ messaging heavily focused on painting Democrats as a socialist party the country can not afford to elect into power. It was reminiscent of Democrats’ message going into the 2024 election warning Americans they couldn’t afford to elect Trump again, rather than leaning into specific policy agendas.

Obviously, that didn’t prove to be a winning strategy — and Republicans are hoping they don’t make the same mistake.

“That’s a good question,” Rep. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania said at the convention when asked if he’s worried the party is too focused on its opponents. But he was confident GOP policies on taxes, regulations and education that were enacted in the past two-years are drastically different from what Democrats are proposing.

“We’ll see, but I do think you got to do all the above,” Rep. Jim Jordan responded to the same question. “We did what we said we would do.”

What else we’re watching:

— GOP LEADERS CAVE TO DATA CENTER VOTE: House GOP leaders will put legislation on the floor next week marking Congress’ most significant step yet to regulate data center infrastructure that’s driving bipartisan outrage nationwide. Leaders had been weighing whether or not to move forward with the measure — known as the Ratepayer Protection Act — on the floor, with Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s office claiming late last month that some of his members had problems with the proposal that still needed to be worked out. That Scalise and others have now caved is a sign of the political pressure the party is feeling on the matter as Election Day draws near.

— RAND PAUL’S PRICEY FLIGHT — One of the Senate’s biggest fiscal hawks has spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on private jets. Six staffers for Sen. Rand Paul traveled by private jet as part of a bipartisan congressional investigation over several months in 2024 into the attempted assassination of then-presidential candidate Trump — costing taxpayers nearly $18,000, according to Senate expenditure records reviewed by Blue Light News. The expense is not illegal or against Senate rules, but it fits a pattern Paul has shown over the years of spending lavishly on travel while simultaneously crusading against out-of-control federal spending.

Meredith Lee Hill, Jason Beeferman, Kelsey Brugger and Chris Marquette contributed to this report.