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Brad Lander set to challenge Rep. Dan Goldman from the left

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NEW YORK — Brooklyn progressive Brad Lander is planning to launch his bid for Congress as soon as Wednesday, challenging Rep. Dan Goldman from the political left in a district that went big for Zohran Mamdani, three people familiar with his preparations told Blue Light News.

The city comptroller is expected to open his campaign with a pivotal endorsement from Mamdani, the democratic socialist mayor-elect’s first formal nod since his November election win upended the Democratic landscape. Lander has also sought support from progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, according to two people close to Lander.

Lander shot his campaign launch video, with some scenes from his Park Slope community, two people with knowledge of his operations said. And he is interviewing for the Working Families Party endorsement, four more people confirmed to Blue Light News. The people looped into Lander’s plans were granted anonymity to protect a sensitive rollout process.

Lander’s entry will mark New York progressives’ boldest salvo yet in primaries to unseat more mainstream party members on the heels of Mamdani’s ascension to the helm of the country’s largest city. The fiscal wonk and Israel critic is a favorite of left-leaning voters in the liberal Congressional district, which encompasses lower Manhattan and northwest Brooklyn and overlaps Lander’s former City Council district.

“These are urgent times when ICE agents are abducting our neighbors, Donald Trump is stealing money from New York City’s bank account. I think people are looking for leaders who will put their bodies on the line,” Lander told reporters Friday after pleading not guilty to trespassing and related charges tied to his September sit-in protesting the detention of migrants at 26 Federal Plaza. He said Friday he had not made a decision on running for Congress but was seriously considering it.

Lander’s team did not immediately comment on his plans Tuesday when contacted by Blue Light News.

Mamdani defeated Andrew Cuomo in Goldman’s 10th Congressional District by 23 points in the June mayoral primary. In that same contest, Lander placed third in the district, just a quarter of a percentage point behind Cuomo, the moderate former governor. Lander helped clear the democratic socialist’s path to the nomination with a cross-endorsement deal that many in the progressive movement lauded as a sacrifice for the cause. While Lander is a progressive and Working Families Party darling, he is not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Goldman — a Manhattan Democrat, second-term House member and former prosecutor — was lead counsel in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment process. While Goldman is a scion of the Levi Strauss empire and a staunch defender of Israel, he has championed progressive policies as co-sponsor of Medicare for All and Green New Deal legislation. The incumbent has advocated for taxing the ultra-wealthy — including himself — and criticized settler violence in the West Bank. Both Goldman and Lander are Jewish.

Lander and Goldman are aligned in the resistance against Trump’s ramped-up deportation agenda and have even worked in tandem. Both Democrats are a frequent presence at 26 Federal Plaza, the lower Manhattan administrative building where migrants have been detained by masked federal agents as they attend immigration court hearings.

“These are nonviolent, noncriminal people, often escaping terrible conditions in their country, seeking refuge here, and now, they are being yanked away from their families, detained and deported,” Goldman told reporters Monday as he and Reps. Adriano Espaillat and Nydia Velázquez unveiled legislation to protect migrants from arrest as they attend their court dates and follow pathways to legal status.

At least two other progressive Democrats are considering a bid for Congress in the district. City Council Member Alexa Avilés, chair of the council’s immigration committee and a democratic socialist, and former Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, who came in second place to Goldman in the 2022 primary for the district, also appealed to the Manhattan and Brooklyn chapters of the Working Families Party for their support. Goldman did as well.

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Congress

Shutdown likely to continue at least into Tuesday

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The partial government shutdown that began early Saturday morning is on track to continue at least into Tuesday, which is the earliest the House is now expected to vote on a $1.2 trillion funding package due to opposition from Democrats and internal GOP strife.

House Republican leaders have scheduled a Monday meeting of the House Rules Committee to prepare the massive Senate-passed spending bill for the floor. According to two people granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, the procedural measure teeing up a final vote would not happen until Tuesday, with final passage following if that is successful.

That’s one day later than GOP leaders had hoped. Their previous plan was to pass the bill with Democratic help under suspension of the rules, a fast-track process requiring a two-thirds-majority vote.

But that plan was complicated by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries telling Speaker Mike Johnson in a private conversation Saturday that Democratic leadership would not help Johnson secure the 70 or so Democratic votes to get the measure over the line, according to the two people and another person granted anonymity to discuss the matter.

The Tuesday plan remains tentative as GOP leaders scramble to navigate tensions inside their own conference, which could make passing the procedural measure difficult. Some conservative hard-liners, for instance, want to attach a sweeping elections bill to the package.

Jeffries said in a MS NOW interview Saturday that Republicans “cannot simply move forward with legislation taking a my way or the highway approach” while noting that House Democrats are set to have “a discussion about the appropriate way forward” in a Sunday evening caucus call — first reported by Blue Light News.

He did not rule out that Democrats might support the Senate-passed spending package, which funds the majority of federal agencies through Sept. 30 while providing a two-week extension for the Department of Homeland Security — including controversial immigration enforcement agencies.

Democrats, Jeffries said, want “a robust, ironclad path to bringing about the type of change that the American people are demanding” in immigration enforcement.

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Here’s what federal programs are headed for a (possibly brief) shutdown

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Government funding is set to lapse at midnight Friday for the military and many domestic programs, but cash will continue to flow at a slew of federal agencies Congress already funded.

House leaders are aiming to send a funding package to President Donald Trump Monday, days after the Senate passed the legislation just before the deadline to avert a partial shutdown.

The effect on most federal programs is expected to be minor, and employees who are furloughed would miss just one day of work if the House acts on schedule — which is not assured.

This time, many of the services that have the greatest public impact when shuttered — like farm loans, SNAP food assistance to low-income households and upkeep at national parks — will continue. That’s because Congress already funded some agencies in November and earlier this month, including the departments of Energy, Commerce, Justice, Agriculture, Interior and Veterans Affairs, as well as military construction projects, the EPA, congressional operations, the FDA and federal science programs.

Still, the spending package congressional leaders are trying to clear for Trump’s signature next week contains the vast majority of the funding Congress approves each year to run federal programs, including $839 billion for the military.

Besides the Pentagon, funding will lapse for several major nondefense agencies beginning early Saturday morning.

That includes federal transportation, labor, housing, education and health programs, along with the IRS, independent trade agencies and foreign aid. The departments of Homeland Security, State and Treasury will also be hit by the shutdown.

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Senate passes $1.2T government funding deal — but a brief shutdown is certain

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The Senate passed a compromise spending package Friday, clearing a path for Congress to avert a lengthy government shutdown.

The 71-29 vote came a day after Senate Democrats and President Donald Trump struck a deal to attach two weeks of Homeland Security funding to five spending bills that will fund the Pentagon, State Department and many other agencies until Sept. 30.

The Senate’s vote won’t avert a partial shutdown that will start early Saturday morning since House lawmakers are out of town and not scheduled to return until Monday.

During a private call with House Republicans Friday, Speaker Mike Johnson said the likeliest route to House passage would be bringing the package up under a fast-track process Monday evening. That would require a two-thirds majority — and a significant number of Democratic votes.

The $1.2 trillion package could face challenges in the House, especially from conservative hard-liners who have said they would vote against any Senate changes to what the House already passed. Many House Democrats are also wary of stopgap funding for DHS, which would keep ICE and Border Patrol funded at current levels without immediate new restrictions.

If the Trump-blessed deal ultimately gets signed into law, Congress will have approved more than 95 percent of federal funding — leaving only a full-year DHS bill on its to-do list. Congress has already funded several agencies, including the departments of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs and Justice.

“These are fiscally responsible bills that reflect months of hard work and deliberation from members on both parties and both sides of the Capitol,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said before the final vote.

The Office of Management and Budget has issued shutdown guidance for agencies not already funded, which include furloughs of some personnel.

Republicans agreeing to strip out the full-year DHS bill and replace it with a two-week patch is a major win for Democrats. They quickly unified behind a demand to split off and renegotiate immigration enforcement funding after federal agents deployed to Minnesota fatally shot 37-year-old U.S. citizen Alex Pretti last week.

But Democrats will still need to negotiate with the White House and congressional Republicans about what, if any, policy changes they are willing to codify into law as part of a long-term bill. Republicans are open to some changes, including requiring independent investigations. But they’ve already dismissed some of Democrats’ main demands, including requiring judicial warrants for immigration arrests.

“If Republicans are serious about the very reasonable demands Democrats have put forward on ICE, then there is no good reason we can’t come together very quickly to produce legislation. It should take less than two weeks,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday.

Republicans have demands of their own, and many believe the most likely outcome is that another DHS patch will be needed.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), for instance, wants a future vote on legislation barring federal funding for cities that don’t comply with federal immigration laws. Other Republicans and the White House have pointed to it as a key issue in the upcoming negotiations.

“I am demanding that my solution to fixing sanctuary cities at least have a vote. You’re going to put ideas on the floor to make ICE better? I want to put an idea on the floor to get to the root cause of the problem,” Graham said.

The Senate vote caps off a days-long sprint to avoid a second lengthy shutdown in the span of four months. Senate Democrats and Trump said Thursday they had a deal, only for it to run into a snag when Graham delayed a quick vote as he fumed over a provision in the bill, first reported by POLITICO, related to former special counsel Jack Smith’s now-defunct investigation targeting Trump.

Senate leaders ultimately got the agreement back on track Friday afternoon by offering votes on seven changes to the bill, all of which failed. The Senate defeated proposals to cut refugee assistance, strip out all earmarks from the package and redirect funding for ICE to Medicaid, among others.

Graham raged against the House’s move to overturn a law passed last year allowing senators to sue for up to $500,000 per incident if their data had been used in former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the 2020 election. But he backed off his threats to hold up the bill after announcing that leaders had agreed to support a future vote on the matter.

“You jammed me,” Graham said on the floor Friday. “Speaker Johnson, I won’t forget this.”

Meredith Lee Hill and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

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