Congress
Capitol agenda: GOP pushes back on Trump
Donald Trump’s grip on congressional Republicans is slipping.
A series of rebukes on Blue Light News on Thursday highlighted how rank-and-file Republicans are starting to move with less regard for the president heading into the midterms.
Here’s what comes next on three fronts:
— Bringing back ACA credits: Seventeen House Republicans broke ranks to support a clean three-year restoration of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that expired last month. The bigger-than-anticipated revolt showed how politically dangerous skyrocketing insurance premiums could be.
The bill is expected to die in the Senate, as Majority Leader John Thune has no plans to bring it up for a vote.
But the Republican proponents hope the strong bipartisan support pushes the Senate to produce its own ACA solution. Senators are considering a plan that would reestablish the credits for two years with reforms. Text could come as soon as Tuesday, per Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), as lawmakers race to get a deal over the finish line before open enrollment ends Jan. 15 in most states.
— Limiting Trump’s war powers: The Senate gave one of its strongest admonishments of the president Thursday when five Republicans helped advance a measure to constrain Trump’s military action abroad. An outraged president took to social media to say they “should never be elected to office again.”
The measure now heads to a final Senate vote next week. But it would still need to pass the House, which could prove more challenging. If Thursday’s failed veto override votes were any indication, House Republicans are less willing to break with the administration than their Senate counterparts.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) told Blue Light News he was “inclined” to support the war powers resolution after this week’s briefings on the Venezuela operation, but that Trump’s Thursday attack was a tipping point.
“Reading the ugly response to those senators sort of convinced me to vote yes,” he said.
The House may soon vote on its own war powers measure from Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.).
— Installing the Jan. 6 plaque: The Senate voted Thursday to unanimously approve a measure, led by Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), to install a plaque in the Capitol honoring the officers who protected it on Jan. 6, 2021.
The stark moment of bipartisanship was a significant rebuke of Speaker Mike Johnson and the Trump DOJ, which argues the plaque — which has been made but not installed — does not comply with a 2022 law mandating its display because it lists the departments that responded, not individual officers.
The resolution does not need House approval, but it does put pressure on Johnson. It’s unclear when the Senate will install the plaque, which will remain in the chamber until a permanent location is identified on the west front of the Capitol.
What else we’re watching:
— Thune’s border trip: Thune is leading a trip to the border in Texas on Friday with several GOP senators and Senate hopefuls to sell the “big, beautiful bill” Republicans passed last summer.
— Funding progress: Appropriators hope to release bill text Sunday night of the next spending package they want to pass before the month-end funding cliff. It’s expected to include the State-Foreign Operations, Financial Services and Homeland Security bills, though the DHS portion is in flux after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis.
Meredith Lee Hill, Jordain Carney, Nicholas Wu, Lisa Kashinsky, Simon J. Levien, Hailey Fuchs and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his leadership team announced they are eyeing punishment for two House Democrats who bucked their party Tuesday.
Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Jared Golden of Maine broke with leadership to advance a key procedural vote that revived Republicans’ legislative agenda. The incredibly rare crossing of party lines incensed many House Democrats and top leaders who were then forced to vote on a slate of GOP priorities.
“The decision by two of our colleagues to blindside the entire House Democratic Caucus and join with the Republican majority to pass a procedural rule on the brink of failing represents a significant breach of trust,” Jeffries said in a statement with Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Pete Aguilar of California. “It is an action that necessitates a serious response, and we have asked the Committee on Caucus Rules to take this up in short order.”
Spokespeople for Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Golden told reporters Tuesday he backed the measure because it provided for passage of a bill he cosponsored benefiting lobstermen in his home state while delaying the implementation of fishing regulations meant to protect the North Atlantic right whale population.
House leadership has a number of disciplinary levers at their disposal, including stripping members of committees. When Blue Light News asked Jeffries Tuesday evening if he was considering consequences for the two rogue members, he said, “We haven’t ruled anything in, and we haven’t ruled anything out.”
Eight House Democrats defected Tuesday over a measure condemning socialism and calling for an election security crackdown — the latest example of the ongoing intraparty tensions around the rise of far-left progressives.
The Democrats voted with every House Republican on the resolution their leaders opposed on grounds it endorsed enactment of the SAVE America Act, President Donald Trump’s biggest legislative priority that would implement onerous voter identification laws.
Ahead of the vote, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York issued a statement calling the resolution a “MAGA effort to rig the midterm elections.”
The message didn’t resonate with the following Democratic Reps., many of whom consider themselves moderates and are fighting tough reelection campaigns:
Don Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, alongside Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar of Texas and Kathy Castor and Darren Soto of Florida.
Reps. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania voted “present.”
“I don’t agree with socialism and I don’t have a major problem with voter ID,” Gonzalez told reporters after the vote.
“Socialism. I don’t know. I’m from the 80s. Socialism is not a good word for us, right?” he added. “And it just never worked. And I think that most Americans don’t agree with some of those proposals.”
Other centrist Democrats opposed the measure, including Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, who railed against the provision expressing support for the SAVE America Act.
Joined by fellow moderate Democratic Reps. Hillary Scholten of Michigan, Jared Moskowitz of Florida and Tom Suozzi of New York, Gottheimer sought consideration of an amendment that would have stripped out the elections bill provision — suggesting they would have been willing to condemn socialism without it.
“If you really look at it, it’s just the SAVE Act with a wrapper on it,” Gottheimer told reporters Monday. “They’re just running the SAVE Act again, which we’ve already — that’s asked and answered. We’ve been through this play. They’re not actually interested in getting people on the record on whether socialists are part of the Democratic Party.”
The amendment was not approved to receive a vote on the House floor.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this report misspelled a Democratic representative’s name.
The House moved Tuesday to censure Rep. Chuck Edwards for sexually harassing young female staffers in his office.
The 413-2 vote was an overwhelming rebuke to the North Carolina Republican, who chose last month to forgo reelection following the release of a damning House Ethics Committee report detailing his pattern of misconduct.
It also comes as Congress is grappling with how to protect aides from members’ bad behavior amid a rash of harassment and assault allegations against lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
In Edwards’ case, the Ethics Committee found the lawmaker participated in “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards two young female staffers” and made comments on the appearance of his aides, including on one staffer’s weight.
According to the report, Edwards gave the female aides purses, guns, shoes and flowers. Edwards skipped House votes one night to decorate a Christmas tree with a staffer and went drinking and gambling with her. The lawmaker recited a poem at her departure celebration and cried during it, making the staff uncomfortable, the committee said.
“Neither individual felt free to reject Rep. Edwards’ attention without fear of professional consequences,” said Rep. Mark Desaulnier of California, the top Democrat on the Ethics panel, during floor debate on the censure measure.
Edwards has denied wrongdoing, appealing to his colleagues last week in a lengthy letter to vote against the censure resolution. He argued “an affectionate friendship is not a sexual proposition. A gift is not sexual misconduct. A compliment is not sexual misconduct. Poetry is not sexual misconduct.”
He offered a similar defense in a floor speech Tuesday before the censure vote.
“I am imperfect,” Edwards said. “I have made mistakes, but I do not believe I committed sexual harassment and the factual findings of this investigation do not justify branding me as though I did.”
But Edwards did apologize to the staffers described in the report.
“I want to say something directly and publicly to the two women who have been at the center of all of this: I am sorry. I’m sorry that my actions, my judgement or the way that I expressed a friendship ever put either of you in an uncomfortable position,” Edwards said.
For many in the House Republican Conference, however, the report told them all they needed to know to inform their vote. Rep. Ben Cline of Virginia, for instance, said in advance of consideration of the censure resolution that he planned to support the measure because he “read the ethics report.”
Only Edwards and Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) ultimately voted “no.”
Edwards’ letter seeking sympathy from fellow lawmakers also did not have the desired effect.
“Clearly the man … did not understand the gravity of his actions, showed no remorse, and really exemplified why the work that we’re doing on sexual misconduct reform is so critical,” said Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) in an interview Tuesday.
She and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.) are working on bipartisan legislation to overhaul the congressional ethics process — including instituting new rules for how members are allowed to interact with congressional aides and establishing a more consistent rubric for how members should be punished for specific offenses.
“The training has to be improved,” Cammack said. “I think Chuck Edwards proves that.”
Censure is the most severe punishment the Ethics Committee can recommend short of expulsion, and amounts to a public shaming on the House floor with no further threat of disciplinary action.
It used to be a rare occurrence in the House, with a long gap between the early 1980s — when late-Reps. Daniel Crane and Gerry Studds were censured for sexual misconduct with a House page — and 2010, when late-Rep. Charlie Rangel was censured for inaccurate financial reports and federal tax returns, among other actions.
Censure resolutions have, more recently, become more frequent fixtures of House activity, though not typically as a result of House Ethics Committee investigations.
In 2021, Democrats sought to censure Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) for posting a manipulated social media video of him appearing to kill a likeness of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and attack then-President Joe Biden. The vote was 223-207 with two Republicans supporting the measure — former Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.
A series of Republican-led censure measures were then brought in 2023 against three Democrats. Then-Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who is now a member of the Senate, was censured for “misleading the American public.” Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan was censured for allegations that she “promot[ed] false narratives regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel” — an issue that prompted 22 Democrats to join GOP lawmakers in support.
Former Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York was subject to censure for pulling the fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building during a vote his party wanted to delay. Bowman pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor offense and paid a fine.
The most recent censure vote was in 2025, when Republicans sought to punish Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) for protesting in the middle of President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress.
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