Congress
Capitol agenda: Hard-liners threaten to freeze floor — again
The House has been back in town for a few hours, but GOP leaders may already be forced to send members home early.
A handful of House Republicans are threatening to shut down floor business Tuesday over frustrations about legislation that would fund the government past the midterms.
If GOP leaders can’t adopt a rule to open up floor debate, there’s little incentive to stay in town, especially so close to elections when members are eager to get back to their districts to campaign.
Speaker Mike Johnson can only lose a handful of members with full attendance. A small group of hard-liners oppose a provision in the Senate-passed continuing resolution punting a hemp product ban deadline. Others are angry about Johnson’s decision to put the stopgap bill on a fast-tracked method requiring two-thirds majority to pass — as Democrats are likely to support it.
To be clear: that suspension vote track also means the stopgap is poised to pass regardless of any subsequent GOP revolt that would gum up further floor business.
House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris said he plans to vote against the rule Tuesday over the hemp language.
And Rep. Chip Roy sent a letter to Appropriations Chair Tom Cole and Budget Chair Jodey Arrington Monday night urging opposition to the CR. Roy, who voted against advancing the procedural step in a Rules panel meeting yesterday, said the spending bill does not prevent taxpayer funds from going to abortion services.
“The CR now before Congress does not renew that protection, allowing federal taxpayer dollars to once again flow to Planned Parenthood,” Roy wrote in the letter, shared exclusively with Blue Light News, adding members “should be prepared to account for those votes accordingly.”
Other hardliners wouldn’t say how they plan to vote on Monday night. Rep. Keith Self told Blue Light News, “We’ll see if the rule comes up.”
But if the House does cut their September work period short — with the possibility of not returning until mid-November — that leaves little time this year for any other legislation, including the Senate-passed Russian sanctions bill, which is headed nowhere fast in the House.
GOP leaders omitted it from a list of bills to be voted on this week as the thin House Republican majority is split over intervening in Russia’s war with Ukraine. Meanwhile, many Democrats are wary of handing Trump any new tariff powers.
Asked whether the bill might pass through her committee on the way to the House floor, Rules Chair Virginia Foxx said, “I have no idea. Nobody’s talking about it.”
What else we’re watching:
— REPUBLICANS POISED TO CENSURE EDWARDS: The House will vote Tuesday on censuring Rep. Chuck Edwards — and GOP leaders aren’t coming to his rescue. A critical mass of GOP members seem to be lining up behind the effort after an Ethics Committee report outlined a pattern of sexual harassment by Edwards toward two of his young female staffers. Edwards told Mia the probe was “an abysmal handled process.” House GOP leaders don’t appear to be swaying Republicans to vote against the measure.
— GOP TRIES TO THREAD NEEDLE ON DATA CENTER SUPPORT: Republicans found themselves walking a fine line on data centers Monday — and Democrats are eager to capitalize on the issue igniting voters across the country. House Republicans returning from August recess acknowledged growing concerns from constituents about data centers. But they also tried to support President Donald Trump, who Monday declared communities that reject centers will end up “backwards and poor” while China makes advances in the technology. Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries blasted Republicans for being “pro-data center without any restraints,” making his strongest rebuke yet of the tech industry’s massive infrastructure buildout.
Riley Rogerson, Chris Marquette and Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins warned Monday that President Donald Trump would be defying Congress if he moves forward with empowering top political appointees to decide who gets grant funding for health research.
“Any attempt to politicize grantmaking … is contrary to congressional intent,” the Maine Republican said in a statement.
Trump wants to issue an executive order to seat White House budget director Russ Vought and National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya on a board that would decide which grants the NIH should fund, according to two administration officials granted anonymity to describe a private meeting in the Oval Office last Friday.
Following reports of that meeting, Collins noted Monday that the stopgap funding patch Congress cleared this summer bars the White House from finalizing a separate proposed rule to put political appointees in charge of approving federal grants, or “any substantially similar” plan.
The Office of Management and Budget “should not be involved in agency decisions on the awards of grants,” Collins said, adding that “imposing a political review … undermines the long-standing principle that the government funds awards based on scientific need and merit, rather than political ideology.”
Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the House’s top Democratic appropriator, called the White House’s latest idea an attempt to “take control over federal funding, so they can use it to punish their perceived enemies and reward their friends.”
Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the Senate’s top Democratic appropriator, warned that the move would mean “a single political appointee could kill a cancer study or an Alzheimer’s trial with no scientific reason at all.”
A spokesperson for House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole did not return a request for comment regarding the Oklahoma Republican’s position.
Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) on Monday expressed frustration over the ongoing war in Iran and its impact on Iowans’ pocketbooks, publicly distancing herself from President Donald Trump ahead of November’s rapidly approaching midterm elections.
“Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran,” Hinson said in a post to social media on Monday. “We need to use every option at our disposal to provide some relief from high prices.”
It’s the second time Hinson, the GOP candidate in Iowa’s critical Senate race and a loyal ally of Trump’s, has expressed concerns over the war. In June, Blue Light News obtained audio of Hinson warning the war could become a “political liability” if it continued much longer. Hinson did not mention Trump by name in her Monday statement.
Hinson called for suspending the gas tax, pausing diesel exports and creating a diesel relief program to help farmers and truckers “being crushed by the high costs,” among several other possible solutions.
“These actions to lower costs are needed ASAP, and the war needs to be brought to a successful and immediate end,” she added.
Gas and diesel prices have soared over the duration of the war with Iran, which began in February. Regular gas was just over $4.45 per gallon on Monday, according to AAA, and diesel prices hit a record high of $6.50 per gallon.
Trump and members of his administration have dismissed concerns over the costs.
“You have a little higher. It’s a very inexpensive price to pay for what we’ve done,” Trump said during a campaign stop in North Carolina last week. “Remember that. It’s a little more. Frankly, even if it was a lot more.”
Hinston on Monday said she will “work with anyone who is ready to tackle this challenge immediately.”
Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson, a senior Appropriations Committee Republican, questioned whether federal funds should be spent on construction of President Donald Trump’s triumphal arch, which the president claimed over the weekend could be used for military purposes.
“There’s a lot of things that we need the military funding for — in fact, we’re short on military funding right now,” Simpson told reporters at the Capitol Monday.
“If it was my choice, I wouldn’t put any of that money into the arch,” Simpson added, when pressed on whether Pentagon funding should be used at all.
Simpson spoke a day after Trump claimed in a Truth Social post that the arch — which he wants to build less than a mile from the Pentagon, just across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial — would be used to store and deploy drones and snipers.
Given that rationale, Simpson said the arch is “something that needs to be debated” and that other Defense Department needs should take priority.
“I hope if they decide to do it, that they would come to Congress and ask for an appropriation for it if they’re going to use appropriated dollars to do it,” Simpson said.
Simpson also questioned Trump’s ban of three news outlets over the weekend, including Blue Light News, as well a recent comments from House Rules Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) suggesting members of the media should be barred from the the Speakers Lobby, a space just off the House floor. He called any such media ban “wrong.”
“Just because you don’t like what the press is reporting — or the fact that they wouldn’t call it the Gulf of America or something else like that — that’s not the reason to ban the press,” he said. “You should never ban the press. The press is what keeps us honest. So I don’t like what they’re doing.”
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