Congress

Capitol agenda: House floor freezes over

Published

3 months ago

July 1, 2026

Last July 4 recess, House Republicans were triumphantly celebrating the massive victory of clearing the party’s tax and spending bill.

Fast forward a year and Speaker Mike Johnson can’t even get enough votes to open his chamber’s floor for debate.

“Who needs Democrats when you have your own party derailing the Trump agenda,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis said Tuesday.

A rebellion by a small band of conservatives now jeopardizes members’ top priorities as the legislative calendar ahead of the midterms rapidly shrinks. Progress on the annual Pentagon policy bill, fiscal 2027 government funding bills, Iran war funding measure, third party-line reconciliation bill and more is frozen in the party’s paralysis.

Frustration at the roughly dozen Republicans who refused to support a procedural vote to unlock floor business exploded Tuesday afternoon as members watched their legislation become collateral damage. The hard-liners want Johnson to do more to force the Senate to pass an election security bill.

“We’ve got knuckleheads taking down the rules, that’s frustrating,” Rep. John Rutherford said in an interview. “They think they’re putting some kind of pressure on the Senate, but you don’t put pressure on the Senate by shutting down the House floor.”

Anger from the hard-liners had been simmering for days even as Johnson tried to appease the group by effectively attaching the SAVE America Act to the must-pass defense policy bill.

Several hard-liners who voted against the procedural rule, like Reps. Chip Roy and Andy Harris, also cited what they said was a broken promise from Johnson to hold a vote on an immigration bill before the July 4 recess, among other concerns.

Now lawmakers will return July 13 to a chaotic mess of a to-do list.

They’ll need to use valuable floor time to pass the defense policy bill, including votes on more than 300 amendments. A stack of fiscal 2027 spending bills GOP appropriators wanted to pass before recess awaits them, as does an $88 billion emergency funding request from Trump for the Iran war and farm aid.

And hanging from a thread: the GOP’s hope to clear another party-line bill to help members campaign before the midterms.

A meeting initially set for today between House Budget Republicans and GOP leaders to discuss the next steps on a third reconciliation bill was canceled in light of the schedule change.

Another casualty of the frozen floor: Republicans left town unable to vote on a ceremonial resolution commemorating the one-year anniversary of the tax-cut legislation that remains the GOP’s major legislative victory in Trump’s second term.

To pull off that final vote, Johnson had to muscle near complete unity from his members and plow through months of lawmaker angst and discord to meet Trump’s self-imposed deadline of Independence Day.

Johnson tried to project optimism amid his conference’s meltdown Tuesday.

“We don’t have time to waste because we’re coming up on an election and the end of Congress,” Johnson told reporters. “It’s frustrating, but we’ll get everybody together and then do it again. This is life in a small majority.”

With just eight legislative days on the calendar between now and Congress’ August recess, and 16 days more between then and the November elections, Johnson’s optimism faces the brutal reality of a short timeline.

What else we’re watching:

— BENNET, DEGETTE LOSE PRIMARIES: Stunning losses for two of Colorado’s most prominent Democrats Tuesday were the latest sign of boiling anti-establishment rage among the electorate. Sen. Michael Bennet will return to the Senate to finish out the last two years of his term after losing the Democratic primary for Colorado governor. And in the 1st District, Democratic socialist Melat Kiros defeated 15-term Rep. Diana DeGette.

— NYC SOCIALIST SWEEP COMPLICATES REDISTRICTING PLAN: It’s no secret Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is spearheading a mid-decade redistricting drive to win control of the House. But the results of last week’s primaries in New York City add a new wrinkle to that project: How will he handle foes from within his own party?

William Steakin and Joe Anuta contributed to this report.

Congress

Senators weigh staying in town to vote on data center bill

Published

5 hours ago

September 23, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans are discussing whether to stay in town next week to vote on a data center bill being championed by one of their most vulnerable incumbents, according to two GOP senators granted anonymity to disclose private talks.

Republicans haven’t made a decision — and lawmakers said they were given no concrete guidance on their schedule during a closed-door lunch with party leaders Wednesday. But the fact that some are weighing whether to remain in session so close to the midterms against sending members home early to campaign signals a growing anxiety over affordability-related issues ahead of Election Day.

Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio), who is fending off a competitive challenge from former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, tried last week to clear a House-passed bill aimed at getting tech companies to cover the energy costs associated with data centers — an issue that has overtaken his Senate race.

But Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, the top Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, blocked Husted’s effort to pass the bill quickly via a unanimous consent agreement, arguing the measure doesn’t go far enough to protect consumers.

That means GOP leaders would need to jump through days of procedural hoops in order to get even an initial vote on the bill.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also indicated Wednesday that he would urge his colleagues not to support the legislation at this time, instead touting another Democratic bill that would put more enforcement mechanisms in place.

“Senator Husted’s bill is a fraud. It’s voluntary, no company has to do it,” he told reporters during his weekly news conference. “The bill we have is mandatory. It is much stronger and it is what is needed.”

The House version of Husted’s bill passed in the House with overwhelming bipartisan support earlier this month.

Senate Republicans are also still waiting to see if a long-sought deal to overhaul the energy permitting process comes together. If an agreement can be reached soon, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has indicated that the chamber would stay in town next week to process that bill, giving lawmakers more time to take up the Ratepayer Protection Act as well.

Calen Razor contributed to this report.

Congress

Mike Collins memo identifies 1 in 10 Georgia voters who should be voting for him — but are ‘up for grabs’

Published

6 hours ago

September 23, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

One in 10 Georgia voters aren’t sold on Mike Collins for Senate — even though those same voters backed President Donald Trump in 2024, according to a new memo from Collins’ campaign.

The finding comes as public polling continues to show Collins trailing Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in the premier battleground state. A YouGov poll released Wednesday found Ossoff up by 10 percentage points over Collins.

The memo identifies the “up for grabs” voters as Republicans and conservative-leaning independents who also plan to vote for the state’s GOP gubernatorial candidate, Rick Jackson, and could decide the election.

“They should be voting for Mike Collins, and they are not yet, mainly because they do not have a firm opinion of him,” the memo reads. “Most of them cannot tell you anything about him, and a third have never seen an ad about him.”

Collins’ campaign has been working to convince GOP leaders and outside groups that he can narrow Ossoff’s polling advantage, as the party weighs how best to allocate its resources in the closing stretch of the election.

For now, top Republicans have appeared to deprioritize the Georgia Senate race as a top pickup opportunity — as other battleground states come more into view — but Senate Majority Leader John Thune is planning to attend a fundraiser for Collins alongside Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday to shore up support.

The campaign memo makes the case that Collins does not need to build a new GOP coalition to close the gap but instead focus on the existing Republican coalition in the state that it identifies as still up for grabs for him.

Two-thirds of those voters live in the Atlanta media market, according to the memo, followed by Macon and Augusta.

“Streaming is how a plurality get live television,” the memo reads. “They are seeing fewer political ads than everyone else, so they need to see these messages more often, and they need to keep seeing them all the way through November 3.”

The overriding issue for these voters, according to the memo, is the cost of living. “Nothing else is close,” it says. The memo argues that the campaign’s closing message should introduce Collins by emphasizing his Georgia roots and business background while attacking Ossoff over taxes and other elements of his record.

“Every Georgian needs to understand how Jon Ossoff failed them by making their lives less safe and less affordable while aligning himself with far-left socialists who proclaim that ‘America deserved 9/11,’” Collins spokesperson Meyer Siegfried said in a statement.

Congress

Sanders, Casar introduce ‘superintelligence’ ban

Published

9 hours ago

September 23, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Two top congressional progressives unveiled their bill Wednesday to ban artificial “superintelligence” and establish a Cabinet-level agency to regulate AI, fleshing out their plans for a crackdown on the industry.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) have advocated for heavy regulation of the rapidly evolving technology, particularly following a string of high-profile cyberattacks and doomsday warnings from industry insiders. Sanders and Casar teased the proposal earlier this month but only officially rolled out their “Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act” on Wednesday.

Casar said the bill would ban “recursive self-improvement,” meaning AI’s ability to build improved and more capable versions of itself. The bill also bars AI models from designing nuclear or biological weapons and would ban models that try to “escape human oversight or deceive humans,” Casar told reporters.

Sanders and Casar had previously outlined their plans to draft legislation banning “superintelligence” and to pause advanced AI development until a “Department of Artificial Intelligence” with a Senate-confirmed secretary is capable of monitoring model capabilities and identifying risks.

The legislation would set penalties for any entity that attempts to circumvent federal oversight, including the “corporate death penalty” for companies and up to 20 years in prison for individuals — on par with the punishment for illegally developing nuclear weapons.

The duo is bullish about both chambers swiftly taking up their legislation, even as Democratic leaders entertain much smaller-bore regulatory actions and some Republican leaders reject the need to advance AI safety legislation entirely. Casar said he believed the bill “will be considered the commonsense proposal in the coming weeks” as public pressure on Congress to enact AI guardrails mounts.

“In my view, we cannot simply sit by idly and wait for advanced AI to cause the next 9/11 or Chernobyl or a global pandemic or a financial crisis before we take action to protect the American people and, of course, the people of the world,” Sanders told reporters.