Congress
Capitol agenda: Lawmakers brace for a DHS shutdown
Congress just launched itself onto a nine-day runway to overcome deep partisan divides over the fate of President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda — and conditions are trending toward another lengthy shutdown for the Department of Homeland Security.
According to several senators, DHS funding talks were largely on hold while lawmakers waited for the House to clear the Senate-passed, five-bill spending package Tuesday and end the brief partial government shutdown. Now lawmakers have little time left before the Feb. 13 deadline to reach a bipartisan agreement on major changes to DHS policies and avoid a funding lapse that will also affect TSA, the Coast Guard, FEMA and other agencies — and Democrats are threatening to block any extension of the two-week stopgap measure.
— A stalemate over demands: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that Democrats plan to formally present Republicans a proposal soon for placing more guardrails around ICE and Customs and Border Protection. The wishlist could include tighter rules on the use of warrants, a ban on masks and mandates for body cameras and IDs on federal agents.
There’s broad GOP opposition to many of these ideas. Speaker Mike Johnson argued Tuesday that unmasking would be especially dangerous for the agents.
“I can tell you that we are never going to go along with adding an entirely new layer of judicial warrants,” Johnson added. “It is unimplementable.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune believes negotiations will need to be primarily between Democrats and the White House, though Republicans will play a part. He said Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland funding panel, will take the lead for the GOP.
Republicans want to crack down on so-called “sanctuary cities,” localities that don’t comply with federal immigration laws. Some are also mulling whether to try and attach bigger immigration provisions onto the DHS stopgap bill, like increasing penalties for immigrants who cross the border illegally.
But trying to crack down on “sanctuary cities” has long been a non-starter for Democrats. “We’re not going to make people unsafe, this is about making people safe,” said Washington Sen. Patty Murray, her chamber’s top Democratic appropriator.
— A slippery stopgap slope: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters Tuesday that “an additional [continuing resolution], from our standpoint, is off the table” despite warnings from Thune and other Republicans that another short-term punt may be necessary to buy more time for talks.
Some lawmakers are increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for reaching any DHS deal given Congress’ perennial struggle to agree on immigration policy.
“I’m a little skeptical of the entire project here of trying to lard up an appropriations bill that funds critical agencies with a whole bunch of statutory restrictions,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said.
Thune warned there’s another possibility: If negotiations drag on too long, lawmakers could eventually be forced to swallow a measure that keeps the status quo at DHS for the remainder of the fiscal year with no policy changes or new funding levels.
“My assumption would be that even if we don’t have an agreement that we would do a CR for some foreseeable amount of time” to continue discussions, Thune told Blue Light News, “or maybe at some point we have to resolve to a full-year CR.”
What else we’re watching:
— Tech hearing: House Judiciary will hold a hearing on Europe’s tech laws at 10 a.m. It’s the latest escalation in the transatlantic fight over regulations that Republicans claim disproportionately silence conservative speech online. European countries view the regulations as crucial guardrails for ensuring online safety and fair market competition, while American tech companies argue such measures target them unfairly.
Jordain Carney, Meredith Lee Hill, Mia McCarthy and Gabby Miller contributed to this report.
Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan announced Wednesday he will seek to lead House Republicans as they enter the minority for the first time in four years.
“As we look to the future, we must learn from these results,” he said in a letter to colleagues a day after voters delivered an enormous rebuke to GOP candidates. “When Americans get knocked down, they pick themselves up and get back to work. Now our Conference must do the same.”
With Republicans at risk of losing 40 seats or more, Jordan is seeking to lead a much diminished corps of lawmakers. He pitched himself in the letter as a “battle-tested” combatant who is well-equipped to tangle with an emboldened new Democratic majority.
“In these next two years, our job cannot be merely to spotlight how radical this new Democrat party is — offense, not defense, wins elections,” he wrote, promising to “prioritize making Americans’ neighborhoods safer, keeping more money in their pockets, and protecting enduring American values and freedoms.”
“To restore our majority, we must restore voters’ faith in our ability to deliver on these principles,” he added.
Many Republicans expected Jordan to run for the position if Republicans lost the House after spending months laying the groundwork for a third leadership bid. Most recently chair of the Judiciary Committee, the 62-year-old House veteran has long been a popular figure among the GOP’s conservative base and helped a variety of candidates across the party’s ideological divides in the final weeks leading up to the election.
Jordan is expected to be joined in the minority leader race by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who could make his own announcement later Wednesday after Speaker Mike Johnson told his staff he plans to step aside.
Jordan took aim at the current House GOP hierarchy in his letter to colleagues: “For too long, we have operated without a clear plan to survive the hour or the day in front of us. That will not cut it against an emboldened and energetic Democrat majority.”
“We need a Leadership team that is active and engaged, forward-thinking and straight-shooting,” he added.
A co-founder of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, Jordan has made inroads with more moderate colleagues in recent years. His previous bids at a top leadership position — for minority leader against Kevin McCarthy in 2018 and then later to replace McCarthy as speaker in 2023 — were unsuccessful.
When he ran for the speakership, a group of moderate House Republicans blocked Jordan in a public vote on the House floor. This time, Jordan will only need a majority of the Republican Conference to win as minority leader.
The race for House minority whip is shaping up to be a contest between the current House majority whip, Tom Emmer of Minnesota, and Republican Study Committee Chair August Pfluger of Texas.
Emmer, who already said he had planned to run for the job regardless of the outcome of the midterms, has officially started making calls, according to two people directly familiar with the outreach, granted anonymity to describe private conversations. Pfluger, meanwhile, formally announced his plan to run for whip Wednesday morning in a letter to colleagues.
“We started 2025 with a clear mandate, and although there were successes, I believe we left a lot on the table,” Pfluger said in the letter, obtained by Blue Light News. “Some circumstances may have been out of our control, but we also missed many opportunities.”
Pfluger was among those who had pushed previously for Republicans to crack down on alleged fraud in social safety net programs in party-line budget reconciliation bills. He said Wednesday that while House Republicans have “a lot to be proud of,” the time has come to “regroup, recharge and fully unify.”
It’s all unfolding after the GOP’s devastating loss on Tuesday night, which could have some members looking for a fresh leadership team. Already Speaker Mike Johnson has said he has no intention of running to be minority leader, clearing the path for Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio or the current House majority leader, Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
House GOP leadership elections will begin next week, with candidates having until this Friday at noon to make their bids official.
Democrats have taken back control of the Senate. But two marquee races remain too close to call — and may not be decided any time soon.
In Mississippi, with nearly all precincts reporting, Democratic challenger Scott Colom and incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith are in a dead heat, with each claiming 48.9% of the vote. According to the latest count, Colom leads Hyde by just 43 votes with more than 900,000 ballots cast.
The state will count all mail-in ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 and received within five days of the election. Provisional ballots, which are provided to people whose eligibility to vote is uncertain, are also allowed to be counted for up to five business days after Election Day.
Neither candidate has claimed victory, but both projected confidence in election night speeches. Hyde-Smith said she would “continue” as the state’s senator, while Colom said that “deep down” in his “soul” he believed he would win. If Colom pulls it off, he’ll be the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate in Mississippi in nearly four decades as well as the state’s first Black senator since Reconstruction.
Mississippi state law does not have a mechanism for automatic vote recounts, and it remains unclear whether, or how, a recount could be initiated.
Meanwhile in Alaska, Democrat Mary Peltola is leading Republican incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan by a razor-thin margin of several hundred votes with about three-quarters of ballots counted. But a final margin may be weeks away.
Alaska accepts absentee ballots up to 15 days after Election Day. The state uses ranked-choice voting if no candidate gets at least 50% in the first round of counting. As of Wednesday morning, Peltola was at 48.2% of ballots counted so far, while Sullivan was at 47.9%.
The state won’t even begin to tabulate voters’ preferences for two weeks, meaning we may not know who won in Alaska until closer to Thanksgiving.
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