Congress

Capitol agenda: Senate heads into a weekend grind

Published

6 months ago

March 20, 2026

Get ready for a rare working weekend in the Senate with no break in sight.

Majority Leader John Thune is keeping senators at the Capitol the next few days to continue debating an all-but-doomed elections bill and advance nominees. Senators may have to work through the following weekend as well if the Department of Homeland Security is still shut down, threatening their planned two-week recess.

“I’m not excited about it,” one GOP senator told Blue Light News.

In the meantime, the Senate is expected to vote again Friday on a DHS funding bill that will fail.

— ‘SAVE’ action Saturday: Senators will likely vote Saturday on an amendment to the SAVE America Act that would ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports — a demand from President Donald Trump that isn’t in the House-passed bill. The amendment will almost certainly fail to reach the necessary 60 votes, given Democrats are likely unified in their opposition. Keep an eye on which Republicans vote against the amendment.

The Senate could also consider Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s procedural gambit to force a vote that’s tangentially related to TSA funding. The effort would need 60 votes, meaning it will likely fail. Republicans could try to kill it before Saturday.

— Mullin vote Sunday: The Senate will then take its first vote on Sunday to move forward with Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s (R-Okla.) nomination to become DHS secretary, after he cleared a committee vote Thursday morning.

Mullin should be on a glidepath to confirmation. Republican senators believe Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) beef is personal and doesn’t reflect a larger issue among GOP senators. The question is how many Democrats will vote for their soon-to-be former colleague as the DHS funding impasse goes on. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the sole Democrat who helped advance him out of committee.

The Senate will also vote likely Sunday to confirm Colin McDonald to be assistant attorney general for national fraud enforcement.

— Recess at risk: Next week isn’t looking much better for the Senate schedule. Absent a DHS deal, Thune said Thursday the Senate won’t leave for its two-week recess.

“We’ll find out very quickly, I think, if the Dems want to make a deal,” Thune told Blue Light News Thursday night. “I think there’s deal space there. … We just got to find out how serious the Democrats are.”

A DHS funding agreement doesn’t appear likely any time soon. A group of bipartisan senators left a meeting with White House border czar Tom Homan Thursday afternoon with few signs of progress.

Thune said Republicans are waiting to see if rank-and-file Democrats can get “permission” to negotiate a DHS agreement, suggesting GOP senators see the path out of the shutdown through the same group that solved last year’s funding fight. But another person granted anonymity to discuss Thursday’s closed-door meeting said it wouldn’t enable Republicans to pick off one-or-two Democrats at a time.

“I’m glad the White House was here, but we are a long ways apart,” Senate Appropriations Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told reporters leaving the meeting.

Congress

Democrats keep pressure on Hakeem Jeffries to punish rogue members

Published

48 minutes ago

September 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Democrats aren’t letting rogue members off the hook for bucking their party. They hope Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries won’t either.

“Obviously, there’s got to be” punishment for the two Democrats who twice this month bucked their party to advance a slate of Republican priorities, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said in an interview.

“Otherwise, then,” he said, “it’s open season.”

Democrats are watching closely how — and if — Jeffries doles out consequences for Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington who have twice provided the decisive votes for GOP procedural measures this month. Jeffries and his leadership team condemned the two members when they first defected two weeks ago, slamming a “breach of trust” warranting a “serious response” but have yet to inflict any public consequences.

On Tuesday, they defied leadership a second time, infuriating House Democrats and resurrecting questions about how leadership plans to keep its caucus in line — especially if they have a slim majority next term.

“We have to all be united, and I think it’s pretty simple,” said one House Democrat who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “If there’s not [a punishment], I find it hard to see a path forward in the majority, which we’re all pushing for.”

Asked if leadership should punish the two aisle-crossers, Rep. Troy Carter pointed to his time as minority leader of the Louisiana state Senate: “When I had members that did not work within the confines of the philosophical views of our party, I took them off our caucus.”

“I don’t want to second-guess anybody’s timing, but I will tell you that these things cannot allow to fester,” he added. “We have to have a strict message: Either you’re with the team on those fundamental issues of governance or you aren’t.”

Multiple members, including Carter, said that removing Gluesenkamp Perez from the Appropriations Committee should be considered. (While members are just as angry at Golden, they acknowledge he’s beyond punishment given he is retiring at the end of this term.)

“I suspect that there are a number of appropriate consequences that [leaders] could implement,” Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) said in an interview. “And, ultimately, it’s their decision. I certainly don’t want that to be a caucus decision. That should be a leadership decision.”

One leader, Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, suggested she is open to removing Gluesenkamp Perez from Appropriations, telling reporters Wednesday morning that “team players get to sit on exclusive committees.”

After the first instance where the two Democrats defected on Sept. 1, Jeffries kicked the matter to a caucus rules panel, saying afterward he wanted to pursue action against the two members “sooner rather than later.” The panel continues to deliberate on what should happen if members vote with Republicans on procedural measures.

Jeffries said that week that he’d had a “productive” and “forward-looking” conversation with Gluesenkamp Perez, but he has said much less after Tuesday’s floor drama.

“I’ll have more to say about the issue when I have more to say about the issue,” he told Blue Light News shortly after the vote.

Congress

House passes Russia sanctions bill, handing Trump more leverage against Moscow

Published

3 hours ago

September 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House passed the sweeping Russia sanctions bill long championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham on Wednesday, sending the legislation to the White House for President Donald Trump’s signature after more than a year of congressional maneuvering.

The 262 to 159 vote ends a nearly two-year lull in Ukraine assistance from Congress, which had not passed any major Ukraine efforts since a 2024 emergency aid package. The bill faced a number of obstacles on the path to the Resolute Desk, including significant opposition from some House Democrats who argued that the bill would give the White House too much tariff power.

After weathering a number of storms to make it out of Capitol Hill, the legislation is all but guaranteed to get Trump’s signature.

The long-anticipated legislation issues mandatory sanctions on Russia’s leadership and energy sector — as well as new sanctions on collaborators in Moscow’s defense industry and its so-called shadow fleet. Advocates of the bill, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have argued it would give the White House necessary tools to squeeze Russia economically, curbing the flow of funds to Moscow’s war machine.

But, to many Democrats’ dismay, the legislation also includes a 100% tariff on top buyers of Russian energy. Opponents of the bill have cautioned that the tariff provision would hand another cudgel for Trump to use against not only U.S. foes but also global allies — an action the White House has repeatedly taken since Trump returned to office.

“We cannot grant more tariff power that we know he will abuse,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) said in comments on the House floor Wednesday.

Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, argued that the tariffs would worsen the economic pain already felt by everyday Americans and that without a security assistance package or more air defense, they would not do enough to concretely help Ukraine.

In comments on the House floor earlier Wednesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries outlined why he planned to withhold support for the measure.

“The manner in which this bill has been written doesn’t require the president of the United States to impose sanctions on Russia,” Jeffries said. “In fact, there are so many loopholes written into the bill, I believe, that it’s very unlikely that the sanctions relief contemplated in the legislation will ever see the light of day.”

That disagreement has caused a growing rift among Democrats in recent days. Fifty-eight House Democrats broke with Jeffries to vote yes on the measure.

In a letter addressed to House Democrats, Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) urged her colleagues to pass the legislation, warning that failing to do so would send a dangerous message to both Russian leader Vladimir Putin and other international foes.

“Congress’s failure to impose additional costs would send a dangerous signal,” Shaheen wrote. “The Kremlin is watching. Kyiv is watching. Our NATO allies are watching. So are Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang.”

Congress

Rand Paul kills Kennedy’s AI ‘kill switch’ bill

Published

4 hours ago

September 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Rand Paul blocked an attempt by fellow Republican Sen. John Kennedy to quickly pass legislation that would require companies to build a “kill switch” into their artificial intelligence model.

Kennedy, of Louisiana, went to the Senate floor Wednesday to try to pass his bill without holding a formal vote — a step that can be prevented by any one of his 99 colleagues. He argued that the measure was effectively a short-term step, with Congress unlikely to pass more sweeping AI legislation in the immediate future even amid fears that technological advancements could spiral out of human control.

“We are not going to get up off our ice-cold lazy butts and address this anytime soon,” Kennedy said about Congress’ inability to pass a more comprehensive bill. “But still we’ve got this risk out there that we know is real of one of these models becoming the Terminator.”

Paul, however, blocked Kennedy’s request to pass the bill through a unanimous consent agreement, saying from the Senate floor, “I think we should have as many facts as possible before we dictate rules for the whole economy.”

“I don’t oppose the spirit of this bill but I do ask that we make sure that we have all the information,” the Kentucky lawmaker added.

Paul tried to amend Kennedy’s bill to establish a group that could make recommendations on AI guardrail policies to the Senate Commerce Committee. Kennedy rejected that suggestion.

“My mama didn’t raise a fool,” he said, adding, “a committee is a way to kill this.”

Kennedy’s push for a vote comes after he told reporters Monday that he intended to roll out legislation and attempt to pass it this week, even while he acknowledged that he didn’t yet have any formal buy-in from his colleagues. He also appeared to know by earlier in the day Wednesday that he was running into a roadblock, saying in an interview that he expected Paul to offer a counterproposal.