Congress
Capitol agenda: Texas’ massive delegation is losing its sway
Thursday could determine whether the Lone Star State gets five more Republican-leaning seats next Congress. Yet the state’s Texas-sized influence is beginning to wane.
The Texas GOP delegation is losing its clout due to a combination of redistricting, retirements and bids for higher office.
The group is on track to lose the seniority and committee gavels it once wielded to influence key decisions in the House. With six retirements looming and another five new GOP-leaning seats in the proposed map — the Supreme Court could decide as soon as Thursday whether to approve it — the state is looking at potentially 11 new members in a 30-member delegation.
“There’s going to be a lot of introductory lunches, that’s for sure,” Rep. Jake Ellzey (R-Texas) told Blue Light News, noting it’s going to be a “drastic change.”
For decades, the GOP delegation was known for guarding its influence, holding weekly lunches to strategize, amassing seats on the influential steering committee that determines committee assignments and often voting as a bloc on key matters.
But the fact that President Donald Trump started his aggressive redistricting campaign with Texas — and that it proceeded at all — reflects the state’s relative impotence in Trump’s Washington. Republicans wary of the effort eventually folded under pressure from the president, and since then, a fifth of the delegation has announced plans to leave.
Those retirements include Budget Chair Jodey Arrington and Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on two key committees for over a decade. At the start of Trump’s first term, Texas had seven gavels, including influential Armed Services, Financial Services and Ways and Means panels and three coveted Appropriations subcommittee chairs. Now, Texans hold only three committee gavels — including Arrington — and no Texans serve in the House GOP’s elected leadership.
“We were powerful,” said Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas), who chairs the House Small Business Committee, recounting what the delegation was like when he first arrived in 2013. “But that all cycles.”
What else we’re watching:
— Van Epps seated: Speaker Mike Johnson will swear in Rep.-elect Matt Van Epps (R-Tenn.) on the House floor at 9 a.m., giving the GOP a 220-213 majority.
— Health care talks: Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) plan to introduce a new framework at 9:30 a.m. to reduce health premiums as lawmakers scramble to figure out what to do about expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies. It includes a one-year extension of the subsidies with new guardrails to crack down on fraud and a menu of separate pay-for options — not in the form of subsidies — to keep premiums low.
Senate Democrats are expected to propose a three-year extension of the subsidies, which Senate Majority Leader John Thune said was “designed to fail.”
— NDAA hurdles: Final legislative text on the annual defense authorization bill was originally expected Thursday but has been delayed as GOP leaders work through eleventh-hour intraparty issues that could put its passage in jeopardy. Leaders are now aiming to unveil bill text by the end of the weekend.
Meredith Lee Hill, Jordain Carney, Connor O’Brien and Joe Gould contributed to this report.
Rep. Max Miller issued a subpoena to his former father-in-law and fellow Ohio Republican, Sen. Bernie Moreno, in the latest escalation of a long-running family legal drama.
Pamela MacAdams, an attorney for Miller, reported to the Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court Monday that three subpoenas were served in Miller’s divorce case, according to court records. A person with knowledge of the subpoenas granted anonymity to comment on them said that two were sent to Moreno and his wife, Bridget.
Their daughter, Emily Moreno, was married to Miller, and the two remain embroiled in a nasty legal battle.
Spokespeople for Miller, Emily Moreno and Bernie Moreno did not immediately return requests for comment. TMZ first reported on the subpoenas.
Miller is seeking reelection in a competitive district, and his campaign has been marred by accusations of domestic abuse against Emily Moreno and their daughter. Miller has repeatedly denied the allegations and chose to remain in the race despite other Republican lawmakers pressuring him to withdraw his campaign.
The House Ethics Committee, which began an inquiry into Miller after Miller asked to be investigated, is currently in a preelection blackout period. During that period, which will continue through the midterms, the Ethics Committee doesn’t take any action against sitting members who could return next Congress.
Congress
Trump declares $1B canceled in ‘pocket rescission’ in another affront to Congress’ funding power
President Donald Trump informed congressional leaders Friday that he has unilaterally canceled almost $1 billion without Congress’ consent — employing a budget maneuver many lawmakers consider illegal.
In a move that will almost certainly set up an ugly government funding battle after the midterms, Trump has again claimed the power to execute a so-called “pocket rescission” to nix money Congress has already enacted. The money his administration will claw back is for for immigration services, support to foreign countries, education programs, health research efforts and assistance for businesses owned by minorities.
By law, the president is allowed to send Congress a request to rescind federal funding, then withhold that money for 45 days while lawmakers consider whether to approve, reject or ignore it. Trump administration officials also argue they have the power to cancel funding without any congressional action by sending Congress a rescission request with less than 45 days left in the fiscal year. The argument is that the money automatically gets canceled on Sept. 30, when funding lapses at the end of the fiscal year.
Last year, Trump canceled $4.9 billion in foreign aid.
The Senate’s top Republican appropriator, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, immediately blasted the move as illegal, saying in a statement Friday night that “any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.”
“This move shows that OMB intentionally withheld these funds for months to execute this unlawful cancellation of appropriations that were approved on a bipartisan basis and signed into law,” Collins added, pledging to work with other lawmakers “to address these illegal actions.”
Collins and other appropriators have already been on high alert in recent days, pressing multiple agencies about funding officials have yet to spend ahead of the expiration date.
Democrats are finally catching on to how to talk to young male voters in the lead-up to the midterms, but the party can still up its game, one battleground senator and potential 2028er said Friday.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) has been one of his party’s most outspoken critics on its handling of outreach to young men, who swung right and helped deliver the White House and both chambers of Congress to Republicans in 2024.
The party is now “definitely moving in the right direction,” Gallego said Friday.
“Like back in the day, I was like the only one,” putting out positions on men, Gallego said at a Washington event on young American men. “Now, like, it seems like everyone every week is coming out with a new position, new idea, which is great.”
Gallego has criticized Democrat’s failure to highlight mens’ struggles and their tendency to over-police mens’ ideas. But there are signs the political winds have shifted in his party’s favor.
A new Cygnal poll released with the event of men ages 18-30 who say they’re the most determined to vote revealed Democrats’ generic ballot lead over Republicans at 57%-40%, Blue Light News reported. The poll also said nearly 40 percent of respondents said they feel their lives are off track.
“We need to take the opportunity to invest in that portion of this country, to say that we care about them and actually try to change the trajectory of what’s happening with men in this country,” Gallego said at the symposium.
Still, the path for specific legislation targeting the needs of this demographic faces an incredibly tight calendar this Congress and is uncertain in the political landscape of next year.
A proposal from Gallego and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) to establish a men’s health office within the Department of Health and Human Services, for example, has not advanced. Nor has bipartisan legislation from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who also spoke at the event, targeting education outcomes, college investment transparency and dyslexic student support.
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