Congress

Capitol agenda: Thune’s megabill teeters on the brink

Published

1 year ago

June 26, 2025

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is scrambling to quell the Medicaid-fueled mutiny that’s threatening to derail the megabill on both sides of the Capitol.

In the Senate, “Medicaid moderates” are rejecting Finance’s opening offer of $15 billion for a stabilization fund for rural hospitals to help offset paring back the provider tax in expansion states from 6 percent to 3.5 percent.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) called it “inadequate” and warned that even if leadership goes up to the $100 billion she’s seeking, “that doesn’t solve” her issues with the bill. Thune closed the door to $100 billion soon after.

Multiple senators are threatening they won’t vote to open floor debate on the megabill without more clarity on Medicaid changes. That includes Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who warned colleagues behind closed doors Wednesday that “you won’t have a member from North Carolina sitting at this table after next year” unless the Senate changes course, Jordain scooped. (Reminder, fellow North Carolina Sen. Ted Budd isn’t up for reelection until 2028.)

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) later posted on X that he spoke with Donald Trump and the president wants the Senate to “stay with the House” on Medicaid. Look for whether Trump issues further instructions Thursday: Several GOP senators are expected to head to the White House for a 4 p.m. event to tout the “big, beautiful bill.”

Over in the House, wary moderates are also rejecting the rural hospital fund; one told Blue Light News it’s “bullshit.”

Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to calm nervous members by telling them he expects the Senate Medicaid language will move closer to the House’s. House GOP leaders and moderates believe the provider tax will end up between 4 percent and 5 percent, according to four people granted anonymity to describe private conversations. Some House Republicans are prepared to swallow that. Others are protesting.

Those numbers aren’t currently under serious consideration in the Senate, two people granted anonymity to describe the talks told Blue Light News, where there’s general skepticism that rank-and-file Republicans across the Capitol have a good read on the negotiations. (Johnson and Thune are in close contact, though; the Senate leader stepped out of Wednesday’s lunch on the phone with his House counterpart.)

But a Senate shift could end up happening if Thune’s members force his hand. Asked Wednesday about softening the provider-tax language, Thune didn’t completely close the door. “This all comes down to what the traffic will bear,” he told Blue Light News.

Other outstanding megabill issues:

— Feeling less salty?: Blue-state House Republicans expected to receive two options in writing for a potential deal on the state and local tax deduction. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) said the SALT Republicans’ Wednesday meeting with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) involved a “productive conversation.”

— Public-lands push and pull: Blue Light News obtained Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-Utah) scaled-back plan to sell off millions of acres in public lands, which he’s shipped off to the parliamentarian for review. It could still face GOP pushback.

— Inside RonJohn’s White House talks: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told Blue Light News the White House is working with him to establish a budget review panel through reconciliation. He’s not a “yes” on the megabill yet, though.

What else we’re watching:

— Iran briefing: Senators will huddle at 2 p.m. for their rescheduled briefing on the Iran conflict. As of late Wednesday night, the potential speaker list included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Joint Chiefs Chair Dan Caine, but Senate aides cautioned the list could change.

— Leg Branch markup: House appropriators will mark up the Legislative Branch funding bill Thursday — and there is a lot they want to see changed on Capitol Hill, according to their committee report released Wednesday. The panel had thoughts on member security, designated parking spaces, food service that accommodates more allergies and celiac disease, elevator outages and dome tours ahead of Thursday’s markup.

James Bikales, Josh Siegel and Katherine Tully McManus contributed to this report.

Congress

Where Warnock is visiting in the final midterms sprint

Published

2 hours ago

October 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Raphael Warnock is hitting the road for the last month before Election Day.

The Georgia Democrat’s final midterm campaign surrogate sprint will only increase chatter around the possibility that he might run for president in 2028, according to a nine-stop itinerary shared first with Blue Light News.

First, he’ll touch down in New Hampshire on Tuesday before hitting Nevada on Wednesday. Next, he’ll travel to South Carolina (Oct. 13), Mississippi (Oct. 14), North Carolina (Oct. 15), South Carolina (Oct. 16-17), Michigan (Oct. 20-21), Wisconsin (Oct. 23) and Ohio (Oct. 24-26).

“Senator Reverend Warnock will be hitting the trail to energize voters who are sick of the President enriching himself while ordinary people continue to pay more for everything,” a spokesperson told Playbook. “Tapping into the righteous anger that voters are feeling across the country, the pastor in the Senate will again make the campaign trail his pulpit: calling out Trump’s corruption, while leaving voters hopeful for the next generation of Democratic leadership.”

Asked recently at the Texas Tribune Festival about whether he would run for president, Warnock said: “We’ll see what happens.”

Congress

Capitol agenda: Dems split on probing Trump corporate allies

Published

4 hours ago

October 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats are eager to win back subpoena power if they retake Congress, but they’re split on how hard they’ll go after corporate America.

The party is united by the idea of aggressive oversight of President Donald Trump’s administration, which will help shape their messaging in the run-up to the 2028 election. But Democrats are at odds over how fiercely to use their probing power to go after the corporations, law firms and universities that courted the White House over the past two years.

“We don’t want to turn into a banana republic where you lose an election and it’s all about retribution,” Rep. Bill Foster, a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, said.

“We’re going to have to be a little bit wise about when companies simply did something they had to do to survive this unprecedented level of corruption, compared to companies that actually got on board and profited more by being a partner in his corruption,” he added.

Some progressives counter that a restrained approach would sit uneasily with the party’s base.

“It would be political suicide for Democrats to campaign on fighting corruption and then turn around and go easy on the very companies that are facilitating it,” said Ella Fanger, corporate power policy adviser at the liberal nonprofit group Demand Progress.

Prime targets for some Democrats are the tech companies that have taken steps to be on the president’s good side, like Apple, Amazon and Meta, which have all donated to Trump’s ballroom effort. Major cryptocurrency players, including Coinbase, Ripple and Tether also chipped in for the ballroom, and will be subject to questioning from Democrats.

The late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s networks and associates are also poised for probes — a push that has ensnared big banks like JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America in the past.

Sen. Chris Murphy said the party should focus on the nexus between Trump and corporate corruption.

“We should get to the bottom of the corrupt relationship that exists between corporations in this country and the Trump administration,” Murphy said, pointing to questions he’s posed about a tobacco company’s donation to Trump’s super PAC before new e-cigarette rules were unveiled.

Still, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who serves on Senate Banking, warned against the weaponization of power.

“Our focus should be solving problems that we’re seeing happening,” she said, pointing to cost-of-living issues around health care, housing and energy.

What else we’re watching:

— FIRST IN IC: BUILD AMERICA CAUCUS AGENDA — Energized by progress on permitting and housing legislation this term, a bipartisan development-focused caucus is rolling out a detailed agenda for next term. The 40-member Build America Caucus is releasing a 95-page package of proposals, first shared with Blue Light News, that outlines plans touching on health care, transportation, child care and research. The group launched last year with the goal of cutting red tape and regulatory bottlenecks to spur development.

— AI COLLAB STILL ILLUSIVE FOR CRUZ, CANTWELL — Commerce Chair Ted Cruz and ranking member Maria Cantwell might still be celebrating Senate passage of their landmark college sports bill last week, but it’s unclear the momentum will carry forward to agreement on another committee priority: artificial intelligence. Among the dozen lawmakers, aides and industry experts who spoke to Blue Light News, few expect the two senators to shed their well-established ideologies and styles after the mutual win. That could doom their ability to replicate their latest achievement in something as complex and divisive as an AI regulatory framework.

Jasper Goodman, Katherine Hapgood, Riley Rogerson and Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.

Congress

It took four years, but a Capitol Hill office finally has a union contract

Published

4 hours ago

October 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Four years ago, California Rep. Ro Khanna’s staff voted to unionize — one of a handful of Democratic offices that sought to ride a wave of organizing momentum during then-President Joe Biden’s administration.

Much has changed since, to put it mildly, but Khanna aides persevered and recently won approval of their first collectively bargained contract — the first labor agreement of its kind inside Congress.

“This was four years in the making,” Nicole Waring, a deputy director of constituent services for Khanna and the union steward, said in an interview. “We finally, finally reached the point where we were able to finalize our contract and ratify it.”

The agonizing process of turning pro-union enthusiasm into an actual binding agreement is both a breakthrough for the fitful labor movement on Capitol Hill while also underscoring how that movement has sputtered in the years since Biden left office, Donald Trump took back the White House and unionization moved off the front burner for Democratic staffers.

Since an initial wave of offices voted to unionize in 2022, that momentum has largely petered out. Less than a dozen offices are now unionized as staffers’ efforts are complicated by heavy workloads, adversarial bosses and Congress’ recent record high turnover rates that have led some aides to the conclusion that unionizing is more trouble than it’s worth.

Against that backdrop, that the eight-person union in Khanna’s office was able to win a contract constitutes a bright spot for organizers.

The agreement establishes a higher salary floor and a mechanism to renegotiate salaries if the office’s budget allowance increases, according to Waring and portions of the text reviewed by Blue Light News.

The document also codifies a procedure to resolve internal grievances. When Khanna almost certainly wins reelection, the agreement — which was officially ratified in August — will continue through next term.

“I’m proud of our office for signing the first long-term contract in the history of the U.S. Congress. I hope this can serve as a model for other offices in Congress,” Khanna said in a statement thanking his staff. “We need to be a model for the collective bargaining in our offices that we want to see across our nation.”

Waring said Khanna and his senior aides were supportive and trusting during contract negotiation but noted that, even under those positive circumstances, the effort was time- and labor-intensive.

“There’s a lot of back and forth. It takes time to review each passback of the contract, redline everything,” Waring said. “The biggest thing was we wanted to make sure that this contract would be governable, and rather than just make things convenient and take shortcuts, make sure that it was going to be something that we knew would stand the test of time.”

Khanna’s chief of staff, Marie Baldassarre, said in an interview the process for her office took years because “we realized like this is going to actually impact people’s lives, and it’s a binding contract, and so we have to get it right.”

“It’s just never been done before, and none of us were experts,” she added.

Staffers on Capitol Hill often face a grueling office cultures that can hamstring efforts to advance worker protections. Staffers for pro-labor Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.), for example, voted to unionize in 2023 but then faced internal retaliation, according to the Nevada Independent.

Staffers for lawmakers across the ideological spectrum can be subjected to long hours, eyebrow-raising member requests and unrelenting demands that can spur staffer interest in pursuing labor protections — but also fears about potentially hindering their careers.

A person involved in the Congressional Workers Union — an umbrella group that provides support to individual office bargaining units — called the Khanna office contract “historic” and acknowledged it was “probably the biggest win recently” for the broader organizing effort.

“There’s small wins all the time,” added the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly on behalf of the group.

Staffers for former Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) ratified a contract in the final days of his term in December 2022. While that contract was technically the first for a member office, it was largely symbolic given Levin’s imminent departure. Staff for Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Val Hoyle (D-Ore.) secured “memorandums of understanding” with their members in 2024, but not formal contracts.

“Hats off to them for getting it done,” Levin said in an interview. “In terms of what comes next, much will depend on the outcome of the midterms.”

Levin, a labor attorney, said that Republican majorities and White House have had a chilling effect on Capitol Hill unions and predicted that if Democrats take back the House majority next year, a flurry of labor activity will ensue. He added that several Democrats with close ties to organized labor are poised to enter the House, naming fellow Michigan Democrat and former SEIU organizer Donavan McKinney.

“In this political climate, the idea of getting contracts negotiated on Blue Light News, where it’s hardly ever been done, I think that seems very challenging to me,” Levin said. “I do think it’s great that another office has gotten the first contract, and I think the momentum will continue to grow from here.”