Congress
Capitol agenda: Wasserman Schultz roils Democrats, again
Florida’s primary next week will test whether Debbie Wasserman Schultz can survive her latest fall from grace within the Democratic party she’s served for decades.
Her run in the state’s 20th District has roiled the caucus: Wasserman Schultz, 59, is facing a crowded slate of challengers —several of them younger, several of them Washington outsiders — in an election cycle that has increasingly seen its voters oust longtime incumbents in favor of generational insurgents.
But it’s her decision to run in one of a dwindling number of majority-Black districts after Republicans redrew her former seat that has deeply divided colleagues.
“It’s a painful situation,” says Rep. Yvette Clarke, the Congressional Black Caucus chair. “To have a beloved colleague who made a decision basically to run in a district where historically there’s been CBC representation, and I know that the community has been really disrupted by it.”
The CBC has warned that 19 representatives of 61 could lose their seats this cycle thanks to a Supreme Court ruling making it harder to challenge congressional maps on racial discrimination grounds.
Wasserman Schultz’s gambit is that voters in the district will want someone with her seniority and experience to take on President Donald Trump.
“We have to make sure we’re putting the strongest fighter on the field,” she told Blue Light News after entering the race.
But she’s wholly unwelcome by the rest of the all-Black primary slate. Competitor Dale Holness tried to convince her she could keep her redrawn district blue by running there instead. But Wasserman Schultz refused.
“The biggest disappointment for me, and what makes me most upset, is she was positioned to win that seat better than anyone else in South Florida,” Holness said, “and she gave up that fight for expediency to take something away from a community that has been most loyal to the Democratic Party.”
Now, given her name recognition and more than $3.3 million in fundraising, she’s considered the front-runner for the 20th District.
Some critics view Wasserman Schultz’s race as similar to the controversy that forced her to step down as DNC chair in 2016. That’s when Bernie Sanders supporters accused her of tipping the scales in the presidential primary for Hillary Clinton, and Wasserman Schultz became the face of an establishment critics said was fixated on protecting its power.
Still, Wasserman Schultz maintains a deep bench of supporters from her party – including Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a past CBC chair and a friend going back 20 years. Cleaver campaigned with her in the district and called it a “tough situation.”
“Wouldn’t it be ugly if I’m driving down the street with Debbie Wasserman Schultz in my red convertible, and I see an African American standing on the road without a ride, and they ask me to stop, put Debbie out of the car? Let them get in because they are African American? I don’t roll like that.”
What else we’re watching:
— CONGRESS’ SOCIAL MEDIA STARS: A little known Louisiana Republican just a few years ago, Speaker Mike Johnson has easily cleared over a million followers on X. So too has House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer laps them both, with 3.6 million follows on X. And Senate Majority Leader John Thune — though he’s been at the top of his party for fewer years — is trailing at around 373,000 followers. And apart from leadership, a Blue Light News analysis shows members of the 119th Congress are growing more viral than ever.
— JEFFRIES TARGETS FILIBUSTER, VOTING RIGHTS: Jeffries Thursday spelled out his more ambitious goals if Democrats take control of both chambers. On his agenda: pushing for Senate filibuster reform, passage of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act, a full repeal of the 2010 Citizens United campaign finance decision and changes to structure of the Supreme Court, Jeffries said in comments at the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Atlanta.
Kimberly Leonard, Riley Rogerson and Cassandra Dumay contributed to this report.
Sen. Ron Johnson is sending a letter Monday requesting a conference meeting to discuss the midterm results and a delay in the leadership election.
Johnson has gathered enough signatures to force the meeting under the Senate GOP’s rules and is proposing the gathering for 9 a.m. Tuesday.
“Tuesday’s result was a stunning defeat,” Johnson and his backers write in the letter to Conference Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO. “Holding leadership elections without engaging in a robust discussion and evaluation of how those running for leadership intend to lead would be political malpractice”
Republicans still expect their leadership election to be held Tuesday, where Majority Leader John Thune is so far unopposed to lead the party next year in the minority.
Sen. Chris Murphy announced Friday that he has been released from the hospital after suffering a stroke last week, but will miss “several weeks” of Senate votes while he continues to recover.
“The doctors are very encouraged by the progress I’ve made so far,” the Connecticut Democrat said in a statement. “In order to take my recovery seriously and get back to work on the quickest timeline possible, I will be spending several weeks at a rehabilitation center after being discharged from the hospital today.”
He added that he remains in touch remotely with his staff and colleagues.
Murphy, who was hospitalized last weekend, said Friday that he was “diagnosed with a small bleed in the thalamus region of my brain.” Jose Suarez, the Chief of Neurosciences Critical Care at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, said in a separate statement released by Murphy’s office that the senator “experienced a small hemorrhagic stroke.”
“He has shown tremendous progress, and at the current rate of improvement, we expect that he will make a full recovery following rehabilitation,” Suarez added.
Murphy is the latest senator to suffer a stroke in recent years. Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) were both hospitalized for strokes in 2022. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), at that time a Senate candidate, also had a stroke in 2022 that he later described as near fatal.
The head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said his group will still be power brokers in a massive Democratic majority in a strategy memo previewing plans for next term.
“While some in the press have speculated that a majority of this size undermines our influence within the caucus, they have it exactly backwards,” Rep. Greg Casar of Texas said in the Friday memo obtained by Blue Light News. “Big majorities are good for getting big things done. Our goal is not to win a battle against other Democratic caucuses. It is to pass longstanding progressive priorities that bring down costs, root out corruption, and boost wages.”
The CPC will have at least 105 members next term, according to the memo. If Democrats had a narrow majority, progressives — and any other faction in the caucus — could have used their votes as leverage. Now that presumptive speaker Hakeem Jeffries will have as many 30 votes to spare, Democrats broadly are recalibrating their approach next term.
Casar laid out a “three-pronged” strategy for the CPC to “wield our power” in the three-page memo — tackling legislation, oversight and “holding Donald Trump to his word on populist economic policies.”
“Small majorities give corporate special interest groups the ability to block popular populist policies by recruiting a small number of opponents; a big majority gives us the advantage,” he said.
Casar previewed how the CPC can engage with Trump, noting that “one of the few bright spots for bipartisan lawmaking” was a housing bill that banned private equity firms from buying homes. He noted the caucus should push Trump to cap credit card interest rates, lower credit card fees for small businesses and lower prescription drug costs.
“While we oppose [Trump] strongly on the vast majority of fronts, we should send bills to his desk that would lower prices and raise paychecks. If he signs them, good. If he vetoes those bills, that will propel us to a continued Democratic majority and a trifecta where a Democratic president can sign these proposals into law,” he said.
Casar also outlined oversight targets beyond the administration, urging Democrats to specifically investigate corporations that use customer data for “surveillance pricing,” health care companies that are “taking advantage of seniors” through the Medicare Advantage program and artificial intelligence labs who are “putting jobs and lives at risk.”
“By focusing not just on the Trump administration but also on big corporations and billionaires, we will show the American people we are not just anti-Trump but also pro-worker and pro-consumer,” he said.
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