Congress

Congress clears first funding bills since government shutdown ended

Published

8 months ago

January 15, 2026

The Senate cleared a three-bill spending package Thursday for President Donald Trump’s signature, completing a fraction of government funding measures necessary to avert another shutdown ahead of the month-end deadline.

Lawmakers voted 82-15 to approve legislation funding the departments of Justice, Interior, Commerce and Energy, as well as the EPA, water programs and federal science initiatives through the end of the current fiscal year.

Another spending package, funding the departments of Treasury and State, will be waiting for senators when they return from their recess next week. The House passed that measure Wednesday.

Together, they represent significant progress after last year’s record-breaking funding lapse. But the vast majority of government programs still need to be funded if Congress wants to avoid another stopgap to keep federal operations afloat beyond Jan. 30. That includes more than 75 percent of discretionary funding, including for the Pentagon and many of the largest non-defense programs.

“We’ve got to continue to complete the job and make progress on the remainder of the appropriations bills,” said Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) on the floor Thursday afternoon.

“Our goal is to get all of these bills signed into law, no continuing resolutions that lock in previous priorities and don’t reflect today’s realities,” she added. “No more disastrous government shutdowns that are totally unnecessary and so harmful.”

The next two weeks will be a gauntlet for both chambers as the thorniest bills are still in the throes of bipartisan, bicameral negotiations.

Lawmakers are optimistic that the text of another spending package funding Defense, Transportation-HUD and Labor-HHS-Education could be released in the middle of the upcoming long weekend. The Homeland Security funding package, however, remains in limbo,complicated by ongoing tensions in Minnesota where ICE agents have in recent days shot at least two people — one fatally.

“We know that they’re working, and we’re hoping they make some magic out of it,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said in an interview about appropriators who are in the throes of negotiating the DHS bill.

The latest offer House Republicans sent to the Senate on the DHS bill would order the department to fund body cameras for immigration enforcement agents. But Democrats are hold more restrictions on the agency.

“There’s no budget like DHS. The way that they move money, the way that they’ve moved personnel, has no precedent,” Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the Democrat leading DHS funding negotiations in the Senate, said in a brief interview Thursday afternoon.

“We need to have restraints that actually make a difference,” Murphy added.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune admitted Thursday that if any of the dozen annual funding bills would be “a candidate” for short-term funding, “it would be that one.”

The protracted runway to finish this work is compounded by the fact that the Senate is planning to be in recess next week, with the House set to be gone the week after for a district work period.

The House itself is also struggling to function under the razor-thin GOP majority, where Speaker Mike Johnson spent the past several days contending with dire attendance issues and intraparty revolts — including over earmarks.

Fiscal hawks including Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy call earmarks “the currency of corruption” and have taken aim at specific funding lawmakers have secured for projects in their districts.

The “minibus” funding package the Senate passed Thursday, meanwhile, prevailed over hard-liner attempts to severely shrink spending. It largely rejects the dramatic cuts the White House requested and instead makes more restrained spending reductions to energy and environment programs.

The National Park Service would face a moderate reduction from current funding levels — much less than the 37 percent cut the White House sought. The EPA would see a 4 percent reduction of $320 million, instead of the more than $4 billion President Donald Trump proposed to slash.

One area set to get a boost is trade agencies, with an 18 percent increase for the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office and a 23 percent increase for the Commerce Department office responsible for designing and enforcing export controls used to target China and other countries.

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Congress

Softball game is a go

Published

33 minutes ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to cut the House schedule short won’t affect one late-September congressional spectacle: Multiple members said Thursday that the Congressional Women’s Softball Game will proceed as planned on Sept. 23.

The event, which pits a team of women members against an all-media team, is a fundraiser for the benefit Young Survival Coalition, a group supporting young women diagnosed with breast cancer.

“It’s the only day we can play,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), a captain of the member team. “We’re playing in Audi Field, and yeah, members are coming back.”

Congress

Leon Black defies House Oversight Committee, sues Congress amid Epstein investigation

Published

48 minutes ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Leon Black, a billionaire investor with ties to the late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, declined to show up for his scheduled transcribed interview Thursday with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee — choosing instead to file a lawsuit calling the panel’s subpoenas for his participation “invalid.”

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, argues that the subpoenas served to Black compelling his testimony and demanding he turn over certain non-disclosure agreements go beyond the committee’s “delegated authority in seeking private information that bears no legitimate connection to [the committee’s] legislative purpose.”

Black’s escalation is likely to trigger a corresponding dramatic response from the Oversight Committee, where Republicans are still endeavoring to show they are taking their Epstein investigation seriously more than a year since its launch.

House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said that Black’s deposition will move forward with an empty chair this morning and that he will talk to his members about next steps.

“It’s a shame Leon Black is hiding behind litigation rather than provide answers to the American people,” Comer said in a statement. “Our investigation is examining how the federal government for decades failed survivors of Jeffery Epstein and [co-conspirator] Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes and how Mr. Epstein sought to curry favor with influential individuals to avoid scrutiny. Mr. Black’s testimony is crucial to our investigation as he was one of Mr. Epstein’s fee paying clients and has several nondisclosure agreements.”

Democrats are also eager to send a strong message that those who defy the panel now won’t be spared if the party retakes control of the House in 2027.

“By refusing to testify today, Leon Black is now defying two Congressional subpoenas. Black gave Jeffrey Epstein over $180 million over six years. He funded Epstein’s abuse and trafficking of women. Multiple women have also accused Black of sexual assault,” said Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the Oversight Committee’s top Democrat who is poised to take the gavel if Republicans lose their majority in the midterms.

“His connections to Epstein and his unwillingness to cooperate are unacceptable,” Garcia continued. “We must hold him in contempt immediately.”

Black, who founded Apollo Global Management, appeared in a closed door session with the Oversight Committee earlier this summer to discuss his association with Epstein. As a result of that meeting, Black was slapped with a subpoena to produce certain non-disclosure agreements he signed with women tied to Epstein and told to come back for a second grilling.

The panel has been counting on the NDAs to shed further light on how Epstein and his network were able to sexually exploit women and girls and evade liability for decades.

Black has since produced one NDA between himself and a woman with whom he had an affair and to whom he paid $9.5 million. Comer called that insufficient, demanding Black turn over the others and threatening to pursue contempt proceedings if Black did not cooperate.

Black’s attorneys contend the subpoenas “would … expose women who value their privacy, who have no known or public connection to Epstein, who bargained for confidentiality and have refused to release it, and who have no ability to protect themselves and their privacy before the Committee.”

Susan Estrich, one of Black’s lawyers, in a statement accused the Oversight Committee of going on “a fishing expedition that oversteps its authority and completely ignores its responsibility. This is no longer about finding the truth about Epstein. It is about trying to destroy Mr. Black. We were left with no choice but to file this lawsuit in response to an abuse of Congressional power.”

Estrich added that Black continues to deny his knowledge of Epstein’s misconduct and “feels terrible for Epstein’s victims.”

Congress

House Republicans set to cut pre-election session short

Published

1 hour ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Republican leaders are set to announce Thursday that the final two weeks of the pre-election House session are canceled, according to two people granted anonymity to describe the decision ahead of a public announcement.

That means members are set to depart Washington no later than Sept. 17 and not return until mid-November. The House will recovene for one additional week of business after next week’s Labor Day break.

Leaders would recall the House for those canceled weeks if the Senate moves forward with a party-line budget reconciliation package in the meantime, the people said.

The decision comes as candidates agitate to get back on the campaign trail and as GOP leaders continue to struggle to maintain control of the House floor. Earlier this week, a procedural measure setting up votes on several Republican bills was poised to fail until two Democrats voted in favor, rescuing Speaker Mike Johnson’s agenda for the week.