Congress

Congress is settling in for a do-nothing summer

Published

4 months ago

July 2, 2026

The Republican congressional agenda is melting in the summer heat.

Intraparty fights, tight margins, election-year pressures and an indifferent president have grounded the pre-midterm legislative plans of GOP leaders on Capitol Hill, with just a handful of days left to do anything about it.

House leaders, in particular, appear to have lost control of their chamber with just eight session days before a planned five-week summer recess. They discarded two of those days this week, sending members home early for Independence Day after a member rebellion left them unable to move major bills.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s demands for action on a stalled GOP elections bill and a series of mercurial power moves have left Senate Republicans frustrated and morose as major legislation piles up — including the annual defense policy bill, fiscal 2027 spending measures, an extension of government spy powers, the farm bill and more.

“Who needs Democrats when you have your own party derailing the Trump agenda?” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) lamented Tuesday as members unexpectedly scattered for the upcoming holiday.

Absent strong leadership or presidential intervention, the contemporary Congress tends to act only when deadlines force it to, and that has made the early part of this summer especially languid on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers blew past a supposed June deadline for the surveillance program’s renewal, with spy agencies able to rely on existing wiretaps into early next year. The Pentagon bill doesn’t have to get done until the end of the year, and government funding expires Sept. 30, when it is likely to be extended beyond the November election — along with the farm bill.

Still, frustrations are mounting among the lawmakers who toil at the committee level to prepare bills for a dysfunctional House floor.

“We lost four bills that we might have been able to get across the floor,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said Tuesday. “We’re losing time, and time is a very precious commodity.”

The one major piece of legislation passed in recent weeks, a bipartisan housing bill, remains unsigned by Trump, who recently called it a “big yawn.” And the GOP’s chances of passing a new policy bill under the party-line reconciliation process are looking increasingly remote.

House GOP leaders hoped a Trump administration request for defense funding would jump-start plans for that longshot bill, which could carry other Republican priorities ahead of the midterms. Instead, members are mired in fights over how to pay for the package, and hopes of moving forward with a budget blueprint for the bill ahead of the July 4 recess collapsed last month.

Key rank-and-file members and some House chairs huddled in Speaker Mike Johnson’s office Wednesday to plot a way forward on a reconciliation package, but another meeting with Budget Committee Republicans was canceled after GOP leaders sent lawmakers home early.

Those who stayed — including Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), an avowed cheerleader for the party-line bill— acknowledged hope is fading fast.

“After this recess, if it doesn’t happen in the first couple of days, then I think it’s in real trouble,” Pfluger, chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee, said in an interview.

Only a handful of potential developments appear capable of pulling the GOP majorities out of their summer torpor.

In the Senate, members are on guard for a potential Supreme Court confirmation fight — especially after National Public Radio mistakenly published a false report about Justice Samuel Alito’s retirement.

Otherwise the chamber is set to debate its version of the defense policy bill and process a handful of Trump nominations later this month before starting its summer recess. Other bills, including those dealing with college sports and cryptocurrency regulations, could also come to the floor.

Republicans in both chambers believe they could be forced to act on an emergency Pentagon funding request that the White House transmitted to Capitol Hill last week to cover the expense of the war with Iran. Farm assistance, disaster aid and other bipartisan priorities could ride along on that bill.

But the military funding request is facing serious doubts as GOP lawmakers bristle at a lack of information from the Trump administration on how the requested $67 billion would be spent — and whether servicemember paychecks and munitions stockpiles might be at imminent risk. Key Republicans left a classified briefing from senior Pentagon officials at the Capitol Wednesday frustrated at the unanswered questions.

“We recognize that the department needs more money fast,” said Rep. Ken Calvert of California, the top Republican responsible for shepherding the supplemental bill through the House. “We’ve got to figure out exactly how much that is, and we’ve got to do that as fast as possible.”

Asked as he left the briefing when exactly the Pentagon needs the money, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) said, “Now.”

“This is really, really, really crucial,” he said.

But even if the administration coughs up the details appropriators like Calvert and Diaz-Balart are demanding, there is no sign the hard-liners holding the House floor hostage are willing to end their blockade — to say nothing about a potential Democratic filibuster in the Senate.

The 13 Republicans who tanked a procedural vote Tuesday had a variety of grievances. Some wanted to pressure the Senate to take up the elections bill, the SAVE America Act. Others wanted to protest Johnson’s failure to act on a border security measure, as they claim he promised to do weeks ago.

“When leadership is making promises and not following through and then you don’t do anything about it, then it’d be, shame on me,” said Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.).

But the proposed border bill is entangled in other intra-GOP conflicts, according to five people granted anonymity to describe internal conversations. House GOP leaders and leadership staff huddled in a series of closed-door meetings Wednesday over the various issues, with still no solution to reopening the floor.

Some centrist Republicans don’t want to vote on it before the midterms, they said, and farm-state members are demanding GOP leaders add guestworker visa provisions — something immigration hard-liners sharply oppose.

Johnson held a call Wednesday with Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and other members to try to find a path forward without making much progress, according to the five people.

It didn’t help, some members noted this week, that members were sent home early rather than hash out their differences in person.

“We shouldn’t be leaving town,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said. “We ought to be working, and we’re not doing it.”

Calen Razor and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

Congress

Capitol agenda: AI experts to school Congress wanted

Published

8 hours ago

October 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Artificial intelligence is challenging some lawmakers’ confidence that they have the capacity to regulate it.

The slow pace of Congress and a challenging political environment are already working against lawmakers under pressure to address AI threats. There’s also a significant gap in tech policy expertise.

“We need to dramatically increase the base knowledge of Congress if we’re going to legislate meaningfully,” Rep. Sam Liccardo said in a recent interview.

One big concern is at the staffing level: getting people with a deep understanding of the technology around rank-and-file members. Aides who specialize in tech policy often get lured to private companies with huge salaries that can be hard to resist.

Some lawmakers, like Rep. Mark Takano, are advocating for an in-house hub — something like the long-defunct Office of Technology Assessment, which helped Congress understand emerging technology and its social and policy implications from 1972 until it was scrapped in 1995. A Takano aide said he’ll introduce a bipartisan bill to restore such an office in the coming weeks.

Members have also been leaning on fellows from TechCongress — a nonprofit founded by former congressional aide Travis Moore that places technology experts in member and committee offices.

Moore said in an interview that there are plenty of people who want to work on Capitol Hill, but it’s a matter of “Congress’s will and capacity to absorb that talent.”

Not everybody buys into the theory that staffing will solve the problem. Some conservatives, in particular, have seized on the lack of member expertise to argue for a hands-off regulatory approach.

“We don’t understand it well enough,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis, who has repeatedly brought in technology experts through the TechCongress fellowship, told reporters this month. “We don’t have the expertise to do it.”

“Do you really trust the members of Congress, who barely understand AI, to write the regulations around something?” added Rep. Eric Burlison in an interview last month.

There are a few members who consider themselves fluent in AI policy, including several who have joined working groups on it. They’ve taken educating their colleagues into their own hands but have not always seen great enthusiasm.

Liccardo, for example, recounted how he has brought in experts to brief lawmakers — including huge AI industry figures like Sam Altman of OpenAI and Dario Amodei of Anthropic— only to struggle to convince members to attend.

“We have had challenges in the past trying to get folks’ attention to the issues,” he said.

What else we’re watching:

— WRIGHT: LAWMAKERS ARE ‘WRONG’ ON RUSSIA: Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Sunday dismissed bipartisan criticism when asked about lawmakers warning that President Donald Trump’s diesel deal would help finance Russia. “In fact, they are all wrong. They don’t understand what President Trump’s doing,” Wright said on ABC News. Wright also defended Trump’s decision Friday exempting Russia from key sanctions outlined in the late Sen. Lindsey Graham sanctions law, which was enacted just last month and set to take effect Sunday. The moves have drawn bipartisan outcry.

— PILOT BILLS GET COMEDIAN’S HELP — Lawmakers are targeting year-end enactment of a pair of bipartisan bills aimed at helping pilots deal with mental health issues and hazy medication regulations, thanks in part to a comedian with an HBO show. Lawmakers and others credit Nathan Fielder, star of the docu-comedy “The Rehearsal” for raising awareness on the stresses pilots face in the hit show last year. They say Fielder wasn’t actively involved in lobbying despite pleas from some for help. “Frankly, I’m glad he elevated the story,” Rep. Sean Casten, one of the lawmakers leading the mental health legislation, told Safa. After passing the Senate late last month, the two bills are awaiting House action.

Katherine Tully-McManus, Jalen Beckford and Safa Wahidi contributed to this report.

Congress

Wanted: Tech experts to help Congress regulate AI

Published

11 hours ago

October 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Lawmakers are under pressure to pass legislation to address the threats from advanced artificial intelligence, but many have serious doubts they have the capacity to regulate the technology’s explosive growth.

Few are expecting lawmakers themselves — some of whom still proudly use flip phones — to become AI experts overnight. But while even congressional Luddites acknowledge there is urgency for Capitol Hill to quickly expand its expertise in tech policy to help with legislating, regulating and conducting effective oversight, there’s no consensus yet on how to achieve it.

“We need to dramatically increase the base knowledge of Congress if we’re going to legislate meaningfully,” Rep. Sam Liccardo (D-Calif.) said in a recent interview.

Congress already has a long track record of lagging behind as technological innovations transform the world beyond Washington: It has adopted a largely hands-off approach to regulating the Internet as it integrated into everyday life in the past 40 years, relying instead on existing laws that govern other industries and taking smaller piecemeal bites.

The challenging political environment won’t help speed things along now: Democrats are split over whether the answer is to put guardrails on the AI industry or ban “superintelligence” entirely, while many Republicans — including President Donald Trump — warn that any regulation would stifle innovation and cede ground to China.

Some members consider themselves fluent in AI policy, including several who have joined working groups on AI policy. Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.) have pursued masters degrees in AI and machine learning, in addition to many others who are self-taught.

The “overwhelming number” of lawmakers have some idea of what AI is and what it is capable of, Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-N.C.), co-chair of a House Democratic commission on AI policy, said in a recent interview. But, she added, “None of us can say that we understand where it’s going.”

The larger concern is at the staff level — putting people with real expertise around the rank-and-file members who don’t have the bandwidth or interest in educating themselves on the frontier of the industry. Aides who do specialize in tech policy often get lured to the industry with huge salaries that can be hard to resist.

That’s where Travis Moore, a former congressional staffer, has spent more than a decade trying to help.

In 2015, Moore left his post as legislative director for Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and founded TechCongress, a nonprofit that places technology experts in member and committee offices. The hope is that those offices will be convinced to hire those fellows full-time — or at least recognize the need to secure in-house tech policy expertise.

“You should have a technologist at the table to at least mitigate the unknown unknowns,” Moore said, regardless of what members themselves know about technology.

As AI has boomed, so has demand for TechCongress’ fellows: In the last two years, Moore has fielded more than 1,200 applications for about 36 fellowship slots through the program, which does not accept funding from corporations or tech companies.

Of nearly 130 fellows selected through the program since its founding, Moore said 32 were later hired full-time. Two-thirds of all the fellows have pursued careers in public service, either on Capitol Hill or other government roles.

Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), one of the leaders on AI policy on Capitol Hill, is among the offices that currently employs a TechCongress fellow. The House Judiciary Committee, the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) also host fellows.

Moore says his initiative has shown there are plenty of people who want to work on Capitol Hill to help inform some of the most pressing issues of the moment — even when more lucrative salaries in the private sector beckon.

“The constraint is not talent supply,” Moore said in an interview. Rather, he said, it’s a matter of “Congress’s will and capacity to absorb that talent.”

Some on Capitol Hill are advocating for an in-house hub — something like the long-defunct Office of Technology Assessment, which helped Congress understand emerging technology and its social and policy implications from 1972 until it was scrapped in 1995.

Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) has long championed efforts to revive the OTA for years and expects to reintroduce his legislation restoring the office in the coming weeks with bipartisan backing, spokesperson Austin Clark said.

Not everybody buys into the theory that staffing will solve the problem. Some conservatives, in particular, have seized on the lack of member expertise to argue for a hands-off approach to regulation.

“We don’t understand it well enough,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), who has repeatedly brought in technology experts through the TechCongress fellowship, told reporters this month. “You can’t address it based on what policymakers know about it on a one-size-fits-all universal basis. … We don’t have the expertise to do it.”

“Do you really trust the members of Congress, who barely understand AI, to write the regulations around something?” added Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) in an interview last month.

Others don’t see a hopeless cause, but a convenient excuse.

“I understand it’s hard, but lots of things we do here are hard,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in an interview, noting that lawmakers have had to bone up quickly on everything from nuclear energy policy to complex weapons systems and advances in health care, like biologic drugs.

“I just think the industry wants us to believe that there’s seven people who understand this, and that’s just not true,” Murphy said, accusing some of his colleagues of “just throwing shit up against the wall to try to figure out how to justify doing nothing.”

A few members on both sides of the aisle have taken educating their colleagues into their own hands. Obernotle says he helped tutor more than two dozen House members through the bipartisan AI working group he chaired in the previous Congress.

Liccardo, who represents parts of Silicon Valley, recounted how he has brought in experts to brief lawmakers — including huge AI industry figures like Sam Altman of OpenAI, Dario Amodei of Anthropic and Jensen Huang of Nvidia — only to struggle to convince members to attend.

“We have had challenges in the past trying to get folks’ attention to the issues,” he said. “We have a lot of work to do, I’ll just say, to get everybody up to speed.”

Riley Rogerson, Jordain Carney and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.

Congress

Retiring GOP congressmember will ‘absolutely not’ vote for successor in at-risk seat

Published

2 days ago

October 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Retiring Nevada Republican Rep. Mark Amodei said he won’t vote for the Trump-endorsed GOP candidate vying to replace him amid a string of stolen valor and other accusations — and warned that the once-safe Republican seat President Donald Trump won by 14 points is at risk of flipping blue on Election Day.

Amodei said in an interview Saturday he would “absolutely not” vote for businessperson David Flippo in Nevada’s 2nd District. “I think the seat’s at risk,” he added, citing a string of stolen valor and financial allegations against Flippo.

“You say, well, the president endorsed him,” Amodei added. “It’s like, well whoever was advising the president on, ‘Hey, this would be a good place for you to go ahead and weigh in,’ gave him awful advice. The vetting process — quote unquote — must have been nearly non-existent.”

Amodei specifically cited a series of allegations against Flippo as disqualifying, for reportedly lying about his military service and also failing to file financial disclosures on time.

“It’s just one thing after another. The stolen valor accusations — all that. But you’re just sitting here going, ‘What the heck?’” Amodei said. Flippo has said apparent exaggerations about his military service on campaign materials were mistakes by his staff and others. Still, GOP officials have been weighing whether Trump should campaign in the region to help boost Flippo before Election Day, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The district has never been represented by a Democrat.

Amodei said he plans to vote early in the coming days and “is looking seriously” at casting his ballot for the independent candidate.

Amid the deteriorating landscape, national Republicans are increasingly wary about Republicans like Flippo holding onto seats in once-safe red districts. Trump won the Northern Nevada seat that encompasses Reno and nearby rural counties by double digits in 2024 and Amodei has held it for 15 years.

On paper, Democrats should have no business playing there. And, national Republicans are still bullish on their chances of holding onto the seat, arguing it’s safer than other red districts they’re more worried about. But Republicans have watched Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson, a former Nevada Assembly majority leader, make the race much tighter than comfortable.

Limited general election polls have Flippo either up or trailing by several points. The Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. super PAC just dropped its first spending into the district in recent days, looking to boost Flippo who has self-funded a large part of his campaign.

Nevada Republicans — once bullish about flipping the Las Vegas-area 1st and 3rd Districts — are now paying increasing attention to Amodei’s Northern Nevada district. The economic headwinds that have hit farm states across the country have slammed Nevada’s so-called cattle counties, and demographic change in Reno has favored Democrats in recent years.

Amodei, who has refused to endorse Flippo, views him as entirely the wrong candidate for the district. Flippo is “somebody who air drops into the district,” Amodei said, “announces their intent, pulls out of another district in Las Vegas, within hours of when I said, ‘Hey, I think the time is right for me to retire.’” Amodei also questioned Flippo’s delays in filing his financial disclosures.

“It’s the cynical attitude towards the process to me that has just been staggering in terms of the end justifies the means,” Amodei added.

Amodei said he believes Republicans still have a shot at holding onto their House majority, and he’s told Speaker Mike Johnson he “sincerely” wants the Louisiana Republican to stay on as speaker next Congress.

But Amodei warned the larger landscape for House Republicans has turned darker, compared to a year ago when Republicans “were feeling pretty good, and the winds were at our back.”

“It’s gone,” he said, adding “the mood of the country right now does not feel warm.”

“There’s absolutely no, ‘Yeah, I’d rather be us than them,’” Amodei said. “It’s like everybody better button up their chin strap and be ready to play through the fourth quarter.”

Samuel Benson contributed to this report.