Congress

DC officials protest House stopgap, claiming billion-dollar impact on city

Published

1 year ago

March 10, 2025

Top D.C. officials protested a House Republican-written funding patch outside the Capitol on Monday, saying the omission of routine language included in prior continuing resolutions could mean a de facto $1 billion budget cut for the city government.

Mayor Muriel Bowser — flanked by Democratic Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, members of the D.C. Council and other local officials — said the measure would force cuts to police, public schools, sanitation and other key city services if passed later this week.

Prior congressional stopgaps have included language allowing the city to continue raising and spending local funds under its most recent budget — in this case, for fiscal 2025 — while the federal government operates under the prior year’s levels. With the provision omitted this time, the city would be forced to revert to fiscal 2024 spending levels, requiring drastic cutbacks given the year-to-year rise in labor and other expenses. The city raises the majority of its revenue from local taxes and fees, not federal government subsidies.

“These are not savings for the federal government,” Bowser said. “This is simply damage to the District.” She added that it was a “$1.1 billion mistake.”

Bowser said she has been in touch with the White House staff, as well as Speaker Mike Johnson’s office about the omission of the language. D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson, a Democrat like Bowser, said he had spoken separately to senior Republican staff at the House Appropriations Committee, which drafted the bill.

Johnson plans to bring the measure to the floor Tuesday once it clears the House Rules Committee Monday night, where a fix could potentially be applied.

“What we think is, this was a mistake they don’t want to admit to,” Mendelson said. A spokesperson for Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the panel’s chair, did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Congress

Dershowitz to testify on Epstein ties

Published

57 minutes ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Alan Dershowitz is scheduled to speak with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on July 20 as part of its ongoing Jeffery Epstein investigation.

“I asked to be allowed to set the record straight and correct various misconceptions,” Dershowitz said in a text message. “I look forward to doing so.”

The prominent criminal defense attorney who once represented O.J. Simpson and President Donald Trump also worked on Epstein’s 2008 plea deal, which many have argued allowed Epstein — who died by suicide behind bars in 2019 — to continue to prey on young women and girls for another several years before his later incarceration.

The Oversight Committee is separately set Friday to interview investor Leon Black, whose business dealings with Epstein have been under congressional scrutiny for years.

Congress

Hegseth to brief House Republicans on White House goals for party-line package

Published

2 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is scheduled to give a classified briefing Wednesday to a group of House Republicans about the administration’s goals for military funding and another party-line reconciliation bill, according to three people granted anonymity to describe a private meeting.

The gathering will take place during the Republican Study Committee’s weekly lunch and be held in the House SCIF, underscoring the potentially sensitive nature of Hegseth’s planned presentation.

Lawmakers are expected to also press Hegseth on the agreement the Trump administration has reached with Iran to end the war.

Congress

Turek leads Hinson in Iowa Senate poll of likely general election voters

Published

7 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Iowa Democratic Senate nominee Josh Turek has a narrow lead over GOP rival Ashley Hinson in a new internal poll of likely general-election voters.

Turek leads Hinson 47 percent to 45 percent in the poll, conducted by Global Strategy Group from June 8-11 among 1,000 likely general election voters. The poll shows that Republicans have a 10-point edge in voter registration (42 percent to 32 percent) and an electorate that voted for Trump by 9 points (50 percent for Trump to 41 percent for Kamala Harris).

But the polling also shows President Donald Trump’s favorabilities underwater across the electorate, with 45 percent favorable and 52 percent unfavorable. Among registered independents, Trump is upside down 28 points.

Turek is “significantly outperforming the state’s underlying partisan dynamics,” Global Strategy Group’s Matt Canter & Ramzi Ebbini write in a memo first obtained by Blue Light News. “Republicans maintain substantial advantages in voter registration and party identification, yet Turek enters the general election ahead of Republican Ashley Hinson, with stronger personal favorability ratings, overperforming a generic Democrat, and with clear opportunities to expand his coalition as more voters become familiar with him.”

Some Republicans have acknowledged a concern about Iowa.

“There are some issues there that we got to deal with — the biggest one is trade — trade and tariffs,” said a Republican close to the White House, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the obstacles.

In his early general election messaging, Turek has leaned into farmers’ frustrations.

“Josh Turek is winning this race because Iowans are sick and tired of multi-millionaire politicians like Ashley Hinson who sell out working families while they get rich,” Turek for Iowa campaign manager Brendan Koch said in a statement first shared with Blue Light News. “We will spend the next 134 days connecting with Iowans in every corner of the state and across the political spectrum to send a fighter for the working class to the U.S. Senate.”