Congress

Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan launches PAC to boost ‘patriotic’ candidates

Published

1 year ago

September 25, 2025

ALBANY, New York — Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan wants to build a bench of patriot-leaders — and is planning to raise millions of dollars to do it.

The two-term House lawmaker is launching a political action committee today to elect candidates with public service backgrounds, including those with experience in the military, teaching or as first responders. The new group, called Patriot PAC, has the goal of raising more than $2 million for candidates this election cycle.

If successful, the project would help a national Democratic Party struggling to build back support among voters following Republican President Donald Trump’s return and a disastrous 2024 election cycle in which the GOP took total control of the federal government. Ryan wants Democrats to be seen as “the patriotic party, the party of service.”

“The Republican Party cannot make a claim on it anymore,” he said in an interview. “That creates not only an opportunity, but a need for the Democratic Party to assert what has always been foundational to us, which is that we are that party of selflessness and the common good.”

The group’s launch is spurring talk among his supporters that Ryan, a West Point grad and Army veteran, is eyeing statewide or federal office in the coming years after representing a purple-hued swing seat in New York’s Hudson Valley since 2022.

National Democrats are also taking notice of Ryan’s effort.

“People who have worn the uniform, who have worked in classrooms or hospitals, know what it means to sacrifice for something greater than themselves,” said Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a retired Army officer and potential presidential candidate, in a statement. “Our country needs more patriots in elected office, at every level.”

The PAC’s formation arrives at a precarious time for Democrats — especially in deep blue New York. Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s shocking primary win has sharply divided the party as left-leaning Democrats pressure moderates — including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries — to endorse. Some centrist Democrats worry Republicans will effectively leverage Mamdani’s hard-left policies against them in crucial races next year.

Ryan’s new group seeks to sidestep the ideological debate as Democratic voters urge their leaders to take an aggressive approach with Republicans.

Building broad support in the Empire State’s Democratic Party can be tricky, especially for upstate politicians who are relatively unknown in New York City. Ryan, though, is accustomed to making gutsy moves — comfortable with campaigning alongside lefty Democrats like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and working with centrists like Gov. Kathy Hochul.

A moderate, Ryan endorsed the front-running Mamdani’s mayoral campaign weeks before Hochul — a nod that included a fiery denunciation of Andrew Cuomo, who is polling consistently in second. Ryan was also among the first Democrats nationally to publicly urge Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential campaign following a disastrous debate performance last year.

Speaking with Blue Light News this week, Ryan demurred when asked if he has ambitions outside of his House seat.

“I really am worried and focused about the moment we’re in where there’s tremendous harm being done to my community, my district, my state and to my country,” he said. “The only way I know how to stop that is to put forward the best people. Literally, these elections in 2025 are going to be critical, the midterms are going to be important to check a lot of the overreach and the harm being done.”

Ryan’s PAC plans to endorse 50 New York-based candidates around the state. They include Hempstead Supervisor candidate Joe Scianablo, a Marine veteran and retired NYPD officer. In the Buffalo suburbs, he’s backing Amherst town supervisor candidate Shawn Levin, who serves in the Air National Guard. Another endorsement will go to Jackie Salvatore, a candidate for Columbia County sheriff. (She would become the first woman of color elected sheriff in New York.) And in New York City, he will endorse Council Member Rita Joseph, a former public school teacher.

Next year during the midterm elections, the PAC plans to endorse 250 candidates across the country.

The group follows a prior effort Ryan started in 2021 while he was the Ulster County executive to support locally elected Democrats. The PAC’s launch will be followed in October by a statewide tour of New York — a swing through the Empire State that stands to lift his otherwise low profile with voters outside his House district.

“No amount of money will change the fact that any Democrat who accepts funding from an open-borders, Mamdani-supporting radical like Pat Ryan will be tied to those policies and will have to defend them in the general election,” said state GOP spokesperson David Laska.

Ryan’s effort coincides with a PAC launched earlier this year by Rep. Elise Stefanik, who’s supporting down-ballot GOP candidates in local races and is a likely Republican opponent against Hochul next year.

Key powerbrokers in New York, eager for a Democrat who represents and understands voters outside of wealthy coastal areas, are closely watching Ryan’s effort to politically branch out.

“Pat Ryan has a future in the Democratic Party,” said John Samuelsen, the president of the Transport Workers Union International. “He’s an antidote to much of what’s plagued the Democrats.”

Samuelsen, an outspoken labor leader who has feuded with some Democrats he considers insufficiently pro-union, praised Ryan’s support for bills his union pressed federal lawmakers to pass.

“He’s an American patriot, he’s an economic populist, he’s 100 percent pro-trade union. That’s the secret sauce for all Democrats,” Samuelsen said.

Samuelsen, though, did not want to get crosswise with Hochul — or suggest Ryan should challenge her next year.

“I would hate to see him in a confrontation with Kathy Hochul — there’s room enough for both of them in the Democratic Party,” he said.

Ryan’s sprawling upstate House seat is a mix of rural communities, small cities and suburban towns, the kind of geographic regions where Democrats nationally have struggled to succeed.

He drew notice in his first House campaign — waged in the summer that Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court — by framing his vocal support for abortion rights as a matter of freedom and liberty. In the House, Ryan champions customers being ripped off by utilities and fans’ headaches over livestreamed sports — seemingly quotidian consumer concerns that resonate in a political era in which “affordability” is a crucial watchword.

Since Trump’s victory, Ryan has urged Democrats to embrace a “patriotic populism” to counteract the president’s MAGA movement. He handily won reelection last year, outpacing Kamala Harris and defeating Republican Alison Esposito, a former NYPD lieutenant.

Ryan’s success in a battleground House seat comes from being authentic, a crucial coin of the realm in today’s politics, said former Rep. Max Rose, a moderate Staten Island Democrat.

“I know a lot of politicians. I’ve served with some, had drinks with others, most of them are fake and completely void of character,” Rose said. “Pat’s a genuinely good person and he’s the same person privately as he is publicly. I’m proud that he’s able to focus part of his efforts on finding other Pats.”

Congress

Sanders, AOC, Merkley propose bill to ban Flock cameras

Published

2 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on Friday released text of legislation intended to ban the use of Flock surveillance cameras and other license plate readers.

Flock has faced severe public backlash against the surveillance technology following reports that police officers misused the technology to track women, and it has the largest network of license plate readers across the U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) hosted a hearing last month probing its potential misuses, although the company’s CEO Garrett Langley did not appear.

The latest bill, unveiled Friday and named the Ban Flock Act, would bar federal agencies from using automated license plate readers or accessing data from the technology and prevent federal grants from funding states and local governments that use automated license plate readers.

“At a time of growing concern about the unchecked power of artificial intelligence, Flock is eviscerating the very notion of privacy by installing tens of thousands of cameras in communities across America without their consent,” Sanders, who has positioned himself as a leading progressive voice on AI technology, said in a statement. “We cannot allow America to become a surveillance state where a handful of AI oligarchs profit by giving the government the power to track our every movement.”

Ocasio-Cortez similarly condemned the surveillance capabilities of the technology and said the bill would “enforce our constitutional right to privacy and protect Americans from both corporate and government surveillance.”

“No one should have this unchecked surveillance power at their fingertips,” Merkley added.

Republicans have introduced similar efforts to regulate license plate readers, such as Hawley’s Stop Flock Abuse Act, which would require audits and limits on unauthorized searches.

Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Dems spend big to help Hakeem’s dream

Published

5 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats watching Speaker Mike Johnson deal with a chaotically slim majority have seen enough — and they’re trying to avoid the same fate.

The party is investing in deep-red districts that could pad a future majority and strengthen the hand of Hakeem Jeffries, who’s widely favored as speaker if Democrats win the chamber in November.

“Another five-or-so-seat buffer would be a game-changer,” said one senior House Democrat, who like others in this report was granted anonymity to discuss internal party dynamics. That lawmaker added it would help Jeffries “rise above some of the incoming bullshit he’s going to have to deal with.”

Every extra seat would help Jeffries secure the speaker’s gavel without having to make concessions to the two clashing blocs within his party: progressives and moderates.

Recent spending reflects these ambitions. Since the start of August, Democratic-aligned groups and candidates have spent or committed more than $73 million in ad dollars to GOP-held districts that President Donald Trump won by at least 10 points in 2024, according to a Blue Light News review of data from AdImpact. The NewDem Action Fund, the political arm of the centrist New Democrat Coalition, is spending in some even redder districts.

“Every single endorsed candidate supports Hakeem Jeffries for speaker of the House,” said the fund’s chair, Rep. Greg Stanton. “We will be a strong governing partner with Hakeem Jeffries to make sure that his speakership is as successful as possible.”

Tight majorities are misery-makers for speakers. Before Johnson, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave numerous concessions to his party’s right flank to assume the role — only to later be ousted by those same lawmakers. And former Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to cut a deal with moderates to secure her post in 2018 by promising to limit her leadership term.

Even with the gavel secured, a speaker has more flexibility to manage the floor if he or she can let some party colleagues peel off on tough votes.

Progressive challengers ousted a handful of Democratic incumbents in primaries this year, and they could adopt tactics from the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus if Democrats win just a narrow majority.

Meanwhile, newly elected moderates, particularly from rural districts that swung heavily for Trump in 2024, could end up as a bigger problem for Jeffries — as they were for Pelosi when she was speaker.

What else we’re watching:

— HAWLEY’S POPULIST AI REBELLION: Sen. Josh Hawley’s push against artificial intelligence is placing an unmistakable marker for anti-tech rhetoric in the 2028 campaign among ambitious Republicans. Hawley’s call for AI safety legislation this week — including imposing corporate liability when AI causes harm — contrasts with Trump’s favoring of voluntary standards and exposes the growing rift between Republicans on how to respond to the technology. But Hawley’s influence is poised to expand as more Republicans start to echo his tone.

— GOP ADS SPUR CORPORATE HEARTBURN: A series of TV campaign ads this midterms season has highlighted a growing reality: On the right it’s become increasingly in vogue to bash big business. The ascendancy of Trump has ushered in a new era of skepticism toward multinational corporations in a party traditionally known as corporation-friendly. That puts big financial services firms, health insurance companies and tech titans — the subjects of the hottest rhetoric — at risk for becoming high-profile political punching bags for Republican 2028 presidential hopefuls.

Andrew Howard, Meredith Lee Hill, Riley Rogerson, Jessica Piper, John Hendel, Jasper Goodman and Victoria Guida contributed to this report.

Congress

The low-profile Democrat helping shape her party’s AI agenda

Published

8 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

As Democrats scramble to create a viable plan to regulate artificial intelligence, one little-known lawmaker is playing a major behind-the-scenes role in shaping her party’s approach to the technology.

Rep. Valerie Foushee, a North Carolina Democrat in her second term, is one of three co-chairs of a commission tasked by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to generate AI policy recommendations.

It’s a position that has given her significant power to mold Democrats’ thinking on the rapidly evolving issue, even as her fellow commission members cut more public personas through regular appearances at news conferences and in media hits: Rep. Ted Lieu of California is vice-chair of the House Democratic Caucus, while Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey has built a reputation as a self-styled moderate dealmaker.

In an interview earlier this week, Foushee said the commission has submitted a “first draft” of its much-anticipated recommendations to Jeffries. And while Jeffries will ultimately provide feedback to inform the final report, she said she would push for there to “always be a human element” in any AI regulatory framework, with civil rights and liberties at the center.

“We have seen evidence of how technology can be used for discrimination,” said Foushee. “We’ve seen how some groups have been excluded.”

A member of the Congressional Black Caucus who also associates with both the Congressional Progressive Caucus and centrist New Democrat Coalition, Foushee is representative of a broad, mainstream swath of House Democrats that has yet to stake a clear position on AI. And her vision for an AI regulatory model that keeps humans in control and builds in civil rights protections could provide a blueprint for her party.

She doesn’t want to stifle innovation, she explained; rather, “my focus is to make sure that we’re not leaving anybody behind.”

Foushee said she didn’t set out to lead on AI policy, but joined a bipartisan AI task force in the previous Congress given her seat on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

Since the task force released its recommendations in December 2024, House Republican leaders considered its mission complete, according to a senior GOP leadership aide granted anonymity to describe internal conversations. So when Speaker Mike Johnson opted not to reconstitute the panel in January 2025, Jeffries created his Democrat-only commission to fill that void, tapping Foushee as one of its commissioners.

“I was glad to be one of those that the leader thought might be helpful in leading us into the future,” she said. “So I don’t know if I would say that I was, you know, moved to do it, but certainly happy to do my part.”

Lieu, in a statement, called Foushee “unwavering in her commitment to ensuring AI systems don’t harm civil rights and equal opportunity.”

“I visited Val’s district earlier this year,” he continued, “and saw firsthand how effectively she works with local stakeholders to address the threats and unlock the possibilities of AI in her community.”

Foushee represents parts of the so-called Research Triangle encompassing Durham and Chapel Hill — the homes of Duke University and the University of North Carolina, where AI technologies are being studied. Her state is also a major hub for data centers powering the AI boom.

In her work with Lieu and Gottheimer, Foushee said “we’re all involved in everything” and that “you might say we’ve grown on each other.” Her main area of interest, though, has been to elevate civil rights and liberties protections.

She has introduced multiple bills to that end. One piece of legislation would require people to be told about when they are engaging with a chatbot instead of a human. Another would seek to expand participation in the AI research, education and workforce development among Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other minority-serving institutions.

Foushee’s work on the commission is also being informed by her regular engagement with each of the major AI labs. In her eyes, Anthropic has been the most receptive to regulatory measures while others have favored more “pro-innovation” policies.

She was adamant, however, that Anthropic was in no way influencing the AI policies she could soon be shopping to colleagues — even though a political action committee funded by Anthropic executives spent a little over a million dollars to support her in a competitive primary earlier this year.

“Let me just say to you that no one should be worried or concerned,” Foushee said. “My work on AI has always been focused on establishing guardrails and holding corporations accountable. There is nothing that you will see in any legislation that I have introduced, led, co-led, or co-sponsored that has not been towards holding corporations accountable and protecting the American public.”

In any event, Foushee said she has had no direct outreach from Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, since he led calls last month for a slowdown of advanced AI development amid warnings it could soon pose an imminent threat to human civilization.

“When … you’re not allowing for the engagement of members of Congress, and not even an opportunity to provide input or to be engaged in the conversation, it makes me wonder what those efforts are about,” said Foushee.

A spokesperson for Anthropic did not return a request for comment, while Nate Evans, a spokesperson for OpenAI, said the company was “deeply engaged with Congress on federal policy to advance AI safety, through dozens of meetings in recent weeks with members of both parties in both chambers.”

Representatives from Anthropic and OpenAI also briefed members of the Science Committee in mid-September.

All three commission co-chairs have been tight-lipped about what their AI recommendations could entail — especially as lawmakers in both parties are beginning to sense real urgency to rein in the technology and are desperate for legislative solutions.

It also remains to be seen whether the forthcoming agenda will unify a party that has been largely aligned on the need for regulation but deeply split on the specifics.

Some progressives, led by Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar of Texas, support banning highly sophisticated AI systems and pausing AI development until a government-led vetting procedure can be implemented.

Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), meanwhile, has introduced what is currently one of the only comprehensive, bipartisan bills to regulate advanced AI models — but it stops significantly short of the pauses championed by progressives and opens a thorny debate about whether to preempt state AI laws with an overarching federal framework.

Foushee said she has not signed onto Casar’s proposal to ban superintelligence, explaining she has yet to review it. She did throw cold water on another progressive-led proposal to place a moratorium on data centers, saying it should be up to local jurisdictions whether to build the controversial, energy-sucking facilities.

She has not decided whether she will co-sponsor the bill Trahan painstakingly negotiated with California Republican Rep. Jay Obernolte. Members of both parties have been cautious to associate with the package given the hyper-partisan political environment, especially in the leadup to the midterms.

But Foushee said she supports holding a committee markup of the legislation, adding that when fellow Democrats ask her about the measure, she replies, “I’m not one to say that this member should or should not say or do this, that, or the other. I’m not hell bent on any one particular approach.”

Democrats “should continue to lead but it certainly does not mean to me that there should not be a bipartisan effort to put forward a framework,” said Foushee. “When indeed we are in the majority, then that is what we plan to do.”