Congress

Democrats coalesce around insurance subsidies as shutdown demand, Neal says

Published

1 year ago

September 11, 2025

Top congressional Democrats have agreed on what they will demand of GOP leaders in return for voting to extend government funding this month: Any shutdown-averting deal needs to include health care provisions such as an extension of soon-to-expire insurance subsidies, one top lawmaker said.

Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the House’s top Democratic tax writer, described that ultimatum following a private huddle with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other party leaders.

“They’re on board” with the strategy, Neal said of Senate Democrats, including Schumer.

A Schumer spokesperson declined to address Neal’s specific claim. The Senate minority leader himself said Thursday after the meeting that Republicans need to come to the table for a “bipartisan negotiation” on health care or Democrats will not support a government funding bill.

“If they try to jam something down our throats without any compromise — without any bipartisan, real, bipartisan discussion — they ain’t going to get the votes, plain and simple,” Schumer said.

Neal argued that Congress can’t wait much longer to avert the expiration of enhanced tax subsidies that help about 20 million of Americans afford health care plans offered on exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act. People who receive that assistance are already being notified that the tax subsidies will end later this year, he said, with open enrollment for health insurance beginning in November.

“So you can have this huge spike in health care costs coupled with the subtraction of health care for millions of Americans,” Neal said, referring to Medicaid cuts in the GOP domestic policy bill passed in July. “And we have broad agreement that the health of the American people should be paramount in this debate.”

Both Schumer and Jeffries have already moved to make health care — notably the enhanced insurance subsidies created by the 2021 American Rescue Plan — their key demand. But there have been internal disputes over whether to make it an immediate ultimatum ahead of the Sept. 30 expiration of government funding or kick a showdown later into the year to allow for additional spending negotiations.

While there are some Republicans who support extending the subsidies, top Republican leaders in both chambers have ruled out including any such extension on the immediate stopgap expected to get taken up this month to avoid a shutdown next month.

They are dealing with hardening opposition among fiscal conservatives to continuing the enhanced subsidies. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the House Freedom Caucus, told reporters Thursday that his group has met and decided “we oppose these free giveaways to insurance companies.” He accused Democrats of wanting to bankroll “multi-billion-dollar” health care corporations.

Hill Democrats, meanwhile, have taken pains to stay on the same page on government funding after House Democrats almost universally opposed a GOP-backed funding bill last March that some Democratic senators ultimately voted to advance.

As top leaders move into a more confrontational posture, appropriators are seeking to continue bipartisan negotiations on fiscal 2026 funding. The House agreed Wednesday night to kick off formal talks between Republicans and Democrats on a narrow funding package.

That conference committee will attempt to strike a deal on a full year of updated funding levels for three of the 12 bills Congress has to clear each year to keep federal cash flowing. The departments of Agriculture and Veterans Affairs would be funded in that three-bill batch, along with the FDA, congressional operations and military construction projects.

But Democrats are warning that Republicans will need to give considerable ground in those negotiations.

“House Republicans are coming to the table with funding bills that are filled with extreme, reckless cuts and harmful riders that have been rejected on a bipartisan basis,” Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democratic appropriator, said on the House floor.

Meredith Lee Hill, Mia McCarthy and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

Congress

Sanders to rally for Troy Jackson in Maine

Published

3 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.

The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.

The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.

“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”

Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.

He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,

Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.

Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.

Congress

Hill: Trump’s ‘lack of favorability’ creating challenging politics

Published

3 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.

“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.

Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.

Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”

Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.

Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.

“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”

Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.

Congress

Sanders, AOC, Merkley propose bill to ban Flock cameras

Published

9 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.