Congress

Democrats wrestle with shutdown strategy

Published

11 months ago

July 21, 2025

Democrats on Capitol Hill are furious with the Trump administration and their Republican counterparts for undercutting government funding negotiations, but they aren’t showing a unified strategy for forcing the GOP to change course 10 weeks out from a shutdown deadline.

In the House, Republicans are ignoring Democratic priorities in government funding bills, moving forward with deep spending cuts and conservative policy riders — including to restrict abortions, block enforcement of a slew of gun regulations and snuff out federal hiring efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion.

In the Senate, Democrats have more leverage, where 60 votes will be needed to move forward and GOP leaders are already advancing funding bills with buy-in from across the aisle. But so far Democrats are stopping short of flashing the most powerful tool they have to ensure the end result is to their liking: threatening a shutdown come Oct. 1 if they don’t get their way.

Democrats can shame administration officials who are openly dismissing the need for bipartisanship in funding talks — and the Republicans backing them up. Yet Democrats have little power to ensure they get to shape whatever legislation Congress passes to keep federal cash flowing beyond September, or stop President Donald Trump from freezing, canceling and now clawing back funding Congress already approved.

“To be blunt, I don’t think there’s one tactic or approach that is going to solve this from any individual Democrat,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a top appropriator, said in an interview. “The Republicans have to decide whether they want to be totally lobotomized or not.”

The dynamic underscores the bind that Democrats could find themselves in once again, after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer took intense heat from across his party for helping pave the way for passage of Republicans’ government funding extension in March. And despite pressure to play hardball, Democrats at this moment are still searching for leverage.

“They’re just throwing stuff against the wall because they’re losing this fight,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said in an interview.

Democrats are talking openly about how they have few options for stopping Trump or his allies in Congress from driving all major government funding decisions and undermining the cash lawmakers already appropriated on a bipartisan basis. Since Senate Democrats went along with the March continuing resolution, Trump has continued to unilaterally slash broad swaths of the federal bureaucracy.

Last week, he successfully pushed Hill Republicans to approve $9 billion in funding clawbacks for foreign aid and local media — the first time Congress has approved a rescissions package in 30 years.

Some Republicans are sympathetic to the Democratic position that Trump and his White House budget chief, Russ Vought, are running roughshod over Congress’ “power of the purse” and should be challenged.

Two GOP senators — Appropriations Chair Susan Collins of Maine and another senior appropriator, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski — voted against Trump’s rescissions package. Several more voted “yes” but still spoke critically of the Trump administration’s unwillingness to detail specific accounts that will be cut, as well as the chilling effect the Republican clawbacks could have on bipartisan funding negotiations.

After Vought told reporters Thursday that “the appropriations process has to be less bipartisan,” Collins urged fellow appropriators that “the best way for us to counter what has been said by the OMB director is to continue to work in a bipartisan way. And I hope that we are going to do so.”

But Democrats need more than just Collins to come to the defense of Congress’ funding prerogative.

“We’ve got to work to make sure that there are several others on the other side of the aisle who have the stomach and the strength and the spine to stand up and say: ‘No, don’t take it away from the Congress. It’s our job,’” Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the House’s top Democratic appropriator, told reporters Thursday night before the House passed the package to nix $9 billion.

Democrats also need to help boost the legal fights against Trump’s funding moves, DeLauro added, as more than 100 of those lawsuits play out in courtrooms throughout the country.

As Democrats hope for a critical mass of Republicans willing to defy Trump, some are testing out a more hardline position of warning Republicans they could have to go at it alone in a funding fight this fall. In a joint statement after House Republicans cleared Trump’s recessions package just after midnight Friday, the House’s top three Democrats fired off a warning shot that pinned the onus on Republicans to avoid a funding lapse in the coming months.

“Tonight’s vote, coming hours after the Trump White House abandoned the bipartisan appropriations process, makes it clear that House Republicans are determined to march this country toward a painful government shutdown later this year,” said Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Whip Kathrine Clark and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar.

And Schumer said in a letter to his caucus earlier this month that Republicans “know it is absurd” to count on Democrats supporting the pursuit of fiscal 2026 funding bills if the GOP votes along party lines to delete existing funding or pile on more cash. That’s what Republicans did in boosting military and border security budgets through their tax and spending megabill Trump signed on July 4.

But Schumer also stopped short of delivering a clear threat ahead of the September shutdown deadline. And Democrats aren’t yet willing to give up on funding negotiations with their GOP colleagues, even after Republicans ignored their warnings about eroding trust in bipartisan talks by backing the clawbacks package last week.

In fact, Democratic appropriators are largely leaning in, especially in the Senate, where GOP leaders plan to bring bipartisan funding measures to the floor as soon as this week.

“I think the most important thing for us to do is to continue to move the appropriations process as expeditiously as we can, to try and find bipartisan agreement,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), a top appropriator, said in an interview, “because it’s in everybody’s interest to do this and to move forward.”

Cassandra Dumay and Calen Razor contributed to this report.

Congress

Mamdani-backed socialist ousts Espaillat in NY-13

Published

6 hours ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

NEW YORK — Darializa Avila Chevalier has ousted five-term House member Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in a massive victory for the Democratic Socialists of America.

Her win marks another rebuke of the Democratic establishment in New York following Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral election last year, cementing the DSA as one of the city’s most potent political forces. The upset reflects a political climate in which voters have become increasingly willing to cast aside longtime incumbents in favor of outsiders promising change.

Avila Chevalier focused much of her campaign on attacking Espaillat for accepting donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and real estate interests during his career.

“I really feel that this is a fight to make sure that we are representing working-class New Yorkers who have been left behind by a politics that only serves the interests of corporations, of corporate landlords, of special interest groups that are making life in New York deeply unaffordable for so many,” Avila Chevalier said last month, during an appearance with Mamdani on MS NOW where the mayor endorsed her campaign.

Espaillat, who is the first formerly undocumented person to serve in Congress, came up short despite having the support of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York Attorney General Letitia James and New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin.

Avila Chevalier, 32, was a leading organizer in the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University in 2024 and is a sociology Ph.D. student at the CUNY Graduate Center. She has served as an investigator for a public defender’s office and is originally from South Florida.

For most of the race, Espaillat was widely viewed as the favorite, but Mamdani’s late May endorsement of Avila Chevalier jolted a contest that began to show signs it was tightening. An April poll from Avila Chevalier’s campaign showed her down 14 points.

Her victory came despite intense outside spending in support of Espaillat, including from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ campaign arm.

Avila Chevalier’s election to New York’s 13th district also shows a changing of the guard in Upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx. Espaillat has served at the helm of a political alliance, known as the “Squadriano,” that has ruled over those areas of the city, home to large Dominican American and African American populations.

At times during the race, Espaillat and his supporters sought to frame the primary battle as a contest between gentrifiers and long-term residents.

“Those that choose or want to parachute in, after the men and women of this city, the working men and women of the city, have built our neighborhood, we’re gonna send them back home packing wherever they came from,” the 71-year-old member of Congress said last month.

The story of his political ascendance and reign in Upper Manhattan has also been characterized by an intense rivalry with Manhattan Democratic Party Chair Keith Wright, an ally of the late Rep. Charles Rangel, whom Espaillat challenged for Congress in 2012 and 2014.

But this year’s primary seems to have calmed the bitter rivalry between Espaillat and Wright amid the encroachment of the Democratic Socialists of America on disputed turf. Earlier this month, Espaillat endorsed Wright’s son , state Assemblymember Jordan Wright, who was also facing a DSA-backed challenger.

The peace pact wasn’t enough to fend off the challenge from Avila Chevalier, who seized on a progressive swing in the district ever since Mamdani handily beat former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the mayoral primary there.

“We have come a long way from where we used to be as a party,” Mamdani said in the interview where he announced his endorsement of Avila Chevalier. “It’s time we have a new generation that not only takes us back to that ambition, but takes us forward to the tomorrow that so many New Yorkers are waiting for.”

Congress

Former Utah Rep. Ben McAdams is on track to return to Congress

Published

6 hours ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Former Rep. Ben McAdams won his primary Tuesday, paving the way for his return to Congress.

McAdams, a moderate, staved off a roster of progressive challengers in Utah’s newly redrawn 1st District, a rare deep-blue Salt Lake City district in a deep-red state that came as a result of a messy, decadelong redistricting saga.

McAdams will enter November as the heavy favorite in a district former Vice President Kamala Harris won by nearly 24 points in 2024.

McAdams won a GOP-leaning seat in the 2018 Democratic wave and governed as a centrist, Blue Dog Democrat who pushed for a balanced budget amendment — but he lost his reelection bid in 2020. He was one of the first Democrats to signal interest in running in the new 1st District and quickly garnered support from Utah elected officials and national centrist Democrats.

His progressive opponents attempted to paint him as too conservative, pointing to his previous mixed record on abortion. One opponent, state Sen. Nate Blouin, called on the other candidates to consolidate their support behind one person to avoid splitting the progressive vote. None agreed, and McAdams — who raised more money than the three other Democrats combined — prevailed.

Congress

Trump’s preferred candidate wins primary to succeed Elise Stefanik

Published

6 hours ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

ALBANY, New York — President Donald Trump’s preferred candidate to succeed Rep. Elise Stefanik cruised to victory in his Republican primary Tuesday evening.

Anthony Constantino, the CEO of custom sticker company Sticker Mule, defeated Assemblymember Robert Smullen, a retired Marine colonel, for the nomination in a deep red upstate New York House district.

Trump, along with MAGA figures Roger Stone and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, backed Constantino’s bid, casting aside Smullen’s endorsement from the New York Republican Committee.

Constantino’s victory underscores the power of Trump’s endorsement in a district he has won during each of his three presidential campaigns. His win also highlights how a candidate who’s fashioned himself in a MAGA mold can continue to resonate in a largely rural and predominantly white district that has struggled economically for decades.

A former boxer, Constantino has dabbled in music, producing songs that praise Trump. He initially drew Stone’s attention after erecting a large “Vote for Trump” sign on a building in Amsterdam, N.Y., a city less than an hour west of Albany. Constantino also gifted Trump a bronze statue in the president’s likeness.

The circus-like primary became a bruising battle between a first-time candidate who channeled Trump-style promotion and attacks against an establishment favorite with a long, accomplished resume.

Constantino referred to Smullen as “Slime Bob” and called him “evil” in a text message to his rival. Smullen, in turn, called Constantino “unfit” and knocked his prior enrollment as a Democrat.

The race became so bitter that Smullen refused to shake Constantino’s hand at the conclusion of their only televised debate.

Constantino poured $10 million of his own money into the race and spent more than $3.8 million on TV ads, saturating upstate media market airwaves. Smullen’s campaign spent a fraction of that amount, more than $500,000 in ad spending, according to the tracking firm AdImpact.

The sticker impresario also displayed a marketing flare, printing t-shirts that touted his Trump endorsement.

Smullen leaned heavily on his biography and background as a combat Marine. But he often found himself responding — sometimes angrily — to Constantino’s barrage of attacks.

Constantino will now have to make peace with some New York power brokers as he pivots to the general election. Smullen is set to remain on the November ballot with the backing of the state Conservative Party’s ballot line. Constantino is being sued for defamation by that party’s leader, Jerry Kassar.

The House seat opened after Stefanik, who has represented the area for more than a decade, announced she would leave Congress after scuttling her gubernatorial campaign. Stefanik was previously Trump’s nominee for United Nations ambassador, but that was yanked amid concerns her vacancy would complicate the House Republicans’ narrow majority.

Stefanik did not endorse in the race to replace her.