Congress

GOP’s reconciliation hopes are easier dreamt than done

Published

3 months ago

March 25, 2026

Republicans are hitting the gas on a new party-line policy bill. They are fully aware it might end up in the ditch.

The renewed push for budget reconciliation — spawned out of a Monday meeting between President Donald Trump and a group of GOP senators — marks the best shot Republicans have had in months to enact key agenda items without Democratic cooperation. House and Senate conservatives have clamored for a second attempt this Congress, following last summer’s tax-cuts-focused megabill, without much success.

But GOP leaders face a tall order in wrangling their thin margins and the hodgepodge of policy ideas already being pitched by their competing factions — or watching the effort collapse due to infighting.

Underscoring the massive challenge, some Republicans are stressing they aren’t committing to pass another bill under the reconciliation process — which could allow them to avoid a Democratic filibuster in the Senate — they are just promising to give it a try.

“The odds would be like 100 percent,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said in an interview about the chances Republicans will attempt another reconciliation bill. “Now, do we pass it?”

The latest vision for a GOP reconciliation bill would build the legislation around new funding for immigration enforcement that Democrats are refusing to pass, plus parts of the SAVE America Act — the Republican elections overhaul that doesn’t have a path to passing the Senate. GOP lawmakers believe incentives for states to adopt new policies such as voter ID rules could comply with the Senate’s strict rules for reconciliation.

“I would keep it as simple as possible so it could pass,” Johnson said.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said in an interview that keeping the bill narrow would help raise the odds that Republicans would be able to get something across the finish line.

“If you want to keep all of our members tight … we need to agree to the parameters and not allow scope creep,” Tillis said.

Keeping the scope of the reconciliation bill narrower would have an added political benefit for Senate Republicans — it would limit the slate of issues on which Democrats could force simple-majority votes as they try to squeeze vulnerable GOP incumbents just months before the midterms.

But there is already outright skepticism, and in some cases early signs of opposition, inside the Senate GOP. Republicans can lose up to three senators and still pass a party-line bill.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is facing a tough reelection bid, said she thought reconciliation was not a “good approach.” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a Budget Committee member who chairs the Republican Steering Committee, predicted it would be “very difficult” to get the votes and compared it to a “pipe dream.”

“You know me, I’m not a big fan of reconciliation,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) added when asked if she wanted to pursue a new party-line bill.

It’s not just the Senate where GOP leaders are facing an uphill battle to pass both a budget resolution — a key prerequisite for reconciliation — as well as the bill itself.

A big risk of pursuing a second reconciliation bill is House conservatives seeking to include potentially billions of dollars in cuts to the social safety net and other long-brewing proposals that will “scare the hell out of” vulnerable Republican lawmakers ahead of the midterms, according to one senior House GOP aide granted anonymity to speak candidly about the dynamics.

Even House GOP chatter about trying to add in extra Pentagon funding is sparking warnings from their Senate counterparts. One GOP senator, also granted anonymity to speak candidly, predicted that a heavy injection of defense spending could “kill the whole thing.”

Several House Republicans granted anonymity to speak candidly about the dynamics said they do not believe GOP leaders will be able to muster the multiple near-unanimous GOP votes needed to get another reconciliation bill through the House.

At a leadership meeting Tuesday, senior House Republicans voiced concerns about whether adding the SAVE America Act to a reconciliation bill would be a futile exercise, according to two people in the room.

That’s because of procedural reality: Most of the contentious elections bill won’t pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian, whose guidance on the reconciliation process is typically final.

The House Freedom Caucus called the Senate GOP plan “gaslighting” Tuesday morning. And Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said Tuesday that it’s “hard to imagine” how it could pass under the budget process.

“And by ‘hard’ I mean ‘essentially impossible,’” Lee added on X.

Republicans are discussing how they might induce states to implement some of the SAVE America Act’s voter ID requirements. Senate Budget Committee Republicans met Tuesday for what senators described as a meeting to “touch gloves” as members plotted how to enact ICE funding and parts of the election bill. Senate Republicans also discussed pursuing another reconciliation bill during a closed-door lunch Tuesday.

House Administration Chair Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) separately circulated a list of proposals with key GOP offices on his side of the Capitol that would mandate or financially incentivize states to implement voter ID laws, require proof of citizenship for voter registration, share voter data with federal agencies for verification and conduct post-election audits, among other items, according to a document obtained by POLITICO.

Some of those items appeared unlikely to pass scrutiny with the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, whose rulings tend to be the final word on the reconciliation process.

GOP senators could overrule her, but Majority Leader John Thune vowed Tuesday that they would comply with her guidance. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) also batted away a question about overruling her, calling it a “hypothetical.”

But Republican leaders are otherwise being careful not to make any pronouncements about where the latest reconciliation push will end up. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said only that they are “looking at a lot of different options to see if we’ve got a consensus.”

Thune added that he would need to be “pretty sure” any proposal has the requisite 50 votes before the Senate embarked on the initial and time-consuming step of approving a budget resolution, which unlocks the reconciliation process.

“We’re just trying to make sure we keep our expectations realistic,” he said.

Congress

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

Published

2 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.”

Congress

Capitol agenda: House GOP races to make Recon 3.0 real

Published

3 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Republicans have eight days to prove Reconciliation 3.0 might actually happen.

The House returns Tuesday with only eight legislative days before they break again for the July 4 holiday. If members want a realistic chance at fulfilling their self-imposed timeline for advancing the legislation before the end of July — when they pause work again for another five weeks — they need to move fast.

That means assembling, and then adopting, a budget resolution — the first step in unlocking the filibuster skirting power of the reconciliation process. It took Republicans months to advance such a blueprint during their two earlier reconciliation efforts this Congress.

House GOP leaders are tentatively planning another senior-level reconciliation meeting for Wednesday, according to three people involved in the talks granted anonymity to discuss private plans.

Still, the House is coming back with several other moving items to deal with this week, including promised briefings on the president’s Iran deal and a major housing affordability package GOP leadership wants to clear as soon as Wednesday.

Reconciliation talks also come as President Donald Trump is expected to join the Senate’s GOP lunch Wednesday, where he’ll likely continue pushing the chamber to pass his SAVE America Act or attach pieces of the GOP elections bill to the party-line legislation (an idea one of the bill’s biggest backers, Sen. Mike Lee, spiked Sunday).

Republicans involved with Reconciliation 3.0 discussions also warn they need to reach a final agreement on how to pay for the bill as well as what policy items will be included before GOP leaders can try to advance any budget resolution.

At this point, however, many fiscal hawks and at-risk incumbents are largely unhappy about how the discussions are coming along.

“It’s fake pay-fors for defense spending no one has fully agreed to and no meaningful reforms,” said one House Republican granted anonymity to discuss private talks.

Back on the other side of the Capitol, GOP senators have been in no rush to start working on a third party-line bill, especially as they are consumed with other political fires — like trying to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence to speed up a FISA reauthorization (more on that below).

Rep. Morgan Griffith said he was confident if the right policies are included in the House plan the Senate would then take it up — although he, too, acknowledged the challenges of a short timeline.

“If we do it right, yeah,” Griffith said. “There’s some interesting things out there that are being discussed that could make it a real possibility.”

What else we’re watching:

— OBAMA’S FEROCIOUS IRAN CRITIC SOFTER ON TRUMP DEAL: Tom Cotton, the No. 3 Senate Republican and chair of the chamber’s Intelligence panel, is not alone among GOP defense hawks in finding himself in an awkward position trying to defend Trump’s Iran deal after lambasting President Barack Obama’s a decade before. But the combination of his prior ferocity toward the Iranian regime and his current leadership responsibilities have put him into an especially tight spot.

— FIRST IN IC: DEMS WANT MORE OF JACK SMITH’S REPORT: Senate Judiciary Democrats are asking a federal court to unseal part of former special counsel Jack Smith’s report about his investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents after his first term. The request from the Senators comes as the Judiciary Committee is poised to call Smith to testify about his Biden-era cases before the end of this Congress. Republicans in the House and Senate have been investigating Smith’s work, alleging it amounted to a weaponization of the federal government against the then ex-president.

Jordain Carney and Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report.

Congress

A rising populist tide is threatening New York’s powerful incumbents

Published

5 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

NEW YORK — Incumbents beware: The public is angry.

As voters across the country express frustration with the political establishment, congressional hopefuls are seeing a prime opportunity to tap into a movement with the potential to manifest a handful of upsets in New York’s primary elections.

The dynamic is playing out in intraparty electoral brawls across the state, where the outcomes will shape the political future for Democrats and Republicans alike.

In upper Manhattan and the Bronx, Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat is trying to fend off a stiff challenge from community organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier, who’s running with the backing of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani — a democratic socialist who channeled populist fervor in his successful bid last year.

Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, Rep. Nydia Velazquez’s preferred successor, is squaring off against first-term Assemblymember Claire Valdez, another hopeful backed by Mamdani. Like the mayor, both Valdez and Avila Chevalier are members of the Democratic Socialists of America.

And in the upstate New York fight to replace GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik, Republican Assemblymember Robert Smullen — running with the backing of the state party — is locked in a caustic battle with Anthony Constantino, President Donald Trump’s endorsed candidate.

Candidates with scant political experience are channeling the public’s exasperated mood with the expectation that restive voters will reward them. Populist anger over rising prices and Washington leadership have provided an opening to outsiders promising a new path. And this combination has created one of the most perilous political environments for incumbents since Trump’s first presidential victory a decade ago stoked an anti-establishment fire that’s burning brighter than ever.

“If you’re perceived as being part of the status quo, then you’ve got a problem,” said Republican pollster John McLaughlin. “Regardless of which party, if you’re perceived as bringing about change you’ll win. If you’re inside the beltway you’re not talking to normal people.”

New York’s closed party primary battles are a window into the broader challenges facing incumbents across the country at a time of sustained grievance over affordability and hardening partisanship. At the same time, voters are increasingly willing to be unfazed by a candidate’s baggage — be it Graham Platner in Maine or Avila Chevalier’s tweets criticizing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It paints a picture of an electorate that’s willing to embrace flawed candidates, reject a political establishment they believe has failed to deliver on their promises and eager to send a message to their perceived enemies.

“We’re in a negative partisan environment and one of the most negative partisan environments we’ve ever witnessed,” Democratic former Rep. Steve Israel said. “People will overlook blemishes in their party in order to meet the existential goal of beating the other party. That creates openings for outsiders to come in with tattoos and old social media posts.”

The mood is reflected in the polling. A statewide Siena University survey released last month found a plurality of voters, 48 percent, believe New York is heading in the wrong direction. A sizable majority — 65 percent — said the country is on the wrong track.

Cost-of-living concerns, which enabled Trump’s White House return two years ago, continue to be a major factor in global elections. In the UK, affordability woes over housing and utility rates have put the ruling Labour Party on its backfoot and threaten to short-circuit Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s tenure.

Rising gas prices in the U.S. following Trump’s decision to launch a war against Iran have kept inflation stubbornly high, teeing up what’s expected to be a difficult GOP midterm. And while Democrats are feeling bullish about their prospects this November, they’re still dealing with their own, often vast, intraparty differences of opinion.

That’s especially apparent in New York, where both the leaders of the House and Senate could be situated if the Democrats have blowout wins this year. But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — both from Brooklyn — are not necessarily being welcomed with open arms. Some leading congressional candidates have declined to commit to supporting Jeffries as speaker if Democrats take back the House, yet another sign of hopefuls attempting to ride an anti-incumbent — and anti-establishment — sentiment.

At a debate earlier this month, the question of backing Jeffries as speaker revealed a stark contrast between Valdez and Reynoso: the former said she’s not committed to voting yes or no, while Reynoso said he would because if one doesn’t, you “become a pariah in Congress” and “won’t get any resources” into the district.

Schumer is on even shakier ground. In debates over recent weeks, when asked if they’re in favor of the 75-year-old running for reelection in 2028, many candidates in competitive races said outright that they’re not, or dodge the question. The Siena University poll released in May found Schumer’s favorable rating with New York voters statewide at only 33 percent. A majority of voters, 52 percent, hold an unfavorable view of the longtime senator — including 40 percent of Democrats.

Former city Comptroller Brad Lander, who’s waging a formidable challenge against Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman, often argues that his campaign is to enact “bold new leadership” (despite a long career in city politics). In response to a question about Schumer running for reelection, he said, “It’s time for a new leadership in the Democratic Party.” Goldman, for his part, said: “We’ll deal with that when the time comes.”

Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of the city chapter of the DSA, said that “a key factor is seeing the failures of the Democratic Party to stop Donald Trump two elections now.” In previous cycles, he added, it felt like “a lot of people were not in the fight.”

“The national political situation has changed that for so many people, and that’s what created this hunger,” Gordillo said.

Voters’ willingness to buck incumbents has been long-simmering — and reached a boiling point in last year’s mayoral election after Mamdani, then a member of the Assembly, ran as an outsider to topple both embattled then-Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“Coming off of a year when so many Democratic voters felt so cynical and disaffected by the Democratic Party, there were glimmers of hope in New York when someone like Zohran was elevated, to show, ‘Okay, we can transform this party by transforming leadership,’” said Usamah Andrabi, communications director for Justice Democrats, the progressive group that helped boost the Squad. “Our job is to take that momentum from Zohran’s victory and show voters you don’t have to stop here.”

The group is backing Valdez and recruited Avila Chevalier, who seemed like a gamble just weeks ago as the race was still flying under the radar. And while that campaign is still expected to be a tough battle, the suddenly high-profile nature of the race — sparked by Mamdani’s endorsement of Avila Chevalier and millions of dollars in spending from pro-Espaillat entities — is evidence that it was at least worth a shot for Justice Democrats, which had a brutal 2024 cycle when Reps. Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri were both defeated in primaries.

The power of incumbency has for years made knocking out officeholders an uphill battle. And for retiring incumbents, that power would almost guarantee their hand-picked successor would follow them. But even that’s not enough this cycle, as evidenced in the crowded primary for outgoing Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler’s seat, which has been anything but a glide path for his heir apparent, state Assemblymember Micah Lasher. His opponents have sought to frame themselves as “outsiders” — even if many of them do have political ties — from fellow Assemblymember Alex Bores’ assertion that he’s a victim of Big Tech’s ire to Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg’s argument that he’s not beholden to any super PACs.

Still, some contend that experience is needed in this political climate. A super PAC backing Reynoso recently put out advertisements positioning him as someone “ready to fight back” — compared to Valdez, who has “barely a year in office.” Goldman has repeatedly made the argument that his seniority in Congress is too much to give up, arguing that Lander would be a “rookie” on Blue Light News, where legislating is more difficult given the partisan divides. And in a recent debate, Espaillat charged that Avila Chevalier “doesn’t know legislation.”

”This is a critical time in America,” Espaillat said. ”We need a fighter, somebody that really knows government.”

In New York and across the country, the playing field has been leveled significantly between incumbents and political newcomers — thanks in large part to social media turbocharging fundraising and widespread voter dissatisfaction.

Further complicating matters is partisan redistricting creating fewer swing seats, but increasingly deep blue or ruby red districts where the more competitive race is often the primary.

“You just have to care about not pissing off Trump if you’re a Republican,” former GOP Rep. John Katko said. “If you’re a Democrat you have to worry about not upsetting the far left. The cards are so stacked because of gerrymandering.”