Congress
Head of federal workers’ union talks shutdown strategy with top Dems
The head of the largest federal employees’ union talked with top Democratic congressional leaders about his organization’s calls for Democrats to shore up the votes to end the government shutdown.
“I won’t get into individual conversations, but they’re very well aware of why I’ve taken the stance that I’ve taken,” AFGE president Everett Kelley said in an interview with Blue Light News’s Dasha Burns.
He was responding to the question of whether he had spoken to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer or senior Hill Democrats about AFGE’s statement last week asking Democrats to pass the GOP-led government funding patch. The statement from the organization, which represents over 800,000 federal workers, made waves, and sparked speculation about whether Democrats were nearing a point where they would have to cave under the weight of mounting political pressure.
Rank-and-file senators are engaged in bipartisan talksin an effort to break the logjam but they won’t be able to come to any agreement before Congress breaks the record Tuesday evening for the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Senate Democrats are still seeking a deal on health care as a condition of lending their votes to reopen the government.
Schumer told reporters last week he’d told Kelley “we can do both,” referring to both the fight for health care and for federal workers.
Kelley demurred about whether his relationship with Schumer, Jeffries and others could be harmed by his union’s position.
“Hopefully we are still friends and we’re still allies,” he said.
Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz is still optimistic that his twice-delayed markup on artificial intelligence legislation will happen before the midterms — and that the centerpiece bill will be a yet-to-be-finalized bipartisan measure to stave off catastrophic risks posed by the evolving technology.
“It’s still my hope to have an AI markup this session,” the Texas Republican told reporters Wednesday.
Cruz added that senators are “actively negotiating through provisions” in a proposal from Majority Leader John Thune and Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota to establish guardrails for the most powerful models.
“My hope is that we will get bipartisan agreement and be able to move the bill,” he continued. “We’re not there yet, but we’re making progress.”
He declined to elaborate on sticking points.
Cruz had been eyeing July for an AI markup but he postponed it by a week, only to then postpone it again and proceed with consideration of only bills related to kids’ online safety. But Cruz is facing new pressure after AI safety researchers and CEOs from the leading labs have over the past week warned that humans are at risk of extinction if the technological advancements remain unchecked.
The Senate is due to recess at the end of the month until after the November elections, however, so time is running out for action. One Senate Commerce Committee Republican, granted anonymity to speak candidly, expressed doubt on the panel holding a markup before the break, noting that the Thune-Klobuchar bill isn’t yet finalized.
Earlier in the day Wednesday, Thune told reporters that he was unsure that the Commerce Committee markup would happen this month, noting other committee activity is possible.
“Well, I don’t know if the markup does, but I think there are going to be a number of formats where folks are going to sit down and sort of hack out what our role ought to be and what the real threat looks like, how serious it is and all that,” he said of the ongoing debate over how involved Congress should be in regulating the AI industry.
Thune also said it “remains to be seen” if senators would receive an AI briefing of some kind in the coming days. “I think there are going to be a number of things done at the committee level.”
Sens. John Curtis (R-Utah) and Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), both members of the Commerce Committee, on Wednesday issued a statement calling for “immediate public hearings” on AI.
Senators are discussing avenues for action on AI the same day House Speaker Mike Johnson announced he was sending lawmakers home a day early for the pre-midterms recess — after already canceling the last scheduled two weeks of session.
A key House Republican working on AI legislation, Rep. Jay Obernolte of California, is now looking to November for a hearing and markup on his bipartisan AI safety bill with Rep. Lori Trahan(D-Mass.), as House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) seemed to throw cold water on the idea the bill could move this year during the Blue Light News Decoded summit earlier in the day.
“Yeah, we’ll see,” Obernolte said in response. “[Guthrie] was noncommittal, as he ought to be, but he certainly didn’t say that it wasn’t going to be this year.”
Jordain Carney and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.
House Oversight Chair James Comer has introduced legislation that would ensure survivors of sexual abuse can speak freely about their experiences, even if they signed a nondisclosure agreement.
The measure comes the day after the Kentucky Republican’s panel voted to recommend the House hold billionaire investor Leon Black in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over all of his non-disclosure agreements related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
It’s also the first piece of legislation Comer has produced as a direct result of the committee’s ongoing Epstein investigation. Members have been working for over a year to collect information about the web of powerful people who may have enabled Epstein to prey on young women and girls for years without consequence.
In all, the Oversight Committee has facilitated 19 depositions and transcribed interviews of individuals with ties to Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is now in federal prison.
“The federal government for decades failed the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes,” Comer said in a statement. “We sadly cannot undue the harm and abuse inflicted upon these women. However, we have an obligation to take action to reform our laws to ensure survivors are protected and abusers can be held accountable.”
Comer also said members have, through their investigation, “learned how powerful men weaponized nondisclosure agreements to silence survivors of sexual abuse,” inspiring him to introduce legislation called the Survivor’s Voice Protection Act.”
The bill would, specifically, render a non-disclosure agreement “void and unenforceable” in instances where it would prevent people, including victims of alleged sexual abuse, from disclosing information about it. It would apply retroactively to any non-disclosure agreements entered into prior to the bill becoming law.
The legislation also would establish a fiduciary responsibility to report grooming of a minor to law enforcement and defines the term as behavior directed toward a minor that is, among other things, “intended to establish an emotional connection with a minor through manipulation, trust building, or influence to facilitate future acts of sexual conduct or normalize or desensitize the minor to acts of sexual conduct, even if no in-person meeting or act of sexual conduct is completed, and includes directing or conspiring with another person to engage in such a course of conduct.”
Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday he is canceling planned Thursday votes and sending members home for a seven-week recess a day earlier than expected.
The decision lops another day off a pre-election legislative schedule that Johnson had already truncated by two weeks. It also allows members to avoid having to take a vote on an impeachment resolution introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) targeting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, which would have hit the floor no later than Thursday under House rules.
Leadership staffers indicated in a notice to members that other votes expected Thursday, on overturning some EPA regulations, would now take place Wednesday evening.
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