Congress
House Budget Committee punts megabill vote as GOP leaders woo holdouts
House Republican leaders delayed a vote Friday morning to push their party-line tax and spending package through the Budget Committee amid ongoing GOP opposition.
To placate fiscal conservatives on the panel, Republican leaders are entertaining substantial changes to the bill before lawmakers are expected to vote on passage next week, including enforcing work requirements on Medicaid recipients earlier than the 2029 deadline in the bill and immediately revoking Medicaid benefits from undocumented immigrants. Top House GOP lawmakers plan to continue private talks with the White House and reluctant Republicans, after late-night negotiations ahead of the budget panel’s markup.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a key holdout, said during the Friday markup that “this bill falls profoundly short.”
“It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits,” Roy said. “The fact of the matter is this bill has back-loaded savings and has front-loaded spending. … And I’m not going to sit here and say that everything is hunky-dory when this is the Budget Committee. This is the Budget Committee!”
House Republican leaders are talking to the Biden administration about imposing Medicaid work requirements in 2027 or earlier, amid reluctance among White House officials to enforce those mandates before 2029, when the current presidency is over. Reps. Andrew Clyde of Georgia and Ralph Norman of South Carolina also said Friday they opposed the bill as written.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in a brief interview Friday morning that White House officials “recognize that our members want to see this moved quicker. They do too. And we’re going to get there.”
Launching the measure from the Budget Committee would not necessarily be a sign that GOP leaders are on the fast track to clearing the more than 1,100-page package they have officially named the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” at President Donald Trump’s suggestion. In 2022, for example, it took Democrats more than 10 months to achieve final passage of their own behemoth party-line package, the Inflation Reduction Act, after the House Budget Committee approved an initial version in the summer of 2021.
Now, Democrats are reveling in the GOP discord over the megabill key to delivering on Trump’s biggest campaign-trail promises.
“There is a strong divide between Republicans and some other Republicans,” Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, said during the Friday markup, prompting laughter throughout the room.
The House Budget Committee’s vote is a necessary — but largely performative — step that bundles the 11 different bills Republicans have approved over the last few weeks through their policy committees, including the piece the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee advanced this week and the measure the Energy and Commerce Committee approved after an all-night markup of Medicaid policies forecast to strip health care coverage from more than 10 million people.
Fiscal conservatives voiced disappointment Friday that the package doesn’t include deeper spending cuts or slash tax benefits to low-income households.
“This is not the big, beautiful bill that I had hoped for,” Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) said during the markup. “The flaw with this bill is it doesn’t go far enough, fast enough, to get our fiscal house in order. But it does take some great strides.”
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) complained that “too many people out here did not want the wonderful bill that so many of us were expecting in January and February.”
Republican leaders’ decision to enforce work requirements on Medicaid recipients in 2029, rather than sooner, “indicates that there was kind of a lack of sincerity,” Grothman added. “Nevertheless, there’s some good things in here.”
Before delaying the approval vote on Friday, House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) called the bill the key to “advancing the full ‘America first’ agenda, realizing President Trump’s vision and the House Republicans’ unwavering commitment to making America safe and prosperous again.”
Senate Republicans are privately ready for a post-election Supreme Court nomination fight that may never come.
There aren’t too many signs from the two oldest justices — 78-year-old Clarence Thomas and 76-year-old Samuel Alito — that either plans to retire in the coming months and force Republicans to spring into action to fill a vacancy.
But the two men would face a mountain of pressure to step down in the lame-duck period if Democrats retake the Senate, which could essentially shut down confirmations of President Donald Trump’s favored nominees.
Such a retirement announcement would kick off a chaotic sprint on Capitol Hill, giving Republicans just five scheduled session weeks to cobble together 50 votes for a Trump nominee.
Republicans in a position to act said in recent interviews they would certainly try to rapidly confirm any Trump pick.
“We would proceed quickly with such a vacancy,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley said “of course” they would. Sen. Thom Tillis, a frequent Trump critic who could single-handedly bottle up a nominee in Judiciary, said he would “absolutely” support a post-election confirmation.
“You’ve got to use your majority position to take that vote,” Tillis said.
Several senators, including Thune, are skeptical a vacancy even happens. Alito told Bloomberg News in an interview published Tuesday he would “stick around” at least until the court’s current term ends early next summer. Thomas hasn’t publicly addressed his retirement in years and has otherwise given no signs of imminent plans to quit.
“I don’t know why you assume there will be one,” said Sen. Susan Collins, another potentially pivotal vote who left the door open to filling any vacancy, pointing to her longstanding position that “as long as it’s not close to a presidential election that we should proceed.”
Still, some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle with battle scars from prior confirmation fights over Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson aren’t ready to entertain the thought of a lame-duck confirmation sprint.
“Oh, gosh,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski. “You’re giving me the chills.”
What else we’re watching:
— INSIDE COONS’ ISRAEL TURNABOUT: Sen. Chris Coons is likely to chair Foreign Relations if Democrats win the Senate, and — in what he describes as a “fairly sharp break” in his thinking — he’s not ruling out sanctions on Israel’s prime minister. The Delaware senator’s evolution matches that of other moderate Democrats in the three years since Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack triggered a military response that Israel’s critics have said amounted to genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
— TRUMP COLLEGE TAX RULES WORRY DEMS: Democratic lawmakers are worried proposed Trump administration rules targeting diversity initiatives on college campuses could threaten universities’ finances over commonplace activities. “What if a university has Black History Month?” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who sits on the tax-writing Finance Committee, said in a recent interview. “Is that going to cause them to lose their tax-exempt status?” The IRS regulations proposed Sept. 3 are slated to go into effect next June. Supporters say the rules should be used to prevent schools from considering race in decisions over who they admit, hire and promote, for example.
Jordain Carney, Daniella Cheslow and Brian Faler contributed to this report.
Congress
‘Use your majority’: In the unlikely event of a Supreme Court vacancy, Republicans are ready to act
Senate Republicans are unlikely to get a Supreme Court vacancy this year. They’re privately prepared for one, just in case.
A Democratic midterm triumph would carry massive implications for the final years of President Donald Trump’s presidency, including the prospect that the Senate could essentially shut down confirmations of his favored nominees. That’s a nightmare scenario for Republicans, who have viewed their reshaping of the federal judiciary as a crown jewel of Trump’s legacy.
The two oldest Supreme Court justices — 78-year-old Clarence Thomas and 76-year-old Samuel Alito — are both Republican appointees and reliable Trump allies, and key Senate Republicans said in recent interviews with Blue Light News they would support filling a high-court slot this year if one opens up.
“We would proceed quickly with such a vacancy,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
Signs that Republicans will need to spring into action are scarce. Alito told Bloomberg News in an interview published Tuesday that he would “stick around” at least until the court’s current term ends early next summer. Thomas, meanwhile, hasn’t publicly addressed his retirement plans in years and has otherwise given no signs of imminent plans to quit.
But if the GOP loses control of the Senate in the midterms, both men would face a mountain of pressure to consider stepping down, given the stakes. Democrats remain bitter over the Republican blockade of President Barack Obama’s final Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, and could block a fourth Trump justice.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in an interview over the summer that part of his pitch to recruit candidates was “two words that make a huge difference: Supreme Court.” Speaking to reporters last week, Schumer indicated that Democrats would use their majority to block judicial nominees they view as too extreme.
“One of the reasons we need to make sure that we do everything we can to take back the Senate is [to] not let Trump put such horrible justices, MAGA justices, on the Supreme Court and the lower courts,” he said.
A post-Nov. 3 announcement would be the first time since the 1922 retirement of Mahlon Pitney that a Supreme Court justice announced his or her departure in the lame-duck period after a midterm election, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Such an announcement would kick off a chaotic sprint on Capitol Hill, giving Republicans just five scheduled session weeks to cobble together 50 votes for a Trump nominee.
Those in a position to act said recently they would certainly try — and there is recent precedent for doing it quickly: Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed just 38 days after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s September 2020 death.
Like Thune, Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said “of course” Senate Republicans would try to fill a post-election vacancy.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a frequent Trump critic who could single-handedly bottle up a nominee in the Judiciary Committee, said he would “absolutely” support filling an end-of-year vacancy.
“You’ve got to use your majority position to take that vote,” he said.
But Tillis was among many in the GOP who doubt senators will have a slot to fill. “I can’t think of anything other than health,” he said, that would cause a justice to quickly step down.
Thune said that if a justice had plans to retire, “They would have done it already.”
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, another potentially pivotal vote, also left the door open to a post-election confirmation. The only Senate Republican running this year in a state won by Kamala Harris, Collins pointed to her longstanding position that “as long as it’s not close to a presidential election that we should proceed to consider nominees.”
“I don’t know why you assume there will be one,” she added. “I haven’t heard that will happen.”
Collins knows as well as anyone the perils of taking up high-court nominations in an election year. She cited the too-close-to–Election Day rule in voting against Barrett’s nomination as she stood for reelection in 2020.
But Democrats are still hammering her decision to vote for Brett Kavanaugh a month before the 2018 midterms — even after his nomination was thrown into turmoil by allegations of sexual misconduct and assault which he denied.
Troy Jackson, Collins’ Democratic opponent, posted on X this week that Collins “cannot be trusted with voting on our next Supreme Court Justice.”
The campaign-trail sparring reflects just how partisan and contentious high-court nomination battles have grown, and plenty of senators are hoping to avoid a knock-down-drag-out fight on the heels of a similarly nasty midterm campaign.
In a sign of the battle scars left from the fights over Kavanaugh, Barrett and the most recent Supreme Court confirmee — Ketanji Brown Jackson — some lawmakers said they weren’t ready to even entertain the thought of a lame-duck confirmation sprint.
“Not a hypothetical I’m ready to talk about,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who is expected to lead Democrats on the Judiciary Committee next year.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who would be a closely watched vote, made a quick escape when she was asked about the scenario.
“Oh, gosh,” she said. “You’re giving me the chills.”
Chris Marquette contributed to this report.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) is jumping into the race to lead House education committee Democrats.
The Oregon Democrat officially declared she will run to be the top Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee in a Dear Colleague letter sent to members of the Democratic caucus Tuesday and shared with Blue Light News.
Bonamici’s jump into the race marks another challenger for Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), the panel’s current ranking member. Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) is also running for the panel’s top spot.
Bonamici wrote in the letter that she is “ready to bring a fresh and collaborative approach to invigorate this Committee with a plan to champion the education and labor priorities of our Caucus. With my legal background, I’m prepared to use all of the power of Congress to hold Trump and his cronies, including Secretary Linda McMahon, accountable for the harm they have caused.”
Bonamici introduced a resolution to impeach the Education secretary because of McMahon’s efforts to dismantle the department without the approval of Congress.
Tuesday’s announcement comes after Bonamici told POLITICO last month that she was not ruling out a run for committee leadership and was having conversations about it. Her leadership run now comes as Democrats believe they will win the House majority in November.
The Oregon Democrat, who currently serves as top Democrat on the K-12 subcommittee, said the whole panel “must provide a bold and visionary approach while fighting Trump’s corruption and assault on public education, unions, and working families” if they take the majority.
-
Politics2 years agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics2 years agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics2 years agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words