Congress

House Democrats assert themselves as Republicans struggle to set agenda

Published

3 months ago

December 19, 2025

On paper, Democrats are locked out of legislative power in the majority-rules House. In practice over the past several months, they have been a swaggering force.

Time and again this year, Democrats under Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have maneuvered to successfully undercut the GOP agenda and put its leaders on the back foot. From a daily drumbeat on health care to the long-running saga over the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to a new focus on the rising cost of living, they believe they’re succeeding by making the party in power talk about Democratic priorities, not its own.

Their success was underscored this week when four House Republicans joined a Jeffries-led effort to force a vote on expiring Obamacare insurance subsidies — a major embarrassment for the GOP speaker.

“Our message to Mike Johnson is clear — you can run, but you cannot hide,” Jeffries said as he took a victory lap on the House steps Thursday.

The New Yorker was referring to his party’s effort to address a so-called health care “crisis” brought about by Republican governance. But it could just as well apply to the overall Democratic attitude at the moment, with the party increasingly buoyant about its political fortunes heading into next year’s midterm elections.

Johnson and his leadership allies have been able to put some wins on the board since lawmakers returned from their summer recess. Republicans ultimately triumphed and ended a record-long shutdown without agreeing to a costly extension of the Obamacare subsidies. They managed to unite and pass a small-bore health care package this week as well as a bipartisan permitting reform bill.

But it has come at a cost. To win the shutdown fight, Johnson kept the House out of session — giving up roughly a fifth of the year’s scheduled legislative days. And managing a razor-thin majority with its constantly clashing factions has left many of his members airing dissatisfaction with the status quo.

“I think the House as a whole has not been nearly as proactive as we should have been in recent months,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.). “It certainly didn’t help that we weren’t even here for two of those months.”

“I believe that we’re behind,” added Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). “We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and the midterms.”

With a sizable band of Republican malcontents willing to buck their party’s leadership, Democrats have sought opportunities to divide the majority party — often by using discharge petitions, one of the few legislative tools available to the minority party.

Already this year three discharge petitions have garnered the necessary 218 signatures, forcing votes Johnson tried to avoid on releasing the Epstein files, restoring federal workers’ collective bargaining rights and now extending the Obamacare subsidies for three years. Each one succeeded with the vast majority of Democrats signing on at Jeffries’ direction, with a handful of GOP rebels joining in.

“We’re in the minority, but our ideas are still really good, and they deserve bipartisan support,” said Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.).

Democrats, Jeffries said, have already “won more discharge petitions in the last three weeks than have been successful in the last 30 years.” More could be coming next year, with more lawmakers planning to move on Russia sanctions legislation and a ban on congressional stock trading.

Beyond the discharge petitions, House and Senate Democrats made a larger strategic calculation in September that has since dominated the congressional agenda: centering a government shutdown fight on health care — in particular, the pending Dec. 31 expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits enacted and extended under former president Joe Biden.

The decision shifted the conversation on Capitol Hill away from President Donald Trump’s controversial but popular assault on federal spending to much more favorable political ground for Democrats. The party knew well that health care was a minefield for Republicans — one that many in both parties blamed for the GOP’s massive House losses in the 2018 midterms.

Ultimately, the shutdown ended after 43 days when a handful of Democratic senators decided the standoff had run its course. But House Democrats strategized to keep health care center stage, with Jeffries filing a discharge petition seeking a vote on a straight three-year extension of the expiring tax credits before moderate Republicans started filing their own discharge petitions.

Within a week, it had more than 200 signatures, and as the vulnerable Republicans scrambled for an off-ramp, Jeffries frequently noted the simplest solution would be for a handful of GOP members to sign on to the Democratic effort. Some moderate Democrats mulled backing a competing discharge petition from Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) that would force a vote on his bipartisan plan for a shorter extension with strings attached. But the vast majority of Democrats kept away, signaling they wanted to stay behind Jeffries’ approach.

“Nobody wanted Gottheimer to dictate strategy for the whole caucus,” said one person directly involved who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about strategy.

The maneuvering paid off. While Jeffries kept Republicans and some of his own members guessing by suggesting he might get behind one of the bipartisan plans, he ultimately never wavered on the straight three-year approach.

When, as many Democrats expected, Johnson refused to put one of the compromise extensions on the floor, GOP moderates were left with no choice but to join the Jeffries effort.

Rep. Troy Carter (D-La.) called it an “incredibly strategic move” by Jeffries “to have a discharge petition in place and create a safe space for members to do the right thing.”

The completion of the discharge petition has amounted to an internal debacle for Johnson, whose members are now unhappy that GOP leaders got outplayed and will now vote on a measure that the vast majority of them loathe.

“I hate that we are voting on a three-year clean extension and not a bipartisan bill that has smart reforms to the tax credits,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said. “The worst option is being put on the floor — and one that the Senate will not pass.”

Republican leaders, for their part, initially underestimated whether enough of the moderate holdouts would be willing to break ranks and sign on to Jeffries’ discharge petition. They viewed two in particular — Pennsylvania Reps. Rob Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie — as unlikely to sign given their willingness to fall in line on the GOP megabill over the summer, according to two people granted anonymity to describe internal conversations.

But as each side dug in early this week and leaders moved away from allowing a floor vote on a compromise amendment, the moderates made clear to GOP leaders they would retaliate via the Jeffries discharge petition. Bresnahan and Mackenzie were among the four who signed, pushing it over the top.

Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in an interview that the possibility of the moderates linking arms with Democrats “was heavily discussed” and that leaders “didn’t want it to happen.”

“But, you know, we tried to find a different way to address it,” he said. “I mean, nobody was blindsided.”

Congress

‘Substantial reason to believe’ Tony Gonzales had sex with his staffer, House probe finds

Published

20 minutes ago

March 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Congressional investigators have found “a substantial reason to believe” that Rep. Tony Gonzales had a sexual relationship with a subordinate — an apparent violation of House rules.

Blue Light News exclusively reviewed the report made by the nonpartisan Office of Congressional Conduct and delivered Wednesday to the House Ethics Committee, which has separately announced it is investigating the matter. The board of the OCC— an independent investigative body of the House — recommended in a 6-0 decision that the Ethics panel, which handles member disciplinary matters, further examine the allegations against Gonzales, a Texas Republican.

The OCC report and announcement from the Ethics Committee comes as Gonzales faces a 12-week runoff campaign to keep the Republican nomination for the south Texas seat he has held for three terms. He narrowly trails challenger Brandon Herrera in the latest returns from Tuesday’s election but neither candidate is on track to win an outright majority, setting up a May 23 runoff.

Gonzales has denied wrongdoing and resisted calls from within his own party to resign as details of his relationship with the former staffer, Regina Santos-Aviles, continue to emerge. She died by suicide after setting herself on fire in 2025.

Responding to the Ethics Committee announcement Wednesday, Gonzales said, “I welcome the opportunity to present all the facts to the committee. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the OCC finding.

Tom Rust, staff director for the House Ethics Committee, declined comment, as did William Beaman, a spokesperson for OCC.

The OCC investigation found “a substantial reason to believe that Rep. Gonzales engaged in a sexual relationship with an employee of the House of Representatives who was working under his supervision,” according to the report viewed by Blue Light News.

In one exchange with a fellow staffer, known as Witness 1, Santos-Aviles texted: “I had an affair with our boss and I’m fine. You will be fine.” The staffer, in an interview with the OCC, described personal conversations with Santos-Aviles wherein she described text messages with Gonzales that “were sexual in nature, that were romantic in nature.”

In another part of the report, a screenshot of a message that was originally sent by Santos-Aviles’ husband to another Gonzales staffer said, “Just a heads up this is [Santos-Aviles’] soon to be ex husband I just wanted to inform all of you that we will be getting divorced after my discovery of text messages and pictures, that she’s been having an affair with your boss Tony Gonzales for some time now. Feel free to reach out if you want more of an explanation.”

While the OCC can’t issue disciplinary actions, its investigative reports have served as roadmaps for the Ethics Committee, which conducts its own probes. In opening its own inquiry Wednesday, the panel said it would examine allegations that Gonzales “engaged in sexual misconduct towards an individual employed in his congressional office” and “discriminated unfairly by dispensing special favors or privileges.”

Speaker Mike Johnson, navigating a tight GOP majority, said last week that he wanted to see how the election played out and that Gonzales was entitled to due process. While the findings from the OCC are significant, it could take months or years for the Ethics Committee to finish its own report and recommend any discipline.

Johnson told reporters after the Ethics Committee announcement that he would let the process “play out.” A spokesperson, Taylor Haulsee, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the OCC finding.

Gonzales, who is married with children, is alleged to have pursued a sexual relationship with Santos-Aviles and tried to coerce her into sending explicit photos, according to text messages published by the San Antonio Express-News and other publications, some of which are referenced in the OCC report. Blue Light News has not independently reviewed the messages.

House rules prohibit members, such as Gonzales, from having “a sexual relationship” or engaging in “unwelcome sexual advances” with their staffers.

The Ethics Committee’s deliberations are usually shrouded in secrecy, and it sometimes takes years to deliver any sort of conclusion. Allegations that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) accepted improper gifts relating to the 2021 Met Gala, for instance, were not ruled upon until 2025, when she was instructed to repay the fair market value of the ticket of her guest, her designer gown and other gifts associated with the event.

Similarly, the Ethics panel took several years to issue a report on a 2020 stock trade made by the wife of Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) that was alleged to have been done using nonpublic information. Kelly was scolded in 2025 by the committee for not fully cooperating with the investigation with a strongly worded letter of disapproval and Kelly and his wife were advised by the committee to divest of any stock holdings in Cleveland-Cliffs, the company at issue.

In the Gonzales investigation, three witnesses, identified only as Witness 1, 2, and 3, were interviewed by OCC for the inquiry. Blue Light News was unable to identify and independently interview the witnesses.

Gonzales, his Chief of Staff Cesar Prieto, and two other staffers, Brittney Smith and Alfredo Arellano III, all refused to cooperate with OCC, according to the report. The office recommended that the House Ethics Committee subpoena them.

Prieto and Smith did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An attempt to reach Arellano on LinkedIn was unsucessful.

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Congress

Al Green, Menefee head to runoff in member-on-member Democratic primary

Published

3 hours ago

March 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Texas Democratic Reps. Al Green and Christian Menefee are headed to a runoff, extending a member-on-member matchup defined by the latest fight over generational change.

Neither Green, 78, or Menefee, 37, earned a majority of votes in the newly drawn Houston 18th District resulting from Texas Republicans’ recent gerrymander of the state’s congressional map.

Green, a civil rights icon, jumped into the race after his former district was scrambled by the GOP’s redistricting. The matchup comes as the Democratic Party is engaged in an intense debate about whether the old guard should step aside and make room for a younger generation of leaders.

Green, who was first elected to Congress in 2004, has long represented the Houston area. He was the first Democrat to introduce articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump — long before most other House Democrats were on board — and famously protested his addresses to Congress.

Just weeks ago, Menefee had won a special election in an overlapping district to serve out the remainder of the late, former Rep. Sylvester Turner’s term.

Congress

John Thune urges Trump to endorse John Cornyn ‘early’

Published

3 hours ago

March 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Majority Leader John Thune urged President Donald Trump on Wednesday to deliver a swift endorsement of Texas Sen. John Cornyn to potentially forestall what is widely expected to be an expensive and nasty primary runoff against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Thune told reporters he hasn’t yet spoken to Trump since the election returns from Tuesday’s primary came in but indicated he intends to personally redouble his efforts, saying Wednesday that “hopefully” the president will give Cornyn his influential nod.

“[If] Trump endorses early, it saves everybody a lot of money, and … 10 weeks of a spirited campaign on our side that keeps us from spending time focusing on the Democrats,” Thune said.

“If the president can weigh in it would be enormously helpful,” he added.

Thune and other Senate Republicans have been trying to nudge Trump for months to endorse Cornyn, who acknowledged last month that he didn’t expect the president to weigh in before Tuesday night’s election. The runoff is set for May 26, with the winner to face Democrat James Talarico, who avoided his own runoff Tuesday.

Other Senate Republicans are also expected to renew their case for Cornyn to Trump after the four-term veteran exceeded expectations Tuesday.

“I would encourage the president to endorse him,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said Wednesday, arguing that Cornyn has the best shot of winning in November.

As of Wednesday morning, Cornyn is narrowly leading Paxton with 94 percent of the votes counted, according to the Associated Press. Many polls had Cornyn trailing Paxton ahead of Election Day.

Thune called it a “great night” for Cornyn. Other allies of the Texas Republican who were granted anonymity to speak candidly said his performance Tuesday means, in their view, a Trump endorsement is still a possibility.