Congress

House to return to laundry list of controversies after 7-week hiatus

Published

8 months ago

November 10, 2025

The House is set to return to work Wednesday after a staggering 54 days out of session. Ending the record government shutdown will be the least of Speaker Mike Johnson’s problems.

Tensions have been running high for weeks over Johnson’s decision to shut down the House for the duration of the shutdown, sparking intense criticism from Democrats and private alarm inside pockets of the House GOP.

With members now returning to Washington after spending nearly two months dispersed across the country, he is faced with jump-starting dormant committee work, tackling a looming health care deadline and resolving long-brewing internal conflicts over the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and congressional stock-trading — if he can reopen the government first.

Asked Monday if he had the votes to pass the Senate-negotiated package, Johnson replied, “I think we will,” as he dashed into his office.

Johnson is already leaning heavily on President Donald Trump to get his conference behind the funding package. He made clear on a private call with House Republicans Monday morning that Trump wants the government reopened as soon as possible, and Trump signaled later in the day that he backs the deal.

GOP hard-liners who have traditionally opposed spending bills appear to be falling in line, arguing that the package constitutes a major win because it preempts a year-end omnibus bill that would fund the whole federal government through September and does not extend expiring Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies, as Democrats had demanded.

Even the famously intransigent House Freedom Caucus “is cool” with the package, according to one Republican in the group who was granted anonymity to discuss internal dynamics. Their support solves one of Johnson’s biggest headaches and puts the bill on a glide path to passage, with Trump ready to cajole any other holdouts.

The bigger challenge might be getting members to Washington for a final vote. They’re likely to face massive travel disruptions this week with FAA flight limits prompting airlines to trim thousands of domestic flights. Johnson urged GOP members Monday to begin traveling to Washington as soon as possible. Chiefs of staff also received a notice Monday morning for lawmakers to return to Washington by Tuesday evening, and be ready to vote Wednesday.

Once lawmakers arrive and reopen the government, Johnson will then have to confront other long-simmering controversies.

One issue he plans to confront immediately Wednesday, before the first House votes, is swearing in Democratic Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva seven weeks after she won the special election to fill her late father’s Arizona House seat, according to five people granted anonymity to discuss his plans ahead of an official announcement.

But that in turn will jump-start another long-running GOP political hassle: Grijalva says she will be the 218th and decisive signature on a discharge petition to compel the release of the “Epstein files” — records held by the Justice Department that Trump has opposed sharing. That will start a cascade of legislative steps requiring the measure to be brought to the floor by early December.

Republican leadership has taken pains to avoid Epstein-related votes, which have generated fissures inside the GOP, but Johnson has said he won’t seek to block the discharge petition.

Separately, many members of both parties are pushing Johnson to advance a contentious bill that would ban lawmakers from trading individual stocks. Appropriators will also face the daunting task of drafting full-year spending bills for most of the federal government ahead of the new Jan. 30 shutdown deadline. And lawmakers on other committees will be forced to catch up on weeks of missed hearings and markups, with GOP leaders privately warning members that many late nights of work are in store upon their return.

The toughest internal battle Johnson will have to confront centers on health care. A brewing conflict over the expiring Obamacare subsidies — which the speaker was mostly able to keep under wraps with members out of town — is now set to spill out into the open in the coming days.

On one side, scores of Republicans are dead-set against extending the subsidies that have been at the center of the shutdown. On the other side, Johnson is facing a handful of unhappy GOP members, including some who are privately considering backing any discharge petition to sidestep Johnson and force a vote on an extension before the Obamacare tax credits expire Dec. 31.

“We will find a way,” said one House Republican who supports an extension and was granted anonymity to speak frankly about internal dynamics. Johnson told House Republicans on their Monday call that he is not committing to hold any vote on extending the subsidies. Asked later by reporters, he said only that there would be “a deliberative process.”

Across the aisle, he will be facing down over 200 angry Democrats who are already strategizing about how to turn their disappointment over the shutdown’s apparent anticlimactic ending into political advantage.

House Democrats will likely be unable to block the legislation to reopen the government this week, and many are fuming about what happened in the Senate.

Gathering on a private call Monday afternoon for their first party discussion since the Senate deal came together, members vented their anger about the eight Democratic and independent senators who broke ranks to advance the funding bill, according to five people granted anonymity to describe the discussion.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries took steps to cool the internal tensions, offering support to his Senate counterpart, Chuck Schumer, amid a fiery backlash Monday.

“Leader Schumer and Senate Democrats over the last seven weeks have waged a valiant fight on behalf of the American people, and I’m not going to explain what a handful of Senate Democrats have decided to do,” he told reporters Monday.

He and other Democrats are trying to refocus attention on extending the health care subsidies, with Jeffries telling fellow Democrats on the private call he would pursue all options to force action, including a new discharge petition, the people said. Democrats believe enough House Republicans are willing to cross Johnson and circumvent his leadership, though the House might not be able to act quickly enough to prevent a massive hike in Americans’ health insurance bills in the coming months.

Democratic leaders are expecting their members to vote en masse against the Senate deal and are expected to formally recommend a “no” vote. But one centrist House Democrat granted anonymity to comment on internal discussions said at least a handful of colleagues are expected to vote for the funding package this week.

A spokesperson for the only Democrat to vote for a GOP-led stopgap spending bill ahead of the shutdown — retiring Maine Rep. Jared Golden — said his “position on using a government shutdown as a legislative strategy has been clear and has not changed.”

Golden also said he has “spent months having bipartisan conversations about how to build the support necessary to extend the ACA credits” and “looks forward to continuing those conversations with his colleagues in the days to come.”

Congress

Mitch McConnell is still in the hospital after medical episode, his office says

Published

2 hours ago

July 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Mitch McConnell remains hospitalized, his office said in a statement Thursday — without offering details about a recent medical episode that has renewed concern about the health of the former Republican majority leader.

McConnell “continues his recovery in the hospital” and “continues to improve,” his office said.

“Senator McConnell appreciates the outpouring of support he’s receiving while he continues his recovery in the hospital,” the statement said. “The Senator continues to improve, and is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters while the Senate is out of session.”

The statement did not explain why he was hospitalized last month.

The update comes after multiple outlets reported details of a first responder dispatch call indicating emergency medical personnel responded to McConnell’s home last month to treat an unconscious person who had experienced “cardiac arrest.”

Blue Light News has not independently verified the dispatch call.

The 84-year-old senator, who is retiring at the end of this term, has experienced multiple medical incidents in recent years. On two occasions in 2023, he froze while speaking with reporters. He has also suffered multiple falls and temporarily used a wheelchair, a move his office described at the time as a precautionary measure.

Congress

House Ethics says it doesn’t have information to share on lawmaker sexual misconduct settlements

Published

9 hours ago

July 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House adopted a resolution Tuesday requiring the House Ethics Committee to release information on taxpayer funds used to pay out sexual misconduct settlements with lawmakers — but the committee now says it has no information it can share.

In a statement Thursday, the committee reiterated it does not manage sexual harassment lawsuits or their settlements; taxpayers have not footed the bill for those payments since 2018.

Since that time, according to the statement, “the Committee has not been notified of any awards or settlements relating to allegations of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, or other sexual misconduct by a Member.”

Instead, the bipartisan Ethics Committee said it was up to the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights to publicly release a list of each member who has received settlements for sexual misconduct allegations, as mandated by the resolution championed by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).

The committee, in the Thursday statement, said it “fully supports the release of information about sexual misconduct settlements and calls on OCWR to abide by [the resolution] and make publicly available information about Member sexual misconduct matters resulting in payment of taxpayer funds.”

Massie, in a text message Thursday, said “OCWR can release it.”

The OCWR did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The bipartisan Ethics Committee has been under pressure in recent months to show it takes allegations of sexual misconduct against colleagues seriously. Two former House members — Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) — were forced to resign earlier this year amid serious accusations against them.

The renewed reckoning has prompted new questions about whether the House is up to the task of policing its own. The resolution earlier this week was adopted nearly unanimously, with just one member, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), voting “present.”

House Ethics Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.) said in an interview earlier this week that while he would support Massie’s resolution, the relevant “information was already out in the public domain.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Congress

AOC endorses El-Sayed in Michigan Senate race

Published

12 hours ago

July 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) endorsed Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign for Michigan’s open Senate seat on Thursday, a decision that comes as progressives look to capitalize off a series of recent high-profile primary victories in New York, Colorado and elsewhere.

Her endorsement could provide El-Sayed with a critical boost just over a month before the state’s Aug. 4 primary. The former public health official is locked in a heated contest against Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow for the right to take on Republican Mike Rogers in the general election.

It also comes as El-Sayed has risen to the top of the pack in recent public polling.

Virtually any Democratic path to flipping the Senate in this year’s midterms would see the party hold the open Michigan Senate seat, with two-term Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) retiring at the end of his term.

The race has emerged as perhaps the largest battleground over the ideological future of the party. El-Sayed, who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2018, has collected endorsements from progressives, while Stevens has the tacit backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, with AIPAC also boosting her candidacy.

El-Sayed, Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview with The New York Times, is her party’s best chance.

“Despite our ideological differences and whatever disagreements there are in the party, every single one of us sees this moment as existential,” she said. “And I think many people are willing to put aside differences in order to give us the best chance at winning. And I think that Abdul gives us that right now.”