Congress
House vote on Canada tariffs coming as soon as Wednesday
House Democrats are aiming to force a vote on President Donald Trump’s Canada tariffs as early as Wednesday.
House Democrats still need to meet and decide when to offer the resolution, but it is likely to come Wednesday, according to two staffers granted anonymity to discuss private plans.
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) introduced the resolution last March, but House Republican leaders blocked a vote on the measure and any others disapproving of Trump’s emergency powers to impose tariffs. That block expired in January, after a group of Republicans pushed leadership to allow tariff votes.
One of those lawmakers, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), said he is inclined to vote to end the tariffs on Canada.
“We have a trade agreement with them, and I don’t like how the White House has treated our neighbor and ally,” Bacon said Monday in an interview.
If it is offered, it would force a difficult vote for Republican lawmakers, who have faced sustained pressure from businesses in their districts over the costs and disruptions the tariffs have produced.
The Senate has voted twice to block Trump from imposing tariffs on Canada, first in April and then again in October. Four Republican Senators voted with the Democrats each time: Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
The votes are largely symbolic — even if Congress disapproves of Trump’s national emergency, the president is likely to veto it, and it would require a two-thirds vote from both chambers to overturn his veto.
Trump used his emergency powers to impose a 25 percent tariff on goods from Canada, Mexico and China in February, accusing the three countries of failing to prevent undocumented migrants and fentanyl from flowing into the U.S.
The administration exempted the majority of Canadian goods from those tariffs, however, if they comply with the existing U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement.
Doug Palmer contributed to this article.
Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, formally announced his bid to chair the powerful investigative panel in a letter to colleagues on Thursday.
The California Democrat, who this week issued a wide message for the Trump administration and other oversight targets to “lawyer up,” made the case for his leadership by promising to hold power to account, take on corruption and lower costs for Americans.
“Accountability and affordability go hand in hand. When the government is corrupted for personal gain over the public interest, Americans lose trust and taxpayer dollars are wasted,” Garcia wrote. “Our Committee must expose that corruption, protect the public, and help deliver a government that works for everyone, not just the wealthy and well-connected.”
Garcia has said he wants to probe the federal contracts awarded to members of President Donald Trump’s family; the series of pardons Trump granted early in his second term; cryptocurrency-related profits collected by the president; and Trump’s acquisition of a Qatari 747 jet to serve as an interim Air Force One.
He also plans to ramp up the House investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as well as those who facilitated his crimes.
Garcia has signaled he intends to investigate Trump’s inner sanctum as well, including White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and deputy chief Stephen Miller, along with Trump’s son-in-law and foreign envoy Jared Kushner. He has mentioned Corey Lewandowski — along with Lewandowski’s old boss, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, as ripe targets for inquiry over allegations of a pay-to-play scheme.
“I love this country,” Garcia said over the summer in describing how he sees his role in bringing “accountability” to the executive branch. “It’s sad to me what government, what the Congress, what the president, has done to it.”
House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar has formally announced his bid for House majority whip.
“With a Democratic majority, we’ll have the tools to rein in this out-of-control administration and investigate the agencies, officials and corporations that have been making life harder and more expensive for our communities,” the California Democrat wrote in a letter to colleagues Thursday. “I look forward to working with each of you to deliver on our affordability agenda.”
Aguilar is currently unopposed for the No. 3 slot in the new House Democratic majority.
As whip, Aguilar will have to stitch together an ideologically diverse caucus that could be as large as 260 members. With such a significant margin, Aguilar would have more cushion to lose votes on key legislation than Republican leaders, who have struggled to wrangle their members on party-line bills over the last two years.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and Minority Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts have already announced their candidacies for speaker and majority leader, respectively. They also have no challengers at this time.
Rep. French Hill, a senior Republican who barely won reelection in Little Rock this week, said President Donald Trump’s “unfavorability” is to blame for sweeping GOP losses.
The Associated Press called the race for Hill on Thursday after the six-term lawmaker and House Financial Services Committee chair faced off against Democrat Chris Jones. Hill won by less than 2 percentage points.
“President Trump’s unfavorability had a lot of impact on races across the country,” Hill said in an interview. “I think that’s evident by some of the exit polling. We had, in my judgment, recruited good candidates who had good funding for their campaigns. But it was a wave election, and we lost a lot of really good, constructive members of the House.”
It was the closest race yet for Hill, who struggled to win even as he outspent Jones, a former Arkansas gubernatorial candidate, 3 to 1. As House Financial Services chair, Hill has been instrumental the last two years in enacting bipartisan housing and cryptocurrency legislation.
During the campaign, Hill was willing to distance himself from Trump, especially when it came to touting the housing bill that the president refused to sign.
In the interview Wednesday, Hill suggested that Republicans could break further with Trump during the final two years of his term.
“He will be considered a lame duck, and that often has members of both political parties looking out at who will be the standard-bearers in the 2028 presidential election,” he said. “So, I think certainly that will influence policymaking and politics inside the House and Senate.”
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