Congress

How 1 bureaucrat’s retirement could give Donald Trump new sway over Congress

Published

1 year ago

September 17, 2025

More than three dozen lawmakers are already planning to leave Congress next year. But there’s another impending legislative branch retirement that could have major implications in Washington.

Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, who heads the Government Accountability Office, hits the end of his 15-year term Dec. 22 and will be forced to vacate the post that occupies an increasingly crucial — and politically charged — oversight role.

The comptroller general is uniquely empowered to call out the president for breaking the law by withholding federal cash, and Dodaro has done so repeatedly over the past eight months — putting himself at the center of a largely partisan fight over President Donald Trump’s funding moves that has exacerbated tensions between the White House and Capitol Hill.

Now Trump gets to nominate Dodaro’s replacement, and key lawmakers are only just starting to take stock of a paradox: A president who continually tests the bounds of Congress’ spending powers gets to pick the legislative branch’s chief watchdog.

“It sets up a very bad situation,” Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, the next Senate Democratic whip and a senior appropriator, said in an interview. “Among the things to be alarmed about, this is a new one.”

The stakes are high: Whoever ends up running GAO once Dodaro’s term ends will be able to bolster, or undermine, Congress’ defenses against Trump in the separation-of-powers battle the president is stoking by terminating, freezing and reallocating hundreds of billions of dollars Congress previously approved.

“When one party controls the Senate, the House and the White House, there’s a tendency to rally around the president and to do what the president wants,” said David Walker, Dodaro’s predecessor and the only living former GAO director. “But somebody’s got to be able to be the independent referee, and to try to do what they think is in the interest of the institution, the Congress and the country. And that’s what the comptroller general is.”

All of this is taking place as Trump administration officials and some congressional Republicans have been trying to downsize and discredit the watchdog. That has included publicly questioning the GAO’s authority and accusing the agency of siding with Democrats in its multiple determinations that the White House unlawfully flouted Congress’ “power of the purse.”

White House budget director Russ Vought said this month that GAO is “a quasi-legislative independent entity … something that shouldn’t exist.”

There have been other slights, too. In the Senate, the GAO told Republicans they could not skirt the filibuster in voting to override California’s pollution standards; Republicans did so anyway. In the House, GOP lawmakers endorsed cutting the agency’s roughly $800 million budget in half for the upcoming fiscal year. And Elon Musk, prior to leaving the Trump administration, attempted to send in a Department of Government Efficiency team to assess the GAO for mass staff reductions.

Meanwhile, the legislative branch writ large has become more broadly vulnerable to the White House’s whims, seen most starkly in Trump’s abrupt firing of the librarian of Congress and the registrar of copyrights.

It’s not yet clear what the Dodaro succession plan will look like; a White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

A seven-member panel of lawmakers is supposed to recommend at least three replacement candidates for Trump to consider. By law, that group is composed of the top four leaders in each chamber, the chairs and ranking members of the key House and Senate oversight committees and the Senate president pro tempore.

However, most congressional leaders have yet to start hunting for qualified contenders, and furthermore seem largely unaware they have any role to play in filling the slot.

“I don’t even know the process,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in a brief interview. “It’s been a while. This hasn’t happened on my watch.”

Two of the would-be commission members had kind words for Dodaro, including Sen. Rand Paul, chair of the Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee.

“I’ve always appreciated him, and I think he’s a straight shooter,” the Kentucky Republican said in an interview.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the panel’s ranking member, said he “would want somebody like Gene, who has been a really solid member.”

On the House side, Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said in an interview he’s looking for the next GAO director to be “an aggressive person that looks for waste, fraud and abuse.”

Comer added, “We want someone that communicates regularly with Congress, so we can kind of have an idea of what they’re doing.”

But Trump could instead ask Republican senators to confirm a new watchdog of his own choosing — or forgo making a nomination altogether.

It would leave a leadership vacuum at the top of the agency that not only monitors whether Congress’ spending directives are followed but is also empowered to examine the effectiveness of federal agencies on behalf of lawmakers.

Further raising the stakes in confirming a new director, lawsuits are pending around the country challenging Trump’s withholding of congressionally approved funding, and a federal appeals court ruled this summer that only the GAO director can sue the administration for violating the decades-old impoundment law — not the groups that were set to receive the funding.

Dodaro has so far chosen not to sue the Trump administration for withholding funding. But when he steps down, he’ll be able to pick an acting GAO director who also would have the power to file a lawsuit if they so choose.

Still, said Molly Reynolds, head of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, “if you get a comptroller general in place who is Trump-friendly, that is going to foreclose that option” of GAO suing the administration.

An acting director also wouldn’t be “in a position to make major transformational changes,” warned Walker, the former GAO director.

When Walker resigned in 2008, he appointed Dodaro acting director, a title that stuck for more than two years because Congress and the president weren’t quick to work through the nomination process. Before that, it also took two years to formally install Walker in the post in 1998.

Walker is now urging congressional leaders to recommend candidates who are willing to challenge executive branch officials regardless of who is president, as he did during his own tenure. A political independent who “leans Republican” and was confirmed by a GOP-led Senate, Walker sued the Republican vice president, Dick Cheney, for failure to provide GAO access to records.

He is also agitating for lawmakers to quickly start the search for potential replacements: “There’s no reason that they shouldn’t be planning now so that they can end up trying to make a timely decision.”

Congress

Trump apparently shares Tom Cotton’s phone number in push to make Daylight Saving Time permanent

Published

4 hours ago

October 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump appeared to share Sen. Tom Cotton’s phone number in a Saturday morning social media post imploring the Arkansas Republican to get behind a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.

“Almost everybody wants “The Sunshine Protection Act” to pass, except for Tom Cotton,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”

The president has spent months personally pushing Senate Republicans to end the practice that sees Americans change their clocks twice a year, cementing more sunlight hours in the evening for all twelve months of the calendar. Cotton, whom Trump called “a friend of mine” in the Saturday post, has long argued that making daylight saving time permanent would leave children, farmers and other early risers in the dark for hours on winter mornings.

One of Trump’s key selling points on Saturday: the PGA tour.

“The PGA TOUR, as an example, needs more Daylight in the afternoon in order to finish their Tournaments,” he said, attaching a letter from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp endorsing the bill. ”Likewise, regular Golfers, Tennis Players, Hunters and, perhaps most importantly, Farmers who want more Daylight to play or work.

A Blue Light News call to the cellphone number went to voicemail. A spokesperson for Cotton did not respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The current version of the bill was introduced in the House in January 2025 by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) leading the Senate version. The legislation would make daylight saving time permanent across most of the country, ending the twice-yearly clock changes. The legislation has been stalled in the Senate since July.

The president encouraged supporters of the bill, dubbed the “The Sunshine Protection Act,” to call Cotton to “let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”

During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, he publicly gave out the personal cellphone number of then-rival Sen. Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican criticized him. Trump, who came to count on Graham as a reliable Senate ally after he won the presidency, revisited the moment during Graham’s funeral in July, acknowledging that sharing the number was something he “shouldn’t have done.”

Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.

Congress

Sanders to rally for Troy Jackson in Maine

Published

1 day ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.

The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.

The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.

“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”

Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.

He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,

Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.

Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.

Congress

Hill: Trump’s ‘lack of favorability’ creating challenging politics

Published

1 day ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.

“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.

Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.

Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”

Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.

Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.

“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”

Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.