Congress

If Congress is going to avoid another shutdown, lawmakers need to start talking

Published

2 months ago

December 22, 2025

Congress has adjourned for the holidays having made no tangible progress toward funding the government ahead of a shutdown looming less than six weeks away.

The most conspicuous sign that Congress faces real obstacles before the Jan. 30 funding deadline came late Thursday, when Senate leaders gave up on passing a spending package and sent members home for two weeks, despite working for more than a month to appease senators who had objections.

But the impediments to reaching a deal that can pass both chambers are more extensive, starting with the fact that Republicans and Democrats on both ends of the Capitol have yet to start negotiating the details of the nine pending funding bills. The lack of bipartisan offer-trading is raising the likelihood of another short-term punt — or another shutdown.

“We wasted a lot of time because the Senate’s not negotiating yet,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in an interview last week. “When they’re ready to negotiate, we can move fast.”

Cole and his counterpart, Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), just reached an agreement over the weekend on overall totals for the remaining spending bills Congress needs to pass. Lawmakers already passed three as part of the package that ended the shutdown last month — funding veterans and agriculture agencies, federal food aid and the Food and Drug Administration, along with Congress itself, through Sept. 30.

For more than a month Cole and Collins had been trying to bridge differences on key numbers while Senate leaders tried to advance a funding package that reflects consensus from only their side of the Capitol. Last week’s heave failed, but senators expect to try again in early January.

“We have different dynamics in our caucuses that we need to deal with,” Collins said this month as she left a meeting with Cole.

Democrats have been growing impatient. “They wasted all that time during the summer,” said Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the House’s top Democratic appropriator, about House Republicans spending the better part of this year crafting partisan funding bills.

Then Democrats had to wait for their GOP counterparts to strike the “majority to majority” deal on funding totals that finally arrived Saturday.

“Democrats are prepared. We’re ready to move. Let’s go,” DeLauro said.

Even if top appropriators can manage to agree on the nine remaining funding bills, other thorny dynamics threaten to complicate final passage in each chamber. The pitfalls include the mismatch between what appropriators want to spend and the demands of House fiscal hawks seeking flat funding for agencies — as well as the fact that Democrats will need to help pass any spending bills in the Senate, as they acutely illustrated with this fall’s record 43-day shutdown.

The totals top Republican appropriators just agreed upon are not public. But Cole said the deal will ensure overall funding would be below the level laid out in the stopgap funding patch enacted last month.

Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, chair of the House Freedom Caucus and a top Republican appropriator, said last week that he wants funding for the Pentagon and the largest nondefense agencies to be “no more than what was enacted” for the fiscal year that ended in September.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has the same idea: “I don’t want any spending higher than current-level spending,” he said. “If they’re busting the current levels, then they’re going to have to demonstrate to me why.”

If House hard-liners aren’t appeased when the funding bills come together, they could start making threats to Speaker Mike Johnson and other GOP leaders, who already are on the outs with House Republicans over their handling of health care assistance this month.

“You can expect the smoke to start coming up from over that hill and that hill and that hill,” said Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), who chairs the Homeland Security spending panel. “And there might even be some open flame.”

Amodei said some of his colleagues are openly talking about the potential for another shutdown. But many others think it is more likely that Congress is headed for another punt at current funding levels for the remaining nine bills.

Last week, Johnson told his conference in a closed-door meeting that he wants to pass those bills by the Jan. 30 deadline — a goal that many in the GOP ranks consider aspirational at best. One House Republican granted anonymity to describe the private meeting said he turned to one of his colleagues and whispered, “I wouldn’t bet on that on Polymarket,” referring to an online prediction market.

Senate leaders have their own conflicting demands to manage. Fiscal conservatives repeatedly objected to starting debate on a five-bill funding package in recent weeks, citing opposition to earmarks as they also sought promises related to other legislation.

But it was Democrats who blocked movement in the final days before the Senate adjourned Thursday. One late-breaking demand by Colorado’s senators was to reverse the White House’s move last week to dismantle a federal center in the state that supports research in climate and weather science.

Still, following the acrimony of the shutdown this fall, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are at least projecting a unified front on government funding ahead of the January deadline.

“Both Thune and I are in agreement that we’re going to work through the process and get the appropriations bills done,” Schumer told reporters late Thursday after Senate leaders decided to adjourn without passing the funding package.

Since top Republican appropriators reached an agreement on overall totals after Congress adjourned, lawmakers hope some negotiating can be done before they return to town Jan. 5.

“Staff has been instructed to — whatever they’re doing — take their laptops with them,” DeLauro said.

When Congress reconvenes, both chambers are only scheduled to be in session for three weeks before the shutdown deadline — with the House slated to be out of session the week immediately before.

Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Republican appropriator, said he was hopeful his party’s leaders would keep lawmakers in town to pass any deal that might come together.

“This is people’s political livelihood on the line,” he said. “We’ve got to get this done. Nobody leaves.”

Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.

Congress

Johnson: Congress will pass Iran war funding when ‘appropriate’

Published

3 minutes ago

March 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that lawmakers are waiting for the White House to formally request emergency cash to support the war in Iran, as administration officials reportedly consider seeking up to $50 billion.

In an interview, Johnson said he hadn’t heard yet about a specific funding level but that “we’ll pass a supplemental when it’s appropriate and get it right.”

“We’re waiting on the White House and [the Pentagon] to let us know, but we have an open dialogue about it,” he said when asked whether Congress could pass a $50 billion supplemental funding bill.

Passing any emergency funding will be a major fight on Capitol Hill, with Democrats already decrying the lack of details about how much the military is spending and Republican fiscal hawks wary of more spending. Reuters reported Tuesday that Deputy ‌Defense ⁠Secretary Steve Feinberg has been leading Pentagon work on a roughly $50 billion request.

Asked about a $50 billion request in a separate interview, Majority Leader Steve Scalise said, “Well, we’re nowhere close to that.”

“I mean, yesterday at the briefing, it was brought up that there may be a need for a supplemental,” he added. “But we’re still just in the first few days of this conflict, and there’s no no ask yet from the Department of War for a supplemental.”

Scalise said, “When that time comes, we’ll obviously have very serious conversations because it’s important that the Department of War have the tools they need to keep America safe.”

House Foreign Affairs Chair Brian Mast (R-Fla.) said in an interview that he didn’t know the specific number yet but that he would support an emergency funding bill of tens of billions of dollars.

Congress

House Ethics panel launches investigation of Tony Gonzales

Published

3 minutes ago

March 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Ethics Committee launched a formal investigation into Rep. Tony Gonzales Wednesday, establishing a panel to probe allegations that the Texas Republican “engaged in sexual misconduct towards an individual employed in his congressional office” and “discriminated unfairly by dispensing special favors or privileges.”

The announcement 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 thus far resisted calls from within his own party to resign as details of an alleged relationship with a former staffer, Regina Santos-Aviles, have emerged in recent weeks. She died by suicide after setting herself on fire in 2025.

Gonzales did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

House 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. It could take months or longer for the Ethics Committee to finish its investigation and recommend any discipline.

Gonzales 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. 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.

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.

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Democrats get their Texas dream scenario

Published

2 hours ago

March 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Maybe, just maybe, this is the year Texas really matters.

While the outcome wasn’t shocking, the confirmation of a May 26 runoff between Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and state Attorney General Ken Paxton confirmed the fears of many Republicans who now face a likely scorched-earth campaign that could seriously hobble the victor in November’s general election and drain resources from tough races in places like North Carolina and Maine.

Democrats, meanwhile, are seeing their dream scenario play out: State Rep. James Talarico has defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett outright in the Democratic primary, giving the candidate many strategists see as the party’s best chance to finally turn the Lone Star State blue a clear path to November.

Tuesday’s results showed some surprising strength for Cornyn after he trailed Paxton, a MAGA firebrand, in most polls. The veteran senator is about a point ahead of the AG in the latest returns.

But for national Republicans, keeping Cornyn afloat will be expensive and will risk damaging Paxton if he ends up being their nominee. In the absence of a Trump endorsement for any candidate, Cornyn and his allies have already spent more than $100 million to take out Paxton.

The four-term Cornyn launched into the runoff Tuesday night by framing Paxton as an existential threat to the party — “dead weight” that could cost Republicans control of Congress.

“President Trump’s agenda hangs in the balance,” he said. “I’m proud to have supported President Trump and worked with him to help him achieve his goals in the Congress. If he’s nominated, there’s a high risk that Paxton would lose the Senate seat, taking five congressional seats down with him.”

Paxton reacted with a taunt over Cornyn’s big-budget failure to avoid the runoff.

“We proved something they’ll never understand in Washington,” he said, according to The Texas Tribune. “Texas is not for sale.”

Cornyn-Paxton wasn’t the only high-stakes drama in the Lone Star State. A quick round-up of the latest results from other races:

— Embattled GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales was forced into a runoff against gun influencer Brandon Herrera.

— State Rep. Steve Toth ousted GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw from the seat he’s held for four terms.

— GOP Rep. Chip Roy is heading into a runoff with state Sen. Mayes Middleton for attorney general.

— Rep. Christian Menefee is less than 2,000 votes ahead in his uncalled race against Rep. Al Green, who has served in Congress for more than 20 years.

— Former Rep. Colin Allred is more than 10 point ahead against incumbent Democrat Julie Johnson in another uncalled Dallas-area race.

What else we’re watching:

— Notable hearings: The House Oversight Committee will hear testimony at 9 a.m. from Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and state Attorney General Keith Ellison on the misuse of government funds. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is back for a second day in a row of congressional hearings, this time in front of the House Judiciary Committee at 10 a.m. And expect fireworks when IRS CEO Frank Bisignano testifies before the House Ways and Means panel at 10 a.m.

— Senate’s decision day on Iran: A bipartisan resolution to rein in Trump’s Iran war is expected to fail in the Senate Wednesday afternoon at 4 p.m.

But beneath the surface, support for the ongoing strikes is looking less than robust. Many Republican lawmakers are harboring private misgivings about the risks to American troops, global stability and their own political fortunes if the military campaign drags on.

Liz Crampton, Hailey Fuchs, Brian Faler and Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.