Congress

Inside Congress’ warring factions over how to fund the government

Published

10 months ago

September 8, 2025

Battle lines are emerging on Capitol Hill in the fight to avert a government shutdown in three weeks — and it’s not just Republicans vs. Democrats.

On one side, fiscal hawks are joining with the White House to keep federal agencies running on static funding levels, ideally into January or longer. On the other, Democrats and some top Republicans want to punt no further than November to buy congressional negotiators more time to cut a cross-party compromise on fresh funding totals for federal programs.

In the end, the standoff could hinge on Speaker Mike Johnson’s appetite for trying to pass a funding package backed by President Donald Trump but not Democrats, as he did in the spring — and whether Senate Democrats once again capitulate rather than see government operations grind to a halt on Oct. 1.

“They jammed us last time,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a top appropriator, said in an interview. “And I am encouraging my Republican friends who want to do appropriations to understand that that won’t work this time.”

Even more irate after Trump’s latest move to unilaterally cancel almost $5 billion in foreign aid through a so-called pocket rescission, Democrats are warning there will be a funding lapse if Republicans don’t negotiate with them. And while they’re being cautious not to box themselves in with ultimatums on funding totals or specific policy demands, they’re starting to flex their muscles by floating concessions Republicans could make in exchange for support across the aisle.

That includes making a deal by the end of the year to head off the expiration of enhanced health insurance subsidies that would result in premium hikes come January for millions of Americans.

There are glimmers of bipartisan talks happening behind the scenes: Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently discussed passing a short-term spending patch until November or December, though no decisions were made.

And top House and Senate appropriators are gelling behind a hybrid approach: attempting a bill with a full year of updated funding levels for the USDA, the Department of Veterans Affairs and congressional operations, tied to a short-term extension for other agencies, to allow for more negotiations.

But there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about a bipartisan funding deal coming together, with Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a senior appropriator, putting the odds of a shutdown at “50-50, perhaps higher.”

As of late last week, the top Senate leaders — Republican John Thune and Democrat Chuck Schumer — haven’t yet spoken about the upcoming funding deadline, in a further sign that cross-party talks are still nascent.

Meanwhile, House hard-liners, backed by some of their conservative Senate counterparts, appear to be digging in to demand a lengthy stopgap bill, rather than a short-term patch meant to facilitate a more comprehensive bipartisan funding measure down the road. One Republican, granted anonymity to share the conservative strategy, said fiscal hawks want a funding patch “to 2026” or for the entirety of the coming fiscal year “if we can get it.”

Continually running the government on stopgaps is part of White House budget director Russ Vought’s strategy to shrink federal spending as he roots for the government funding process to be “less bipartisan.”

Those kick-the-can funding bills give the White House more leeway to shift cash while depriving Democrats of any increases in non-defense funding and GOP defense hawks the military budget increases they seek. Then, using party-line measures like the domestic-policy megabill and the $9 billion clawbacks package Congress cleared this summer, Republicans can add or subtract funding without needing to rely on the votes of Senate Democrats.

The White House predicts that Trump’s more recent, unilateral cancellation of $4.9 billion will only help build support among GOP fiscal hawks for a “clean” continuing resolution, or CR, that simply drags out current funding levels for weeks or months more. In this scenario, Democrats will have to fall in line, a White House official told reporters late last month after Trump nixed the foreign aid funding.

“It’s very hard for me to believe that they’re going to oppose a clean CR that would cause them to be responsible for a government shutdown,” said the official, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

The Senate’s top Democratic appropriator, Patty Murray of Washington, warned it won’t work for Republicans to blame Democrats: If the GOP goes it alone, she said last week, “well, then, that is a Republican shutdown.”

Democrats are also still grappling with how the pocket rescission will factor into their government funding demands. Schatz called it a “point of friction” but added, “I’m not prepared to articulate any red lines to you.”

Notwithstanding the administration’s latest attempt to revoke funding, setting static spending levels through next September would be a nonstarter for many members of both parties. For Democrats, going into next year with a stopgap bill would force them to give up their biggest point of leverage — another end-of-the-year government funding deadline — to try to get a deal on extending the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits that will expire Dec. 31.

On the GOP side, some conservatives view a full-year stopgap bill as locking in spending levels set under President Joe Biden, while defense hawks warn that it undermines the military. Those GOP divisions would make it harder, if not impossible, for Johnson and the White House to try to repeat their go-it-alone playbook from the spring.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said he didn’t think a full-year, flat-funded spending bill would come to fruition: “We can talk about it all we want, we always do. Same plot, different actors.”

Passage of a lengthy funding patch would especially sting for Republicans appropriators, who are quietly trying to retain relevance amid Trump’s escalating assault on Congress’ power through tactics to shift, freeze and cancel funding that lawmakers previously approved.

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, who consistently refrains from criticizing the president, told his underlings last week that the best way for lawmakers to protect Congress’ power of the purse is to negotiate a bipartisan funding agreement now, rather than fall back on a continuing resolution.

“The way to be successful is, get a deal done. That’s what we need to do,” the Oklahoma Republican told fellow appropriators during a recent markup. “But please don’t have any illusions that we’re cavalierly surrendering our power.”

Still, Cole hasn’t received the blessing of his leadership to begin cross-party negotiations.

“We are in discussions now with the administration, with the Senate, about how to proceed,” he said. “We don’t have any final goal or deadline. But I would prefer to get this done sooner rather than later, and I don’t want another CR.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Congress

Congressional Black Caucus blasts Slotkin over her calls for new leadership in the House

Published

13 hours ago

June 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Congressional Black Caucus is emphatically declaring its support for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — and denouncing Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s call for new leadership in Congress.

In a statement posted to social media on Friday, the entirely Democratic CBC declared that it stands united behind the nation’s first Black minority leader of the House. The caucus accused the Michigan senator of “posturing for higher office in 2028” and called attention to her votes to approve multiple members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.

“House Democrats don’t need a lesson on reading the political moment from someone who handed Donald Trump one of the most corrupt Cabinets in American history,” the CBC said. “Voting to confirm Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, and five other Trump Cabinet secretaries is not the posture of someone who understood the moment’ after 2024.”

The CBC closed its defense of Jeffries with a sharp parting shot of remaining focused on providing for Americans rather than “engaging in distractions that only serve to divide Democrats at a moment when unity and resolve are essential.”

A spokesperson for Slotkin, who has repeatedly called for a new generation of leadership in Congress, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Congress

Key Democrats urge House to reject kids’ safety proposal

Published

16 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Commerce Committee’s top Democrat Maria Cantwell (Wash.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) warned House lawmakers against advancing their chamber’s version of the Kids Online Safety Act, arguing it would face intense lobbying from tech companies in the Senate and risk unraveling years of bipartisan work.

“If it is passed by the House it will come to the Senate,” Blumenthal, the bill’s Senate cosponsor, told reporters at a Friday press briefing. The Connecticut Democrat said he is concerned senators will be influenced by the tech industry’s “armies of lawyers and lobbyists” who may “confuse and exploit” misunderstandings about a House bill with the same name as a Senate version but excludes key provisions, such as the “duty of care.” (This concept requires online companies to design social media platforms with an eye for children’s safety.)

“We’re not going to let bad legislation with a good title just get across and think somebody’s done something,” Cantwell said.

The House version of KOSA — which is included in the KIDS Act, a revised bipartisan package that the Energy and Commerce Committee advanced along party lines in March — is scheduled to be considered on the House floor next week under suspension of the rules.

“We need to stop this bill in the House, and we need to prevent the White House from forming an alliance with Big Tech on this issue,” said Blumenthal, who characterized the version of KOSA that House leadership is pushing as a “sham.”

Both Democratic lawmakers also expressed concern that Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) could adopt the House version of KOSA in a kids’ safety package he has yet to publicly release but has pledged to markup by August recess. Cruz said “negotiations are ongoing” earlier this week when asked by Blue Light News whether he would be open to incorporating such changes put forward in the House.

Cruz’s package is expected to include KOSA as well legislation barring companies from using minors’ personal data for targeted advertising, banning kids under age 13 from social media, and providing greater oversight for how children interact with AI chatbots.

Although Blumenthal remains hopeful that Cruz will “stay true to his first vote in favor of KOSA,” which overwhelmingly passed in the Senate last Congress, the Connecticut Democrat said Friday he’s worried Cruz and others may be tempted to “take the bait” and abandon the bill’s basic principles.

Congress

Moderates beware: Mamdani coalition portends a dramatically different Democratic Party in NYC

Published

20 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

NEW YORK — A coalition powered by Mayor Zohran Mamdani expanded the left’s reach Tuesday, winning younger voters across racial and ethnic lines and once again upending conventional wisdom about elections in New York City.

A series of hotly contested congressional and state elections pit a slate of Mamdani-backed democratic socialists and progressives against establishment candidates who, in several cases, differed little on policy aside from U.S.-Israel relations.

The results were staggering.

Midterm election cycles in deep-blue New York City tend to be sleepy affairs. Both this year and in 2022, just over 500,000 people cast ballots, less than 20 percent of eligible voters. But turnout within a congressional district spanning Upper Manhattan and the Bronx increased by roughly 50 percent between 2022 and Tuesday, with more than 66,000 voters heading to the polls.

In another seat covering parts of Brooklyn and Queens, turnout more than doubled from 2022, though state and federal elections were held on different days that year and the seat was not competitive, which would have reduced the number of voters going to the polls.

Congressional candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America were able to replicate the mayor’s success by winning younger Latino voters in Brooklyn and a majority of Black voters in Harlem. Combined with the DSA’s base in relatively wealthy neighborhoods, the result charted the far left’s broadening appeal and a potential reorientation of the electorate that will influence races for years to come.

“This was a big wave for DSA and they did a good job capitalizing on it,” said Evan Roth Smith, a pollster with Slingshot Strategies. “The question now is: Was this a wave cycle that will abate, or is it the start of the takeover?”

Much of Mamdani’s base is concentrated in the so-called “commie-corridor,” a series of neighborhoods along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront filled with young, educated and affluent voters who’ve propelled several DSA candidates into office. They went gaga over Mamdani’s candidacy and, as Tuesday’s results show, will turn out for candidates he supports.

The area was crucial to Assemblymember Claire Valdez’s crushing 56-38 defeat of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.

“The factor that felt most significant to me were all of these New Yorkers who got activated and politicized in the mayor’s race last year who were looking for the next fight,” said Andrew Epstein, a political adviser to Mamdani who worked on Valdez’ campaign. “Those people didn’t go away. And they want to keep going.”

Valdez also won several heavily Latino areas that were expected to break for her opponent.

Reynoso was born in Brooklyn to Dominican parents and just a few years ago was a City Council member representing Bushwick, a long-gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood that’s home to Latino families and young hipsters. Valdez was born in Texas, moved to New York City in 2015 and served in the state Assembly for just one term before launching her Mamdani-backed bid for retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez’s seat.

She ended up winning areas of Bushwick by even greater margins than the total results — in some election districts winning upwards of 80 percent of the vote.

“You don’t win the district by 35 points if you don’t have broad advantages across age and demographic groups,” said Michael Lange, an election analyst and Mamdani supporter who has tracked several contested races with extreme granularity. “Is she blowing him out of the water with Hispanic voters under 50? I see tons of evidence that the answer is yes.”

The age advantage was the common thread across several other races.

In Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, for example, younger Black voters in Harlem were key to Darializa Avila Chevalier’s win over Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who had built a small political empire in the district.

While gentrifying, the neighborhood remains a seat of Black political power and is home to younger households who tend to rent. That particular demographic is a strong indicator of why Mamdani won the area in 2025, even as he lost the Black vote overall to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose support was concentrated among older Black homeowners in Brooklyn and Queens.

While Espaillat never healed a rift with the Black community in upper Manhattan opened during his election in 2016, which contributed to his weak performance, Avila Chevalier demonstrated Tuesday that a significant share of voters there were not just supportive of Mamdani the person, but of the broader political movement he’s now leading.

Overall, she edged out Espaillat with Black voters 48-46, according to an analysis from The New York Times, which charted demographic breakdowns for several contested races.

Three winning congressional candidates endorsed by Mamdani — including former city Comptroller Brad Lander in Brooklyn, who unseated incumbent Dan Goldman — share several similarities. They won younger, college-educated and wealthier voters by huge margins, in several cases by 30 points or more, and lost lower-income voters to incumbents or candidates affiliated with incumbents — a sign that the movement seeking to boost struggling New Yorkers has not won them over.

While the DSA was able to win three state races without the support of Mamdani — a testament to the organizing prowess of the left that was essential to reactivating the mayor’s coalition — there were limits to the city’s leftward shift.

Rep. Grace Meng won her reelection race, though she only vanquished challenger Chuck Park by 14 points, an uncomfortable margin for an incumbent of her stature. Park, who ran to Meng’s left, was boosted by a huge turnout in Woodside, Queens, a multiethnic neighborhood that went heavily for Mamdani in last year’s mayoral race.

Elsewhere in the Bronx, however, incumbents remained strong. Rep. Ritchie Torres handily won reelection with 72 percent of the vote, though it was a low-turnout affair more consistent with an uncompetitive midterm. Nevertheless, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries touted the results — even as he watched a series of his endorsed candidates fall to the DSA in Brooklyn, his home borough, in a preview of the intraparty battles to come.

“In some higher-income districts, there was an outsized focus on the Middle East. In other districts, for instance, in the South Bronx, Ritchie Torres ran against somebody who was heavily critical of his position on Israel, and he won by fifty points,” Jeffries told MS NOW on Wednesday.