Congress

Inside the House vs. Senate rifts threatening the GOP agenda

Published

2 months ago

May 11, 2026

Republicans have a major obstacle to clear if they are going to avoid a legislative pileup in the months before the midterms: each other.

Intraparty tensions between House and Senate Republicans have boiled over in recent weeks. It has spilled into public view in the form of finger-pointing, shade-throwing and warnings that Republicans either need to figure out how to play nice or risk paying a price in what is already shaping up to be a rough election year.

“We control Washington. When … we don’t get things done, we’re making a huge mistake,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said about his House counterparts. “We’ve got to deliver.”

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) also lamented the recent divisions within the GOP’s ranks: “You can either be part of a functional majority and get almost everything or you can hold out and get nothing and be in the minority next time.”

“I guess we can all vote ‘no’ together — that’ll be exciting,” the House Appropriations chair added.

Republicans managed to resolve one long and particularly nasty disagreement late last month when Speaker Mike Johnson and his conference finally approved a Senate-passed Department of Homeland Security funding bill he previously had described as a “crap sandwich.”

But the two chambers return to session Monday after a short recess with Republicans at odds on everything from housing to a soon-to-expire surveillance law to a long-shot election proposal. And they are facing a shrinking window to either get on the same page or leave much of their legislative agenda stuck in limbo as Republicans prepare to spend more time back home campaigning.

Who is at fault? The answer mostly depends on which side of the building the question is asked.

Some Senate Republicans have started to doubt that the House will be able to pass much of anything for the rest of the year. Their exasperation was fueled watching the DHS and surveillance bills languish last month as rank-and-file House GOP lawmakers went to war with each other — and with Johnson.

And while the House Republicans spent much of the past month fighting amongst themselves, senior members of the conference are trying to channel some of the rank-and-file anger at the Senate, rather than at Johnson, who fights day-to-day to control his tiny majority. A growing chorus of House GOP lawmakers also want the Senate to eliminate the filibuster — something Republicans don’t have the votes to do — and have otherwise kvetched about their perception that senators have cut them out of big decisions over the past year.

“The House is doing its job,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said. “Sometimes it gets a little tense, but we’re still getting stuff done. We’re sending it over to the Senate, so we look forward to them doing their job.”

Cole, no one’s idea of an ideological rabble-rouser, also accused Senate GOP leaders of not coordinating enough with Johnson. The tensions, he said, have been “created by bad management in Senate leadership and by not being transparent and open with us in the House.”

Interchamber sniping is a perennial fact of life in Washington. Due to its 60-vote filibuster rule, the Senate requires a modicum of bipartisanship to do most legislating, while the majoritarian House does not. Democrats faced similar divides when they had a trifecta government under former President Joe Biden — complete with rampant calls to eliminate the filibuster and a failed attempt to make a carve-out for voting rights legislation.

Under the GOP trifecta, Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune meet regularly to coordinate the Republican agenda, with their staffers also keeping in close touch. But recent weeks have tested their relationship.

Johnson has occasionally joined ultraconservatives in trashing Senate bills, while the typically mild-mannered Thune, in turn, delivered increasingly blunt assessments of the House’s decision to sit on the DHS funding bill. However, when the House ultimately passed it by voice vote — the same way the Senate did weeks earlier — Thune declined to rub it in Johnson’s face.

“He has to do what he has to do, I know that, and he knows the kind of the challenges we face over here,” Thune said about Johnson. “He needs every Republican and that’s a real challenge on a good day, and sometimes there aren’t a lot of good days around here.”

Johnson acknowledged “emotion” and “frustration” within his own conference but downplayed the drama, attributing it to a “cumbersome” legislative process in comments to reporters.

The GOP’s most pressing task is meeting President Donald Trump’s self-imposed June 1 deadline to get an immigration enforcement funding bill to his desk. House and Senate Republicans, after weeks of jockeying, managed to sign off on the same budget blueprint, a key prerequisite.

But they now need to navigate a political firestorm after Senate Republicans released draft legislation last week that included $1 billion in Secret Service security funding that can be used for at least parts of Trump’s proposed White House ballroom. Some GOP lawmakers and aides have privately lamented the inclusion of funding for a project voters have shown little support for and are questioning whether the provision should be removed.

Even the bigger intraparty fights could be coming.

Republicans bought themselves until mid-June to figure out how to extend the hot-button spy authority known as Section 702. The House passed a three-year extension of the surveillance law last month but married it to a permanent ban on a Federal Reserve digital currency that is DOA in the Senate.

Negotiations are ongoing over how to extend Section 702, which is aimed at foreigners abroad but has the ability to sweep in communications with Americans. But House hard-liners, with support from some GOP senators, are doubling down.

“The Senate is going to have to address the central bank digital currency,” Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) said. “I think the public is going to demand it.”

Burlison warned Republicans to start negotiating early and that if they “want to push it all the way to the end like they did these last two times, they’re going to get the same result.”

The digital currency provision is also implicated in another intra-GOP standoff, this one over housing legislation. The Senate passed a five-year ban on a government-backed digital currency as part of a bipartisan housing package it passed last year, but that bill is now stalled in the House.

That has frustrated Senate Republicans, who believe getting a housing bill to Trump’s desk would be an easy way to show voters that the party is responsive to their affordability anxieties.

“It’s being held up by one or two members of Congress, and I respect their opinion, but I’d like to see the president call them up and say, ‘Hey guys, what’s the problem here?’” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).

Trump has in fact considered getting involved — but not to urge the House to pass the Senate bill as-is. Instead, he has privately raised objections to some provisions in the Senate-passed version that would place curbs on corporate ownership of some single-family homes.

While they wait for Trump to go public with his concerns, House GOP leaders have made clear the Senate bill won’t pass their chamber, and they’re now working through a plan to amend the contentious parts of the Senate product and send it back.

“Conversations continue,” House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) said before the recess. “We just are looking for the path to get a bicameral bill.”

But “bicameral” is an especially loaded word right now, given the ongoing GOP sniping that reached a crescendo during the DHS funding drama.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer unloaded on the Senate after Republicans there left out immigration enforcement funding that Democrats fiercely opposed.

“This is what Americans get so upset with about politicians. This is literally what they’re mad about,” he said. “These guys won’t do their jobs.”

Andres Picon contributed to this report.

Congress

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

Published

15 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

23 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

1 day 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.”