Congress
Jeff Merkley wraps up marathon speech warning of ‘authoritarian’ rule
Sen. Jeff Merkley yielded the Senate floor after more than 22 hours Wednesday, capping off an overnight protest against the Trump administration.
The Oregon Democrat began speaking at 6:21 p.m. Tuesday, warning that he was doing so to “ring the alarm bells about authoritarian control” and that the county was facing its “most perilous moment” since the Civil War.
He stood down at 5 p.m on Wednesday, vowing to “keep fighting.”
“We all have taken oath to the constitution,” he added, urging Americans to work together to “ring the alarm bells. … The next election is absolutely critical.”
The speech surpassed his previous record of holding the Senate floor for more than 15 hours during the first Trump administration. It also surpassed the marathon speech delivered by fellow Oregonian Wayne Morse in 1953 and is now the fourth longest in the chamber’s history.
Democrats have been under pressure from their base to show that they are not treating the second administration as business as usual — even if some of those steps are largely symbolic. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) set a new record for delivering the longest floor speech in history earlier this year.
Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee and a senior appropriator, yielded to several Democratic senators for questions over the course of his remarks, including Booker, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Whip Dick Durbin. The questions allowed Merkley to take a break from speaking, but he was required to stay standing the entire time in order to maintain control of the chamber proceedings.
“This is a moral moment in America,” Booker said when he joined Merkley on the floor, adding that the Oregon Democrat was showing that “democracy is not a spectator sport.”
During his marathon floor speech, Merkley spoke at length about Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard to Portland and the ongoing legal fight around it. Trump’s use of the military has sparked unease from some corners of the Senate Republican Conference, but most GOP lawmakers have backed up Trump’s actions.
Merkley and colleagues who joined him in the Senate chamber also talked about Trump’s attempts to pressure the Justice Department to go after his perceived political enemies, his tariff policies and soon-to-expire Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Merkley’s actions come more than 20 days into the government shutdown with no end in sight. Republicans criticized Merkley for keeping Senate staff and Capitol Police working overnight when they are not getting paid because of the funding lapse.
“The Democrats are going to make Capitol Police and Capitol support staff – who they refuse to pay – work all night so they can give speeches patting themselves on the back for shutting down the government and hurting the American people. How ridiculous is that?” Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 2 Senate Republican, posted on X.
Congress
Schumer rolls out Democrats’ midterm energy pitch
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer rolled out an energy and climate change agenda Wednesday as a preview of what Democrats have in store if they take the chamber’s majority in November’s elections.
Schumer’s five-point plan seeks to ride the national momentum on affordability, framing Democrats as the party not just of clean energy and fighting climate change, but of lower electricity bills and more jobs.
It touches on some longtime Democratic priorities — like bringing back the Inflation Reduction Act clean energy tax incentives that President Donald Trump and Republicans rolled back last year — and easing permitting hurdles for wind, solar and other zero-emissions energy sources.
“We can bring new voters and allies into the fight for a cleaner environment by showing how clean energy is affordable energy,” Schumer said.
“With this new expanded coalition, putting us back in the majority, we have an opportunity to put forward new policy solutions, strong policy solutions, that tell the American people we can both lower costs and make real progress on climate change,” he continued.
Schumer presented the plan at the League of Conservation Voters’ annual Capital Dinner, gathering hundreds of donors, lawmakers, environmental staff and others.
The group, long a major Democratic ally, is one of the nation’s top election spenders, and is poised to be a major part of Democrats’ attempts to recover from their 2024 losses.
Clean energy, Schumer said, is “the cheapest and fastest way to add energy to the grid, and reduces our emissions at the same time.”
The Democrats’ plan seeks to build out more electricity transmission and storage, make sure data centers pay their fair share for energy, and better protect consumers from electricity bill increases.
While many of the pillars are longtime priorities on the left, Schumer emphasized some new priorities. The plan puts geothermal and nuclear energy, including fusion, on a similar level to renewables like wind and solar.
Schumer is also promising “a thorough re-examination of the entire structure and incentives within our energy systems … to prioritize lowering costs,” and new efforts to make electricity bills “easier to understand.”
While Democrats have been engaging with Republicans toward bipartisan permitting legislation for all forms of energy, Schumer presented a more partisan permitting concept in his speech.
“Democrats will provide legislative certainty for clean energy projects, so that workers and investors can rebuild the clean energy project ecosystem that Trump has destroyed,” he said, adding that permitting legislation “never, never must come at the expense of our obligation to protect local communities and safeguard the environment.”
Democrats have not been particularly vocal on climate change in their drive to take the Senate and House majorities, as they reexamine the issue’s palatability with voters. Schumer’s rollout shows at least some willingness to focus on climate, but keeps the party’s priority on affordability.
Democrats currently hold 47 of the Senate’s seats, so they would need a net gain of four seats to get the majority. The party is focusing on candidates like former Gov. Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Gov. Janet Mills in Maine and former Rep. Mary Peltola in Alaska to get there, but it’s an uphill battle.
The party has also taken recent steps to push its energy agenda in the Senate. Earlier Tuesday, Democrats forced a vote on a resolution that sought to undo Trump’s implementation of clean energy tax policies. More such resolutions are forthcoming.
Congress
Special election shocker has Florida Republicans nervous about redistricting
Florida has been viewed for months as the potential capstone of a GOP redistricting campaign, but now Sunshine State Republicans are growing wary after the dramatic flip of two legislative seats in the state — including one where President Donald Trump votes.
Republicans already hold a commanding 20-8 edge over Democrats in the Florida House delegation, and some in the GOP — including Gov. Ron DeSantis — believe they could pick up as many as five more seats with a rare mid-decade redraw of district lines.
Some Florida incumbents are now warning in stark terms it could backfire.
“I think the Legislature needs to be very cognizant of the fact that if they get too aggressive … you could put incumbent members at risk,” GOP Rep. Greg Steube said. Some seats that Republicans previously won by eight or nine points, he said, could instead have only a four- or five-point GOP advantage — putting them in reach for Democrats in a wave election.
DeSantis, citing a state Supreme Court decision from last year and a potential ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, has already called a special session of the state Legislature in April to push ahead with new lines. So far there have been no official maps produced or any signs that lawmakers have started working on them.
Republican anxiety has only grown further after Democrats notched surprising wins in special elections Tuesday, including a Palm Beach County district that contains the Mar-a-Largo resort where Trump lives and votes.
While many in the GOP have brushed off the Democratic gains there and in other states as anomalies, private qualms are growing among the incumbents whose seats could be put at greater risk due to redistricting.
“We keep saying these are kind of one-off things that haven’t gone our way,” said one Florida House Republican granted anonymity to speak candidly. “But I’m not seeing any of the one-offs that are going our way.”
“To talk as aggressively as some of what we’ve heard, there’s no way to get there without significantly weakening some districts,” the member added.
House Democrats are hoping to capitalize on the opportunity. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries quickly sent a warning Tuesday night that redistricting could backfire.
“We will crush House Republicans in November if DeSantis tries to gerrymander the Florida congressional map,” Jeffries said in a post on X.
Others are openly objecting to redistricting on more high-minded grounds. Rep. Daniel Webster, a veteran Republican from central Florida, called it a “slippery slope.”
“I’ve been around enough reapportionments to know it can come back and bite you,” he said.
“I don’t like this redistricting stuff,” Jacksonville-area Rep. John Rutherford said, noting south Florida would likely bear the brunt of any changes. “But if they think they can get another two seats or something, have at it.”
Any significant redraw in Florida would likely focus on changing districts that were drawn based on racial considerations, the subject of the court rulings DeSantis has cited. While much of the focus has been on seats held by Democrats, Republicans concede it could lead to changes to the Miami-area district represented by GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.
Some incumbents are also worried that redistricting — still weeks away — is hindering their reelection campaigns as the midterms approach.
“Why would you knock on doors if you don’t know if those doors are gonna be in your district or not?” Steube said.
The hand-wringing over Florida comes as the fallout from Trump’s monthslong redistricting push continues to ripple through the House. Republicans kicked things off with a surprise effort to draw new maps in Texas, but Democrats countered with an effort to draw California’s lines in their favor.
After months of wrangling in about a dozen states, the whole effort looks to end up close to a wash — after some Republicans tried to warn party leaders the heavy-handed effort could backfire.
A group of House Republicans from Florida privately discussed their concerns about the fallout of yet another redistricting push in their state, several Republicans confirmed — especially amid rising anxiety that Hispanic voters could be turning away from the GOP.
House GOP leaders mostly brushed off the Florida special elections in public comments Wednesday, arguing that low-turnout, off-cycle races shouldn’t be considered midterm bellwethers. But some suggested there are lessons to be learned from Tuesday’s results.
“Surely you look at those and see, are there things we can learn and improve upon when the big election comes?” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters Wednesday. “And obviously, November is the election that we are focused on.”
The top leaders of the House GOP’s campaign arm, Reps. Richard Hudson of North Carolina and Brian Jack of Georgia, both deferred to the state Legislature on redistricting in Florida Wednesday.
Hudson, the NRCC chair, said Florida’s growing population means redistricting “makes sense to do,” but he said he was more concerned about turnout and other factors.
Jack, the group’s deputy chair for recruiting, similarly talked up the candidates Republicans would be fielding in Florida and elsewhere. As for redistricting, he said, “I defer to the Legislature.”
“It’s up to them,” he said, “not up to us.”
Congress
Arrington: Fraud cuts for war funding
House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington is making clear he will push for the “fraud prevention” spending cuts he wants across state and social safety net programs in order to pay for any Iran war funding in a second GOP reconciliation bill.
The Texas Republican is meeting soon this afternoon with Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in Graham’s office to discuss plans.
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