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
Johnson touts ‘bipartisan’ path for FISA reauthorization, but obstacles remain
Speaker Mike Johnson is raising the possibility of a “bipartisan” path forward on extending a key spy authority after negotiations among House Republicans blew up late last week.
“We’re confident that we’ll be able to find strong bipartisan consensus that builds off of the really meaningful reforms that we included in the legislation the last time we reauthorized it,” Johnson said during a news conference Tuesday morning.
The emergency short-term reauthorization Congress cleared last week expires April 30, putting pressure on lawmakers to reach a deal quickly.
Among the options GOP leaders are discussing: If the Senate can advance a three-year extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with policy changes, the House could then pass it with a majority of Republicans and some Democrats, according to three people granted anonymity to share direct knowledge of ongoing conversations.
It’s also possible Johnson could put that measure on the House floor under an expedited procedure that does not require prior adoption of a party-line rule, but would need a two-thirds majority voting in the affirmative to secure passage. House GOP leaders still need to appease hard-liners who have very specific demands for new guardrails on warrentless surveillance practices as part of any reauthorization measure.
House Democratic leaders, meanwhile, aren’t promising cooperation — and they’re skeptical Johnson is as close to a deal as he might suggest.
“His confidence meter was always pretty high, and then he put a bill on the floor that had zero consensus among his caucus, and looked like the disaster that it was after midnight,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California told reporters Tuesday.
He added that he has not had “any discussions” yet with Republican counterparts on next steps for Section 702, and “absent those conversations, it’s going to be hard to find bipartisan consensus.” Aguilar also said that Democrats would follow the leads of House Intelligence Chair Jim Himes of Connecticut and Jamie Raskin of Maryland.
Johnson is planning to meet Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Darin LaHood of Illinois later Tuesday as the pair of Republicans works with Democrats on a bipartisan FISA extension plan, according to two people granted anonymity to share private scheduling.
Congress
Graham releases blueprint for GOP immigration enforcement funding plan
Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham unveiled a fiscal blueprint Tuesday paving the way for the GOP’s party-line immigration enforcement plan.
The budget resolution is the first step in Republicans’ two-step plan to deliver a bill funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol and other agencies to President Donald Trump’s desk by his self-imposed June 1 deadline.
Senate Republicans are aiming to adopt the budget resolution this week. Senate Majority Leader John Thune can lose as many as three GOP members so long as Vice President JD Vance is available to break ties.
“Republicans are doing something that must be done quickly, and that our Democrat colleagues are trying to prevent us from doing. That something is simple: fully fund Border Patrol and ICE at a time of great threat to the United States,” Graham (R-S.C.) said in a statement.
The budget resolution tasks the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee with drafting the subsequent immigration enforcement bill.
The resolution gives the committees until May 15 to hand over text. It sets a ceiling of $70 billion for the Judiciary Committee’s portion and $70 billion for the Homeland Security panel’s portion. While the language would allow for a larger bill, a Graham aide said Tuesday that Republicans are aiming to keep the measure to about $70 billion.
Senate Republicans are expected to take an initial vote on the budget resolution as soon as Tuesday afternoon. After that they’ll need to complete a marathon session known as a vote-a-rama before they can approve the fiscal blueprint and send it to the House.
Democrats are expected to force several amendments related to cost-of-living concerns. Senate conservatives could also try to expand the scope of the bill, though GOP leaders hope to avoid making any changes to Graham’s text.
House Republicans could take their own vote next week. They are also waiting to grant approval of a Senate-passed deal to fund the rest of the Department of Homeland Security. Speaker Mike Johnson has delayed action on the measure amid hard-right demands that the Senate move on the immigration enforcement funding bill first.
Some House conservatives want the Senate to complete the entire reconciliation process, which allows ICE funding to bypass a Democratic filibuster, before they take up the larger DHS deal. That could drag the agency’s shutdown deep into May.
Senate Republicans are aiming to put the final immigration enforcement bill on the floor the week of May 11.
Congress
‘Many families are struggling’
Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan offered a rare acknowledgment from a GOP leader Tuesday that the U.S. economy might not be in tip-top condition. McClain, the Republican Conference chair, said at a news conference that “even with bigger [tax] refunds, many families are struggling right now, and I get it.”
That’s a departure from the message President Donald Trump sent at a event in Las Vegas last week, where he said “everything’s doing really well” and played down the impact of higher energy prices since he ordered military strikes on Iran.
“But we also owe it to the American people to be honest about how we got here, to make sure we don’t ever go back again,” McClain, the No. 4 party leader added, saying Americans are “digging out of a hole” from former President Joe Biden’s administration.
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