Congress
Jeffries: First bill of Dem majority would tackle affordability
The first bill of a House Democratic majority will concentrate on lowering costs, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters at a news conference Monday.
“We believe, every single one of us, that the cost of living in this country is far too high, and that we need to make life more affordable,” the New Yorker told reporters in response to a question from Blue Light News.
With fewer than five months left before the midterms, Democrats are beginning to plot their agenda in the event they win back control of the chamber.
His comments come with fewer than five months left before the midterms, and as Democrats have been meeting for months to plot their legislative agenda in the event they win back control of the chamber in November. Jeffries is expected to be named speaker in that scenario.
His remarks also came on the heels of a new “Dear Colleague” letter from Jeffries to all House Democrats, announcing the creation of five working groups to develop different components of affordability legislation: on housing, gas and utilities, groceries and goods, caregiving and health care.
Each of the working groups will meet this week to begin discussions about what will go into Democrats’ H.R. 1 — shorthand for a majority party’s signature bill.
While Jeffries said he will seek input from “every part of the caucus” to hammer out the specifics of an affordability package, he added that “it’s fair to say that when we look at the legislation that we’re going to lean into — including but not limited to H.R. 1 — it will be hyper focused on driving down the high cost of living and of course fixing our broken health care system as a part of that.”
Separately, the centrist House New Democrat Coalition and Congressional Progressive Caucus unveiled their affordability platforms earlier this year.
President Donald Trump officially nominated acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to hold the role on a permanent basis Monday.
The White House notified the Senate of the nomination days after Trump said he would tap Blanche for the job at a private Rose Garden dinner last week.
Blanche’s path to confirmation remains uncertain. Republican senators, fresh off their opposition to the administration’s proposed Justice Department “anti-weaponization” fund, appear to be hesitant to offer their wholehearted support for Trump’s pick.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who Trump has repeatedly attacked, previously told POLITICO he would weigh the anti-weaponization fund when considering attorney general nominees.
Opposition from any single Republican on the committee could bring Blanche’s nomination to a halt.
And Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who also sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and who lost a primary to a Trump-endorsed opponent last month, told Blue Light News last week his support for Blanche “depends on his answers to questions that I intend to ask him at the Judiciary Committee.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) signaled his support for the president’s pick, saying in a statement Monday that Blanche is “well-qualified and has shown his dedication to restoring law and order across our country.”
If confirmed, Blanche would succeed former Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was forced out of the administration following the botched handling of the Epstein files and Trump’s frustrations that she wasn’t prosecuting his political rivals.
Bondi told Congress in a closed-door interview last month that Blanche was responsible for the Justice Department’s handling of the files, according to a transcript of the interview released last week.
House Republican appropriators are taking aim at TSA’s new $45 fee for air travelers who don’t have a REAL ID or other accepted form of identification, inserting language into their annual Homeland Security spending bill seeking to stop its collection.
The fiscal 2027 legislation, which is poised for an Appropriations Committee markup Tuesday, includes a prohibition on TSA charging or collecting any fee for “a program vetting travelers arriving without acceptable identification for admission through security screenings at airports.”
In an accompanying report released Monday offering details about the bill, the House GOP said there’s “no valid statutory authority for TSA to collect” the new fee, known as ConfirmID, which launched in February.
“Previously, identity verification was a function that TSA performed for free when passengers were unable to present acceptable IDs, which frequently happens after natural disasters or personal property theft,” the report says. “ConfirmID is over an order of magnitude more expensive than the system it replaced on a per passenger basis.”
The bill would require a TSA congressional briefing on the program.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its fee collection process. The agency had initially proposed an $18 fee.
Adam Stahl, TSA’s acting deputy administrator, said in a December announcement: “The vast majority of travelers present acceptable identification like REAL IDs and passports, but we must ensure everyone who flies is who they say they are,” adding: “This fee ensures the cost to cover verification of an insufficient ID will come from the traveler, not the taxpayer.” The agency said at the time that more than 94 percent of passengers have REAL ID or other acceptable forms of identification.
Separately, Republican appropriators note in the report that TSA would be required to conduct an agency-wide review to “identify spending reductions and savings achievable through expanded use of public-private partnerships.” In doing so, the agency, among other things, would need to consider “increasing the use of private sector security screening and remote screening.”
That’s far from what the Trump administration was seeking: mandating the Screening Partnership Program, or SPP, at smaller airports. Through the program, private companies staff security checkpoints under TSA oversight.
By the numbers: The House GOP wants to give TSA $11.2 billion total in discretionary spending — a $347 million cut year-over-year. (This amount would be offset by $3.6 billion in revenue from the 9/11 passenger fee and vetting fees, like for PreCheck.)
Additionally, TSA would receive $255.3 million in mandatory spending, which is similar to what it got in fiscal 2026.
The bill would boost the SPP, with an increase of $41 million for the program year-over-year.
At the same time, Republicans aim to reduce spending on screening personnel, compensation and benefits by $32.9 million compared to fiscal 2026.
Screening technology maintenance would experience an increase, meanwhile, of $192 million.
Federal Air Marshals would see a year-over-year reduction of $290.4 million.
In the committee report, when listing vetting fees, the House GOP doesn’t account for any dollars from ConfirmID — illustrating how they want to stop it from being imposed.
Republicans are about to put one Donald Trump-induced headache behind them — but another is right behind it.
The House is expected to send a long-stalled GOP immigration enforcement funding bill to Trump’s desk Tuesday after the president threw multiple curveballs into the process.
Now the Senate will spend the coming days wrangling over a key spy power that has repeatedly been punted over the past two months. It is set to expire Friday
But Trump’s decision to install Bill Pulte as director of national intelligence has all but quashed any chance of a long-term renewal for the Section 702 program.
With Democrats pushing for Pulte’s removal before supporting any extension, even another short-term patch for the key piece of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is in serious doubt just days before the deadline.
“The idea that we’re going to allow Mr. Pulte to be potentially in charge of how this tool is used or manipulated, that’s going to be a very uphill path to convince Democrats,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Senate Intelligence Democrat, said in a BLN interview Sunday. “This was a self-inflicted harm.”
Warner and other Democrats had been working with Republicans to pass a three-year extension. But the Pulte move prompted nearly every Senate Democrat to oppose a procedural vote on that deal early Friday morning. Trump didn’t help matters later that day when he told the Wall Street Journal he wants Pulte to conduct mass firings inside intelligence agencies.
The writing is on the wall: Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Intel Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) sent a letter to the administration over the weekend indicating it should prepare for a lapse in the key spy power.
Grassley piled on the pressure Sunday evening, posting on X in his trademark diction that Democrats were putting Americans’ safety at risk “RIGHT B4 WORLD CUP +AMERICA250” with their opposition to the extension. He called on them to “do what’s right for ALL Americans.”
Note that Warner and Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top House Intel Democrat, both stopped short of saying in Sunday-show interviews that they would allow Section 702 to expire if Pulte is not removed.
But the path is extremely narrow. About 15 Senate Democratic votes needed, Warner said, and very few are willing to give Trump and his hand-picked new intel chief the benefit of the doubt.
What else we’re watching:
— UTAH REPUBLICANS ERUPT: The Pentagon’s Friday move to greatly cull the list of servicemember religious classifications has elected officials Utah up in arms after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was excluded from the “Christian” category used for 20 other denominations. Sens. John Curtis, Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Mike Kennedy were among those questioning why the church wasn’t explicitly named as Christian.
— TAX FIGHT ROILS AIR-SAFETY BILL: A little-noticed provision that would make it easier for wealthy people to avoid paying state and local taxes on their private jets is sparking a partisan brawl as Congress finalizes an air-safety bill. The measure would bar tax officials from using the identifying information that aircraft are required to broadcast while flying as part of their tax-collection efforts.
Jordain Carney, Brian Faler and Calen Razor contributed to this report.
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