Congress

Johnson has 3 main options to avert a shutdown. None of them are looking good.

Published

1 year ago

December 19, 2024

Mike Johnson’s in a terrible spot, with a government shutdown deadline looming in less than 48 hours and no obvious way out.

Conservatives are furious, rank-and-file members are exasperated, and President-elect Donald Trump is threatening to primary his members and taking blatant shots at his speakership.

After spending weeks negotiating a stopgap spending bill with several add-ons, Trump and others all but killed Johnson’s deal on Wednesday. Now, he has to figure out if he’ll try to stick with it, passing it using a lot of Democratic support, or come up with another last-minute escape hatch. And time is quickly running out.

All of his options have downsides. Let’s lay them out:

Stick to the status quo: This appears to be the least likely, as both Donald Trump and Elon Musk have come out against the bill he negotiated to punt the funding deadline until March 14.

This might have passed both chambers — at least, it could have before Trump came out against it — but if Johnson moves forward with it now, there’s a good chance he won’t be reelected speaker on Jan. 3. Conservative anger is too high, with at least one Republican already saying he’ll vote for someone else and several others noncommittal.

Plus, Johnson needs Trump to stay on his side. Directly opposing him by putting this forward anyway would be ill-advised, and Trump hinted at this in an interview with Fox News Digital, saying Johnson would “easily remain speaker” if he “acts decisively and tough” and eliminates “all of the traps being set by Democrats” in the spending package.

A clean stopgap bill: Even before Trump came out against the stopgap funding package Wednesday, Johnson was discussing putting forward a “clean” bill that wouldn’t include add-ons like disaster aid and a farm bill extension. But there are problems there, too, and it’s unclear that it could clear Congress.

Some Republicans have vociferously demanded disaster aid for their natural disaster ravaged communities. Sen Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), for example, already said he wouldn’t vote for a package unless it included disaster aid. Democrats also likely wouldn’t support the bill unless it at least included money to help those affected by natural disasters.

Plus, Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance have now called for a debt limit increase to ride along with this bill. Leaving that out could stoke their anger, even if it’s a more straightforward bill.

Stopgap with a debt limit hike: This is the preferred option of Trump and others — but it requires rank-and-file to walk what has been the third rail of modern GOP politics: Lifting the nation’s borrowing limits. Republicans have twisted themselves into all sorts of pretzels to avoid precisely these sorts of votes over the last decade, preferring to leave it to Democrats.

Typically, raising the debt limit comes with spending caps, an issue that takes weeks of negotiations, if not more. Lawmakers have less than two days before a shutdown kicks in.

Maybe Trump’s insistence gets enough Republicans on board — but lawmakers would then have to likely pass the underlying bill on their own. Democrats have indicated they don’t plan to bail out Republicans over these sorts of 11th hour demands for changes to their negotiated bipartisan measure.

Keep in mind: This is all before the measure reaches the Democratic-run Senate, where 60 votes will be needed to eventually pass the legislation to keep the government lights on. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said he’s waiting to see what the House does.

As we said: There are no good or consequence-free options for Johnson. This episode has riled up some conservatives against his speakership — and the odds of him easily clinching the gavel have gone down substantially.

Congress

Senate, House reach deal on housing bill, Senate to start votes Tuesday

Published

2 hours ago

June 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday the chamber will move forward with its first procedural vote on updated bipartisan housing affordability legislation. The movement comes after the leaders of the Senate Banking and House Financial Services Committees announced bicameral agreement on the long-awaited bill.

The text of the revised 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act was released Tuesday and contains most of the House-passed housing language, including the House’s version of a provision to restrict large institutional investors from buying single-family homes. Six Senate bills stripped from the House-passed package were also added back onto the bill with “meaningful changes” to address House concerns, according to a note the Senate Banking Committee circulated with the bill text that was obtained by Blue Light News.

“This bill is the result of years of work to lower costs, expand housing supply, cut red tape, protect taxpayers, and help more Americans achieve the dream of homeownership,” Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott said in a statement.

Scott negotiated the revised language with ranking member Elizabeth Warren and worked with House Financial Services ranking member Maxine Waters “to get her to good on the package,” according to the note.

House Financial Services Chair French Hill was able to support the revised bill after an additional change to the bill was made, which would authorize a controversial disaster relief program for only three years instead of the Senate-proposed seven-year sunset, according to two people familiar with the legislative negotiations.

“I appreciate the Senate including a three-year sunset on the CDBG-DR program and adopting key House priorities including nine community banking bills and the House’s language limiting institutional investors from outcompeting American families in the housing market,” Hill said in a statement.

Lawmakers from both parties view the legislation, which aims to increase homeownership and boost housing supply, as an answer to cost-of-living concerns that have dominated the midterm elections season. Despite bipartisan agreement on respective sides of the Capitol, the two chambers have gone back and forth for months, with the House voting on two different versions of the housing affordability legislation, and the Senate now preparing for a second round of votes on the bill.

Thune said Monday he was hopeful the bill could be passed this week.

Both chambers overwhelmingly passed their own versions of housing legislation — the Senate 89-10 in March, and the House 396-13 in May. The White House supported the Senate-passed bill and then backed the House-passed bill after it retained most of the Senate’s language on reining in private equity and other large Wall Street investors in the housing market — a top priority for President Donald Trump.

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Congress

Senate thwarts move to limit Iran war as Trump pushes peace deal

Published

2 hours ago

June 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans on Tuesday knocked down another Democratic-led attempt to force an end to the Iran war despite the defection of four GOP members.

The 47-48 vote on the war powers resolution came as President Donald Trump has insisted a peace agreement with Tehran is all but signed.

Ahead of the vote, Senate Foreign Relations Chair Jim Risch (R-Idaho) slammed Democrats for forcing the vote as Trump attempted to clinch a peace plan. The unlikely passage of the war powers limits, he argued, would upend those efforts.

“If that miracle happened, do you think Iran would sign the deal that has been negotiated? Of course not,” Risch said.

Tuesday’s action came nearly a month after the chamber advanced a similar war powers measure which called for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Middle East, and two weeks after the House voted to limitTrump’s military authorities in Iran.

But absences in the Senate doomed hopes of a third rebuke for the president. Five senators — two Republicans and three Democrats — missed the vote.

GOP Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky broke ranks to support the legislation. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the only Democrat opposed.

The political fault lines in the Senate remained largely unchanged from May. The White House’s announcement of a long-term deal on Sunday failed to sway lawmakers’ opinions on the matter.

Still, many GOP lawmakers have signaled they still have plenty of questions about the “memorandum of understanding” between the two countries, and whether it ultimately could end up with an agreement similar to the nuclear pact the Obama administration struck with Iran. Trump withdrew from that agreement in his first term.

As with the Obama-era plan, many GOP lawmakers are adamant that any deal touching on Iran’s nuclear program be subject to a vote by Congress. A chief concern for many defense hawks is whether Iran would be permitted to enrich uranium to near-weapons-grade levels.

GOP leaders have dismissed the war power votes as performative and aimed at embarrassing Trump. They also said the move is unnecessary given the impending peace plan, set to be signed Friday.

The White House condemned the resolution ahead of Tuesday’s vote and threatened to veto the measure.

“The joint resolution attempts to legislate away essential Article II authority and could create immediate, material risks to U.S. forces, allies and missions,” administration officials said in a statement obtained by Blue Light News.

“In addition, the broad scope of the resolution risks creating uncertainty and operational paralysis in a crisis, while emboldening the Iranian regime and undermining the United States’ ability to speak with one voice in the midst of sensitive international negotiations,” the White House argued.

But Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who has been a leader on the resolutions, said Tuesday that news of a ceasefire extension or more permanent deal highlight the importance of Congress reasserting its role in war declarations.

“The way to get us in the mix on both continuing the war and considering if a [peace] deal is sufficient enough is to vote for a war powers resolution,” he said.

About 50,000 U.S. military personnel engaged in Middle East operations related to the war, which has been in a ceasefire since April 8. Trump over the weekend announced that U.S. and Iranian negotiators had reached a new peace deal, but details of that plan have yet to be released to Congress or the public.

Felicia Schwartz contributed to this report.

Congress

Senate Judiciary schedules confirmation hearing for Todd Blanche

Published

5 hours ago

June 16, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate Judiciary Committee has set a date for Todd Blanche’s two-day confirmation hearing next month, potentially putting the attorney general nominee on track to be confirmed by the full Senate as soon as before the August recess — if he can get the votes.

Blanche will appear before the committee on July 15, according to a spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, with outside witnesses testifying on Blanche’s nomination July 16.

With all Democrats expected to oppose Blanche, a single Republican could tank his chances of advancing in committee — and outgoing Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas are not yet committing to voting “yes.”

Tillis did say Monday he was “generally satisfied with [Blanche’s] paperwork,” which the committee made public Tuesday, but would have questions for the nominee during the confirmation hearing.

Blanche is now leading the Justice Department in an acting capacity while continuing to serve in his current confirmed role as deputy attorney general. He ensnared himself in President Donald Trump’s orbit as his personal attorney, which has prompted concerns over whether he could be unduly loyal to the president as the federal government’s top law enforcement officer.

He has since come under fire for announcing, then withdrawing, a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” — and, most recently, is being scrutinized for reports the DOJ is investigating yet another Trump political adversary, California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

In his Senate questionnaire, Blanche recalled how he left his law firm in 2023, “primarily to represent President Donald Trump” in the Stormy Daniels hush fund case out of Manhattan. He also represented Trump in the cases brought by former special counsel Jack Smith and “served as counsel to President Trump in an advising capacity in various other civil investigations and cases between 2023 and 2025.”

Blanche cited those Trump cases among his ten most significant — along with litigating the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to justify deportations and the fate of the new White House ballroom.