Congress

Just one GOP vote on the Ethics Committee could release the Gaetz report

Published

2 years ago

November 19, 2024

The House Ethics Committee is scheduled to meet Wednesday. And if members vote on whether to share their investigative findings about attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz, it would only take one Republican to trigger the release of the report.

The panel is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, and it only requires a majority vote in the private meeting to release the report. A tie would defer to the party that controls the House — meaning if all Republicans voted against releasing it, the report would not be published.

But it would only take one, combined with all Democrats, to share the report, either with senators or publicly.

Republicans on the committee have largely declined to comment on the upcoming meeting at all, let alone whether they would vote to release the report. But Democrats have made it clear they want to share the investigative findings, at least with senators who will consider confirming Gaetz to the powerful post atop the Justice Department.

“I think the Senate should have a chance to take a look at any evidence they think is relevant to the decision they have to make,” said panel member Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.). “They’ve got a constitutional obligation to have advice and consent on this nomination. It’s an important one.”

He said he’d also be open to letting the general public see the report.

Pennsylvania Rep. Susan Wild, the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, indicated Monday night that she believes the report should be published. Other Democrats on the panel pointed to her comments, indicating they agreed with her. Two Democrats did not respond to a request for comment.

Republicans on the committee are still keeping quiet, however, on what should happen to the report. Chair Michael Guest (R-Miss.) told Blue Light News after GOP members met privately on Monday that he and Speaker Mike Johnson spoke over the weekend. The speaker shared his viewpoint on not releasing the report, according to Guest. He declined to discuss the subject of the Monday meeting, as did other members.

Asked about Wild’s belief that the report should be made public, Johnson said Tuesday: “I’ve made my position very clear.” In addition to his call with Guest, Johnson has said publicly that he doesn’t think it would be proper for the panel to release a report about a person who is no longer a member of the House.

Johnson also indicated he would not support giving the Senate Judiciary Committee access to the report.

“I have no idea about the contents of the report,” he added, when pressed on reported allegations, including that Gaetz had sex with a minor. “My job is to protect the institution. And I’ve made very clear that I think it’s an important guardrail for our institution that we not use the House Ethics Committee to investigate and report on persons who are not members of this body. Matt Gaetz is not a member of the body anymore.” Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing amid the investigations.

Lawmakers have hotly debated releasing the report after Gaetz resigned from Congress last week. There is precedent for Ethics releasing reports about former members, though typically the panel ends investigations and does not release reports about former members.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries declined to comment on the report Tuesday morning. But other Democrats who aren’t on the panel are pushing for its release, too. A group of nearly a hundred House Democrats, led by Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.), sent a letter to the Ethics panel calling for the report’s public release.

Congress

How Talarico is countering Trump’s midterms convention

Published

3 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

James Talarico is planning to counterprogram President Donald Trump’s GOP midterms convention in Dallas with a focus on affordability.

The idea from the Texas Democratic Senate candidate and seminarian: host a statewide “Love Thy Neighbor” food drive to offer a contrast with Republicans coming to town and highlight the high cost of groceries, according to plans shared first with Blue Light News.

“Next week, billionaire mega-donors and their puppet politicians will gather at a convention in Dallas to clink champagne glasses and toast their own corruption. They’re paying $20,000 for entry to a Billionaire Ball celebrating corrupt tariffs, billionaire tax breaks, and a new forever war that are all driving grocery costs through the roof,” Talarico said in a statement to Blue Light News. “We’ll be doing something different. We’re bringing Republicans, Democrats, and Independents together to collect groceries for our neighbors who have been screwed over by corrupt politicians.”

The campaign said it will “mobilize volunteers to collect, sort, and donate groceries for middle class Texans struggling with the high price of groceries.” The event will last from Sunday, Sept. 6 through Wednesday, Sept. 9 — the same day the GOP convention kicks off.

Talarico is also expected to field media interviews in a large warehouse near the convention.

“Texans across the political spectrum will come together to build community, show up for their neighbors, and take power back for working people,” the campaign said in a statement.

A recent poll conducted by Texas Public Opinion Research poll released last week showed Talarico leading ,his opponent Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, 48 percent to 42 percent.

Trump this week said he would campaign for Paxton soon.

Congress

‘I don’t think anyone is really comfortable’: Democrat leading on AI raises alarms at Trump, Zuckerberg call

Published

3 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A House Democrat trying to lead her party on artificial intelligence policy sent a warning shot Friday to tech CEOs trying to undermine efforts to regulate the fast-growing technology.

In an interview, Rep. Lori Trahan raised alarm bells over a POLITICO report detailing attempts by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to personally discourage President Donald Trump from moving ahead with plans to establish an independent AI regulator modeled after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA.

“I don’t think anyone is really comfortable when they see tech executives who are sitting on the stage at the president’s inauguration, and have had to pay millions of dollars to this fund and that fund, calling the shots,” said the Massachusetts Democrat.

Allowing Zuckerberg to call the shots on the proposed AI commission would be tantamount to “a complete abdication of Congress,” Trahan continued. She also suggested would use her perch on the House Energy and Commerce Committee to work with other Democrats to haul in industry executives like Zuckerberg to testify, should Democrats win back the House majority in the midterms.

“Congress’ job is to do oversight and to have those hearings,” she said. “And I think we would learn a lot from those hearings so that we can put pen to paper on thoughtful proposals. So yes, there have been a number of people, myself included, who have called for those hearings, and I think we’re going to continue to do that.”

Trahan is poised to be a major player in the coming weeks and months when it comes to AI, especially if Democrats prevail in the November elections and are forced to solidify a position on the subject; the party is currently all over the map.

Unlike other Democrats who have retreated to their corners to work on partisan proposals, Trahan has gone out on a limb by crossing the aisle to broker a deal on a bipartisan AI safety bill with Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) — a package that was originally met with disdain by members of both parties.

She announced this week she would opt out of a run for a place in House Democratic leadership after being widely expected to make a play in the next Congress — in part, she said, to continue working on AI issues.

But Trahan’s comments Friday illustrate the deep distrust among Democrats, herself included, over the GOP approach to AI regulation — from Republicans waffling on whether they support the proliferation of data centers to Trump’s recent call with Zuckerberg.

Her calls are consistent with left-leaning members like Rep. Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat and chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who has been at the forefront of the most aggressive proposals to crack down on top tech companies.

“The CEOs of Anthropic and OpenAI say that cutting edge AI could be as dangerous as nuclear weapons,” Casar said Thursday on X in response to the Blue Light News report. “But Trump is conspiring with billionaires for this technology to be regulated like … Hollywood movies.”

Trahan said Friday that “reasonable people can disagree on what regulatory construct we come up with” governing development and use of AI.

But, she added, “what I don’t think the American people agree with is that Mark Zuckerberg and President Trump are going to figure that out on a phone call.”

Congress

House Dem election leader’s message to states: Count faster

Published

3 days ago

September 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Democrats’ top election leader has a message for states ahead of the midterms: count faster.

“We are, I think, nicely trying to encourage people to do their balloting as quickly as possible, and that means hiring additional staff so that it doesn’t call into question results,” Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, said in a Thursday interview with Blue Light News.

The advice is just one part of Morelle’s efforts to secure the midterm elections. He said Democrats have wargamed over 150 scenarios of how the Trump administration could attempt to interfere or complicate the November elections and its certification. He is encouraging states to have a “degree of urgency” when counting ballots to stave off Republican-led conspiracy theories about the reasons for delays.

Morelle said he is leaning on states to staff up on election officials to facilitate speedy ballot counting while emphasizing the process should still be “done properly,” “fairly” and that “we don’t want people with cast ballots not to have their ballots counted.” He is going to Los Angeles next week to deliver that message and meet with election security experts and election administrators — though he did not specify whom he is meeting with or where.

“We are trying to gently encourage people to staff up,” he said. Morelle added that if Democrats take the House majority, they’d “push for more resources for local and state administrators so they can hire additional capacity.”

Morelle has other big plans in the majority, including cracking down on dark money in politics, protecting voting rights and most notably, working on a bipartisan voter identification bill.

Asked whether he could accept some form of voter identification as part of a larger bipartisan elections package, Morelle said, “I’m personally not opposed to some form of voter ID,” adding that he has opposed multiple Republican-led proposals to tighten up identification requirements.

“I don’t know where my colleagues on the Democrat side will be, but I think voters think, ‘Okay, you show your ID for just tons of things. Is it really that much of a burden?’” he said. “And if it is, we’ll get state issued IDs or federally issued IDs to people who can’t afford it. So I do think that there’s hope for a bipartisan way forward, and I’ll be anxious to work with colleagues to do it.”