Congress
Key Democrats urge House to reject kids’ safety proposal
The Commerce Committee’s top Democrat Maria Cantwell (Wash.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) warned House lawmakers against advancing their chamber’s version of the Kids Online Safety Act, arguing it would face intense lobbying from tech companies in the Senate and risk unraveling years of bipartisan work.
“If it is passed by the House it will come to the Senate,” Blumenthal, the bill’s Senate cosponsor, told reporters at a Friday press briefing. The Connecticut Democrat said he is concerned senators will be influenced by the tech industry’s “armies of lawyers and lobbyists” who may “confuse and exploit” misunderstandings about a House bill with the same name as a Senate version but excludes key provisions, such as the “duty of care.” (This concept requires online companies to design social media platforms with an eye for children’s safety.)
“We’re not going to let bad legislation with a good title just get across and think somebody’s done something,” Cantwell said.
The House version of KOSA — which is included in the KIDS Act, a revised bipartisan package that the Energy and Commerce Committee advanced along party lines in March — is scheduled to be considered on the House floor next week under suspension of the rules.
“We need to stop this bill in the House, and we need to prevent the White House from forming an alliance with Big Tech on this issue,” said Blumenthal, who characterized the version of KOSA that House leadership is pushing as a “sham.”
Both Democratic lawmakers also expressed concern that Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) could adopt the House version of KOSA in a kids’ safety package he has yet to publicly release but has pledged to markup by August recess. Cruz said “negotiations are ongoing” earlier this week when asked by Blue Light News whether he would be open to incorporating such changes put forward in the House.
Cruz’s package is expected to include KOSA as well legislation barring companies from using minors’ personal data for targeted advertising, banning kids under age 13 from social media, and providing greater oversight for how children interact with AI chatbots.
Although Blumenthal remains hopeful that Cruz will “stay true to his first vote in favor of KOSA,” which overwhelmingly passed in the Senate last Congress, the Connecticut Democrat said Friday he’s worried Cruz and others may be tempted to “take the bait” and abandon the bill’s basic principles.
A pair of House Democrats voted to rescue the Republican legislative agenda Tuesday as GOP leaders faced an internal revolt, representing an extremely rare crossing of party lines on a procedural vote in a closely divided chamber.
Democratic Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington voted with most Republicans to set up debate on a series of GOP-led bills, including a resolution condemning socialism that party leaders want to use to hammer Democrats on the campaign trail.
The two Democrats were decisive in the 210-208 vote, where five Republicans had broken ranks over frustrations with how party leaders had handled an earlier vote on government spending.
Neither Golden nor Gluesenkamp Perez gave immediate comment on their votes. Both are members of the moderate Blue Dog Democrats, and Golden is not seeking reelection in November.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters he did not get a heads-up from the two Democrats, and Majority Whip Tom Emmer also suggested he was caught by surprise.
“I don’t count Democratic votes,” he said.
Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, said he believed Golden backed the measure because it provided for passage of a bill benefiting lobstermen in his home state. The bill in question delays the implementation of fishing regulations meant to protect the right whale population.
The GOP holdouts were upset over a variety of issues linked to the spending bill, including the inclusion of a delay on a ban on sales of some hemp products and the manner in which GOP leaders put the funding bill on the floor. That bill, which had White House backing, passed earlier Tuesday in a 370-48 vote.
Had the procedural vote failed, Speaker Mike Johnson would have faced immediate pressure to cut the House session short and send members home ahead of next week’s GOP midterm convention in Dallas. With the government now funded through the midterms and no other pressing deadlines to meet before November, GOP leaders could still scrap some or all of the remaining September session weeks to allow members to campaign in their districts.
The House cleared a stopgap funding patch Tuesday to keep cash flowing to federal agencies until mid-December — preventing a government shutdown before Election Day and setting up two major policy battles at year’s end.
The 370-48 vote takes care of Speaker Mike Johnson’s last must-pass bill before the midterms. But swift passage comes at a cost for House GOP leaders, who are now managing blowback from Republicans angry about the contents of the funding patch Senate leaders crafted and President Donald Trump endorsed.
The legislation would fund the government beyond the October start of the new fiscal year, keeping federal agencies running on current budgets through Dec. 11. It also allows incumbents to campaign for reelection without the threat of a government shutdown feeding into political messaging about dysfunction in Washington.
“We want to get a longer-term deal. But at a minimum, let’s ensure that we can continue to see government properly funded and functioning,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters Tuesday, noting the “chaos” and “uncertainty” of last year’s record-breaking shutdown.
Besides funding the government through mid-December, the bill would temporarily block the White House from finalizing a rule to put political appointees in charge of approving federal grants.
It would also delay a ban set to kick in next month on intoxicating hemp products — to the dissatisfaction of House hard-liners, who threatened to vote Tuesday afternoon against teeing up debate on other bills this week and potentially block any significant House floor action between now and November.
Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, chair of the Freedom Caucus, was among the Republicans who voted no on the funding patch and said he would oppose moving forward with debate on other bills too. He scoffed at the last-minute pressure campaign from the White House and hemp industry leaders promising to regulate intoxicating products in lieu of proceeding with the ban lawmakers enacted last November.
“They had 10 months,” Harris said in an interview this week, knocking the Trump administration for not taking action sooner to crack down on the products currently sold in the U.S. without age restrictions or other regulations. “There are profiteers who are making money on basically the health of our children, and I object to that.”
Trump is expected to sign the funding patch, which the White House endorsed last month ahead of Senate passage — even though it blocks the Office of Management and Budget from finalizing its controversial rule to overhaul the federal grantmaking approval process.
That Senate-added language, as well as a prohibition on new funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, drove significant support from House Democrats.
“This critically stops the OMB rule from proceeding forward that many of us have been pushing against,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said Tuesday, cheering other “incredibly helpful” additions to the bare-bones stopgap House Republicans initially passed earlier this summer.
Democrats also hope to regain control of the House and Senate in the November elections and increase their leverage in December negotiations on government funding for the rest of the fiscal year.
“That’s the huge intervening event,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole said this week about the election. “And it will impact whatever comes after it, no matter what anybody thinks. So it’s not like we’ll go back and pick up exactly where we left off.”
The Oklahoma Republican traveled to Ukraine and other European countries last month with his counterpart across the aisle, top committee Democrat Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut.
The two top appropriators are motivated to strike a year-end deal to fund federal agencies with updated budgets, Cole said, rather than clearing another short stopgap or resorting to a lengthy patch that keeps programs on autopilot through next September
“We both are pretty adamant that we need to get these bills done before the end of the calendar year,” Cole said, adding that he and DeLauro will be “working really hard once we know who the players are on the other side” of Election Day.
Everton Blair was sworn in to the House Tuesday, adding another Democrat to the closely divided chamber. Blair won a special election this month to replace the late Georgia Rep. David Scott, a former chair of the House Agriculture Committee. Another Democratic winner of a recent special election, Aisha Wahab of California, is scheduled to be sworn in tomorrow to replace former Rep. Eric Swalwell, according to a person familiar with the plan.
With the two Democrats sworn and voting, Speaker Mike Johnson will be able to lose only one Republican on party-line votes.
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