Congress

Mourning Dick Cheney — and the US House

Published

7 months ago

November 21, 2025

It was just another Thursday in Washington.

Donald Trump was threatening to execute congressional Democrats, House members were mounting gangland-style political reprisals on one another and the following people sat next to each in the same pew at Washington’s National Cathedral to remember the life of Dick Cheney: Anthony Fauci, Rachel Maddow, Ken Mehlman and James Carville.

The former vice-president, who died earlier this month after modern medicine and a new heart let him see his grandkids become adults, would have been appalled at Trump’s conduct, amused by his coalition of the willing (mourners) and depressed by what has become of the House, where he represented Wyoming for a decade.

Cheney’s service was fittingly held the first full week his beloved House was back in session after a 54-day absence following the government shutdown. The dispiriting part is that after they reopened the government, lawmakers quickly turned on one another. Resolutions of disapproval and even expulsion were teed up, with the usual tribal, red-vs.-blue targeting of the other party — but also intra-party warfare between rival factions.

It was enough to make the bipartisan vote on the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files look like a historic triumph of Article I power and legislative branch independence.

Now a decade into the Trump era, it’s easy to focus on his aberrant and indefensible behavior. In fact, we should — it’s important to not be inured to how he acts. Calling a female reporter “piggy,” treating visiting autocrats like they’re former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and saying of the Federal Reserve chair: “I’d love to fire his ass.” Which was all before he went on social media to say “Hang Them” of those Democratic lawmakers who recorded a video urging military service members to refuse illegal orders.

And that was all just this week.

Yet what’s disheartening about the breakdown of the House is it illustrates that the political rot runs deeper than just one man. Yes, Trump sets the example and has modeled the worst behavior. But we know who he is. This year makes clear, however, that the institutional decay in Washington may outlast his presidency.

Republicans have full control of the government, yet there have been more resolutions of disapproval or censure (three) voted on individual lawmakers than there have been votes on major bills (one). It has gotten so bad that a bipartisan duo is introducing legislation to raise the vote threshold to censure a member, to “raise the level of sanity in the House.”

Yes, the lack of legislative activity is in part because House members wrapped many of their priorities in legislation formerly known as the “one big, beautiful bill.”

But would any student of Congress really say this has been a productive year for the House? And could anyone tell you what their legislative priorities for the rest of this session have been since the BBB was signed in July?

And then there’s that pesky Article I language, the power distributed to Congress by the Constitution. There’s not a single member of Congress who could argue with a straight face, at least in private, that they’re acting the part of a co-equal branch.

Arriving for Cheney’s service, I encountered a former Republican congressional and White House aide, a conservative, dejected by Congress’s abdication of its authority. Had I seen, he asked, the clip of House Speaker Mike Johnson earlier this month in which the speaker says he’s “cheering for the president” to win the Supreme Court case challenging Trump’s power to levy tariffs without congressional approval? “I say that as a jealous guardian of the legislative branch of government,” Johnson added, irony unintended.

Not far away was John Thune, the Senate GOP Leader and a House member himself at the turn of the century. “It’s a different era,” Thune said.

“It’s a different era,” he said again, and without taking pleasure in the observation as he surveyed a sanctuary full of old guard Republicans and the Democrats doing their duty, whether out of obligation or respect for the Cheney family’s opposition to Trump after January 6.

The audience reflected the end of Cheney’s career, and the eulogists spoke of Cheney the father, grandfather, boss and heart patient more than they did the controversial vice-president, 30-something presidential chief of staff or Desert Storm-era defense secretary.

But there were reminders of the post that Cheney cherished so much, serving as Wyoming’s sole House member between 1979 and 1989.

There were a handful of his colleagues from that era, including the few still left in Congress such as Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyerm, as well as those who also ascended to higher office, like Al Gore and Dan Quayle.

And the man who, had he won, would have been Cheney’s classmate in the House class of ’78 couldn’t help but stand in the pulpit and recall his own defeat that year.

“The Republican wave didn’t reach West Texas that year,” said George W. Bush, recounting his only loss while generously noting that Cheney was undefeated.

More telling, though, were the descriptions of Cheney’s mind and curiosity. Nobody dared say it outright in such a solemn setting, but I couldn’t help but think of what has been lost in today’s House. There’s not many Dick Cheneys walking through that door (at Cannon) and the few who are soon look to run for the Senate, governor or walk away entirely.

Liz Cheney, his eldest daughter and the former congresswoman, recalled her father as a college dropout, working on power lines in Wyoming by day but reading Churchill’s history of World War in a sleeping bag at night. She and her sister, Mary, would grudgingly go along with him as young girls as he took them to museums and battlefields, reading every word on every plaque to their consternation.

And then in the winter of his life, as Liz recalled, she and her father went back to some of those same historic sites. And even as he declined, he would still come armed with that day’s newspapers, the latest issue of The Economist and a book.

He was, Bush noted, “a serious man.”

If only the same could be said for so many in today’s House.

This isn’t to bask in blind nostalgia — those beneath the gravestones at Section 60 in Arlington and even more Iraqis should have their say in any full appraisal of Cheney’s career.

Yet nobody would argue that the current Congress and particularly this House are worthy of a great country.

There are still members who would’ve flourished in Cheney’s day, but even they are sober about the state of the institution.

“This is one of those eras in which you read Kipling’s classic poem, ‘If—’ over and over and then get up and go to work every day,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the House Appropriations Chair, told me. “The aim isn’t to rebuild Rome in a day. It is just to make things a bit better every day.”

Liz Cheney can’t because, unlike most all of her former GOP colleagues, she couldn’t and wouldn’t get over what Trump did on January 6 — and her state rejected her because of it three years ago.

I thought Thursday about that 2022 primary and recalled what stood out to me about an interview I conducted with Liz shortly before her inevitable defeat that summer.

She inveighed against Trump and the danger he posed, but she said something more about her party and the institution in which she then served.

“What the country needs are serious people who are willing to engage in debates about policy,” Cheney told me then, wishing Americans would “vote for the serious candidate.”

Then she went further.

“I would much rather serve with Mikie Sherrill and Chrissy Houlahan and Elissa Slotkin than Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert,” she said, adding of her then-House Democratic colleagues with national security backgrounds: “They love this country, they do their homework and they’re people who are trying to do the right thing for the country.”

Cheney’s father had just recorded an ad for her, calling Trump “a coward,” and she was thrilled to have him by her side in her final House campaign.

“I talk to him every day,” she said. “He’s just a source of tremendous wisdom across the board, he’s such a student of American history.”

I reminded her that he co-wrote a book with his wife, Lynne, on House greats — Kings of Blue Light News – and she laughed for one of the few times that day. “Well, my mother wrote that — a sore subject,” she joked.

Would you have stayed in the House had your dad not so revered the body? I asked.

She dodged the question but turned more serious, explaining she was “so glad” she stayed — even though her career was nearly over.

“Having the opportunity to help make sure that we protect any future January 6ths, it’s the right thing to be doing,” Cheney said.

Her father also left the House without becoming one of those Kings of Blue Light News.

Had he not been appointed Defense Secretary under George H.W. Bush, the taciturn Wyomingite may well have become speaker. Cheney was House Minority Whip when he left Congress in 1989, the back-up plan for Bush after John Tower’s Pentagon nomination was rejected by the Senate.

He was a man of the House and relished that his daughter, Liz, followed him there and was even happier when she declined to run for the Senate in 2020. She seemed in that moment poised to eventually claim the post that eluded her father once he left Congress.

But five years later Liz Cheney was out of Congress, honoring her father’s fidelity to the Constitution over party and then, in a moment that spoke louder than words, stopping on her way down the aisle as his funeral ended to hug Pelosi.

It was a poignant moment, the two mothers of five and daughters of House members who rose to the leadership as political opposites but bonded when duty called.

Former Rep. Richard B. Cheney (R-Wyo.) would’ve liked it.

Congress

The messy standoff driving a wedge between a bipartisan Senate duo

Published

2 hours ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sens. Susan Collins and Patty Murray have long prided themselves on working together to advance government funding bills. That collegiality is now showing signs of decay.

The Maine Republican and Washington Democrat have been openly feuding about the path forward on spending measures this summer. It comes after their successful collaboration on bipartisan legislation during Murray’s two-year reign as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which continued when Collins took the gavel last year.

Democrats attribute the clash to Collins’ pursuit of President Donald Trump’s demands for a record military budget that eclipses domestic spending, as she fights to retain her Senate seat in November. Republicans say Murray is playing midterm politics by trying to prevent Collins from landing a deal before Election Day, when Democrats hope to regain House and Senate majorities — and the upper hand in year-end funding talks.

“It’s not personal, but it is very frustrating,” Collins said last week, while insisting she and Murray are still on good terms.

All Murray would say about the state of their relationship was, “We’re talking.”

While that impasse doesn’t necessarily heighten the odds of a government shutdown this fall, it could delay any meaningful Senate appropriations action until after the elections. The outcome of congressional races — including Collins’ toss-up contest against Democrat Graham Platner — could change the power balance in government funding negotiations.

“It certainly looks to me like the Democrats don’t want to give Susan Collins a victory,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in an interview. “I really think it’s intensely political. She is a very reasonable legislator. If you can’t make a deal with Susan Collins, you don’t want to make a deal.”

Part of Collins’ campaign-trail pitch to Mainers is that she gets results in Washington, and her inability to advance the dozen annual appropriations bills through her committee undercuts that narrative.

Collins isn’t refuting the idea that Democrats might want to deprive her of legislative success as she competes against Platner in one of the closest and most-watched races in the country.

“That’s certainly a viable theory, which is pretty pathetic,” she said in an interview.

This month Collins publicly accused Murray of sending government funding offers that have “made it clear that Democrats are abandoning the appropriations process.” Murray, meanwhile, suggested Collins was at fault for the stalemate by divulging she hadn’t responded to Murray’s latest offer in more than two weeks.

It’s a major tone shift for the two lawmakers, who have earned a reputation for trying to stay out of the partisan fray since they became their party’s top leaders on the Appropriations Committee in 2023. They’ve consistently resisted broadcasting behind-the-scenes friction during tough negotiations and succeeded in reaching cross-party compromises to advance funding bills each year — even after the record government shutdown last fall.

But they’re now at loggerheads over funding totals for the military and domestic programs, along with votes on hot-button Trump policies. Senate Republicans are seeking a military funding boost more than four times larger than any increase in domestic spending, as Trump calls for a record $1.5 trillion defense budget.

“We do not have an agreement,” Murray said, because Republicans “are set on increasing defense in an increasingly huge way that we’ve never had to deal with before.”

GOP senators also want to avoid any amendment votes that could sink approval of appropriations bills, including some related to the Justice Department’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund” administration officials have promised not to pursue.

The result is that Collins has yet to hold a committee markup on a single government funding bill with just three months left before federal dollars expire. And some Republican appropriators acknowledge it’s possible the panel won’t vote on any of the spending measures this year given the deadlock.

“Obviously Susan is up this year. And Democrats, at every level and every opportunity, are playing politics with it,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview. “The appropriations process used to be fairly bipartisan. … Murray and the Democrats have turned it into a partisan game.”

Some Democrats openly sympathize with Collins’ predicament in trying to represent politically moderate Maine while holding one of the most influential positions on Capitol Hill during Trump’s second term and unified Republican control of Congress.

“The chair of the committee is being squeezed in every direction,” Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a senior Democratic appropriator, said in an interview.

Many Senate Republicans don’t “give a damn” about funding domestic efforts like public education and biomedical research, Baldwin continued. “I believe that the chairwoman does care about those issues. But you know, she’s in an unenviable position.”

Since Trump was reelected, Collins has worked to negotiate funding bills that spend far more on domestic programs than the president sought. The result has been essentially flat funding for nondefense programs and a 17 percent increase in military spending, which includes the billions of dollars Republicans enacted along party lines last year.

“Chair Collins is very devoted to, or interested in, following through to help the president get more money for the Department of War and munitions, et cetera,” said West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a top Republican appropriator. “And I think Senator Murray is on the opposite page.”

“Rather than legislate and work these things out,” Capito added, “I think it’s been decided on the other side to just be obstinate and not participate and not negotiate.”

Trump is calling this year for boosting Pentagon spending by more than 40 percent while slashing domestic programs by 10 percent. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a senior Democratic appropriator who has served in Congress for more than 40 years, calls it “a massive change” in the way government funding has been divvied up for decades — by negotiating matching dollar-for-dollar increases in both military and nondefense funding.

“We’re so far apart. We haven’t faced anything like that in recent memory,” Durbin said in an interview. “And to accept the premise of it — what’s left for nondefense is terrible.”

Collins could proceed with markups this summer without an agreement with Democrats, as the House Republican majority has done for years. But Republican senators would need to be willing to vote on controversial amendments Democrats might offer — including proposals that defy Trump.

Senate Republican appropriators faced that issue last summer, when the panel unexpectedly adopted an amendment barring the Trump administration from repurposing cash intended for relocating the FBI headquarters. That outcome prompted several GOP senators to withdraw support for the funding bill.

“The challenge is that, if you have every Democrat voting against reporting the bill out — and then they also are offering poison pills — it’s hard to move those bills,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), chair of the Appropriations subcommittee that funds the FBI, said in an interview.

During the two years Murray chaired the full committee, Moran recalled, “We had members who wanted to offer what would probably be considered poison pills by Democrats. And Senator Collins talked Republicans out of doing so, to move the process.”

The two sides could easily reach an agreement on amendments and policy stipulations, some Democrats contend, if only Collins and Murray could bridge the divide between the president’s military funding demands and their own domestic priorities.

“Senator Collins is carrying out the administration’s wishes,” Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, another senior Democratic appropriator, said in an interview. “And Senator Murray is noting that a reckless increase in defense spending is not in the best interest of Americans.”

“So they’re both advocating for their viewpoint,” Merkley added. “That’s what we do in a democracy.”

Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.

Congress

Johnson-backed plan to combine Pentagon and election bills advances to floor

Published

8 hours ago

June 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Rules Committee advanced a procedural measure aimed at breaking an intra-Republican deadlock Monday night. But GOP leaders are still facing a major battle Tuesday to regain control of the House floor.

The panel approved on party lines a measure to set up Republicans’ $1.1 trillion defense policy bill, a government funding bill and other GOP bills for floor debate. It would then combine the Pentagon bill, once passed, with the contentious elections overhaul known as the SAVE America Act and send it to the Senate as one piece of legislation.

That maneuver, telegraphed by Speaker Mike Johnson earlier Monday, is aimed at appeasing House GOP hard-liners who have blockaded the floor, demanding the Senate pass the elections bill that has languished there for months.

However, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, the Republican leading the blockade, said in an interview Monday before the Rules Committee acted that Johnson’s plan is not sufficient — raising the possibility she and allies could vote down the measure on the floor. Other House GOP hard-liners say there are other outstanding issues to battle over Tuesday.

Rep. James McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Rules Democrat, called the merger move “a big waste of time.” The panel voted down a motion by McGovern to remove the provision to combine the two bills in a party-line vote.

The Senate is set to debate its own version of the defense bill next month, and it is likely that the elections overhaul will be removed in negotiations between the two chambers — as McGovern acknowledged Monday and House GOP leaders privately concede.

“The Senate will just strip the SAVE Act out,” he said at the meeting. “There is a zero percent chance SAVE ends up in the [Pentagon bill] because of this rule today.”

The defense bill faces a tight vote if Republicans can pass the procedural measure. Most Democrats are expected to oppose the measure over its massive price tag, which they contend is wasteful.

The panel is set up debate on 312 amendments to the bill. The slate includes GOP measures to codify a Trump executive order to block transgender people from serving in the military, prohibit coverage of gender-affirming care, block aid to arm Ukraine and strip Democratic-backed protections for collective bargaining for Pentagon civilian workers.

The committee also voted down Democratic proposals to slash $150 billion from the bill’s topline and limit the war against Iran.

Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.

Congress

Pentagon and elections bills could be combined in bid to unfreeze House floor

Published

11 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday he plans to deploy an unusual procedural maneuver in a bid to unfreeze the House floor this week, seeking to send the annual Pentagon policy bill and the GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act to the Senate in a single package.

That is likely a recipe for a continued standoff between the two chambers over the SAVE America Act, which has stalled in the Senate for months due to internal GOP divides. Under Johnson’s plan, the annual defense policy bill, which typically passes every year with large bipartisan majorities, could become a collateral victim of the impasse.

Asked in brief interview if he had talked to Senate Majority Leader John Thune about his plans, Johnson replied, “I have to do my job in the House, and they’ve got to do their job in the Senate, so we’ll see what happens.”

Johnson is seeking to placate House conservative hard-liners, led by Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, who have threatened to oppose the procedural measures that give Republicans control of the floor unless they agree to tougher tactics meant to force the Senate into passing the elections bill.

House GOP leaders discussed the plan to merge the two bills over the weekend as Luna pushed to amend the defense bill directly.

She did not say in an interview Monday whether Johnson’s gambit would suffice: “We want it baked together, not able to be stripped out,” she said.

But the Senate is free to work its own will, and members of that chamber are likely to reject any defense bill that has the partisan elections bill attached. That would set the stage for GOP leaders to strip it out when the House and Senate hash out the differences between their competing Pentagon bills later this year.

Johnson, meanwhile, is pushing a separate plan to pass a slimmed-down version of the SAVE America Act through the party-line budget reconciliation process — an option hard-liners have all but rejected.

“I don’t think that that can be done,” Luna told reporters Monday.

He’s also facing another complication: The version of the SAVE America Act he is proposing to attach to the Pentagon bill doesn’t include the latest demands for the bill from President Donald Trump — including a near-total ban on mail voting that is opposed by many Republicans.

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.