Congress

Republicans stare down a growing, neverending FISA crisis

Published

5 months ago

April 20, 2026

Hill Republican leaders are finding themselves in a never-ending crisis over the fate of a government spy law that has unleashed a bitter, intraparty battle within the House while also threatening to derail a host of other GOP priorities.

Republicans now have scant legislative days to build new plans to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. But President Donald Trump, GOP leaders and White House officials have failed to come up with a workable framework for months — and there is no agreement yet on the path forward.

Some House Republicans hope they’re in the final stages of massaging a multi-year extension that would incorporate some minor changes intended to pacify privacy hawks. Others are already predicting they’ll face the same internal schisms come April 30, when the current short-term extension runs out.

For many Republicans, the high-drama meltdown in the House was entirely predictable and has been months in the making, after Trump demanded a clean extension of the surveillance law despite well-documented skepticism within his own party.

“A trainwreck,” was how Tennessee Republican Rep. Andy Ogles described it, as he walked off the House floor in the pre-dawn hours of Friday morning. Speaker Mike Johnson had just tried and failed to secure a long-term reauthorization after days of ultimately fruitless negotiations across his conference.

“I don’t know how we solve it,” said one House Republican of the current impasse, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

It’s gotten to the point where Senate Republicans, who have until now largely taken a back seat on FISA, are warning they are prepared to grab the wheel if the House can’t figure it out.

“We’ve just got to have optionality here,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Friday of the path forward, shortly after clearing the House-passed, 10-day emergency Section 702 extension to avert a looming expiration. “I don’t know what the House is going to be able to do, and so we’ll be preparing accordingly.”

The task ahead of Republicans is only being compounded by the fact that this week was supposed to be about taking the first step in the Senate to advance a budget blueprint, necessary to begin the party-line reconciliation process that will deliver funding for the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement activities.

Trump has given Congress a June 1 deadline to get that reconciliation bill to his desk and reopen the long-shuttered DHS. Two people granted anonymity to discuss private scheduling said Senate Republicans will still be able to move the budget resolution this week as planned. But House Republicans will need to either quickly resolve their differences over the future of Section 702 or risk this policy fight colliding next week with expected disagreements over the scope of the reconciliation package.

Johnson, leaving the floor past 2 a.m. Friday after 20 Republicans voted down the procedural rule needed to advance his latest attempt to pass a long-term Section 702 reauthorization, said, “we were very close tonight.”

He chalked up the GOP rebellion to “some nuances with the language, and some questions need to be answered.” The emergency 10-day extension, he argued, gives Republicans more time to hammer out those pieces.

But Johnson will have his work cut out for him as he attempts to figure out how to satisfy conservative hard-liners who want more guardrails to prevent the warrantless surveillance of Americans. Trump has insisted on a clean reauthorization and has been resistant to more sweeping policy changes.

After Johnson unveiled legislative text of a five-year extension of the surveillance program late Thursday night, House GOP hard-liners quickly revolted over what one described as the “inexplicable five-year extension, the fake warrant requirement, and the walk back of the promise from this afternoon to include CBDC.”

The member was referring to central bank digital currency. Leaders previously promised ultraconservatives to secure a ban on it, and Section 702 holdouts now say a prohibition must be included as part of any spy power reauthorization deal. This particular policy battle has already stalled passage of bipartisan housing legislation.

Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in an interview near midnight Friday that House Republicans were “still working through” another legislative vehicle where they could potentially attach the CBDC ban. “We’re gonna find a place for it.”

That’s a tough sell, as some hard-liners have acknowledged that the White House isn’t on board with this plan, and Thune in an interview late last week warned its inclusion would erode support from Democrats whose votes will be needed to pass any Section 702 reauthorization in the Senate.

It doesn’t help that morale among House Republicans is under new strain.

When the speaker approached Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), a leading opponent of government surveillance programs, on the House floor overnight Friday to secure an agreement for an emergency patch, Biggs let the speaker know a previous deal they had was “off,” according to three Republicans who heard it, who were granted anonymity to recount a private exchange.

More moderate House Republicans are losing patience with the standoff. One GOP centrist, granted anonymity to speak candidly, called the Friday floor meltdown “ridiculous” and that the speaker didn’t have “much of a plan to begin with.”

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) cautioned: “You’ve got to make a deal with the Democrats.”

Four moderate Democrats did help Republicans on a party-line vote paving the way for passage of a clean, 18-month reauthorization: Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Tom Suozzi of New York. But it was not nearly enough to offset the 20 Republican defectors.

Democrats face division within their own ranks, too. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime privacy hawk, argued the House’s setback gave new momentum to a bipartisan coalition that wants more sweeping changes, including stronger warrant provisions.

“We’re going to pull out all the stops,” Wyden told reporters Friday after letting the stopgap pass on the Senate floor without objection. “We’re ready to go to the mat and fight for a full package of reforms.”

Yet back in the House, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has been pushing for a clean extension. He was seen hustling around the floor Friday night talking to different Republican members, including GOP leaders and hard-liners.

At one point, Himes was overheard saying on a phone call in the speaker’s lobby he was in a rare position to be doing “shuttle diplomacy” between the speaker and House Freedom Caucus members.

“What I learned tonight was that Republicans don’t talk to each other,” Himes said later in an interview. “They sure as hell don’t talk to us — but they don’t even talk to each other.”

Congress

How Republicans are privately talking about their Senate map at the convention

Published

6 hours ago

September 11, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

DALLAS — Top Republicans are scrambling to shore up their Senate map in Alaska, Texas and other red states — and are privately acknowledging they could very well lose in Georgia and North Carolina.

As GOP lawmakers, candidates and party officials gather for their midterm convention in Dallas, their conversations reveal how the party is thinking about their chances in the battle for the upper chamber, less than two months from Election Day.

THE TOP TARGETS

Senate Majority Leader John Thune ticked through a handful of battleground states he’s confident about in a closed-door lunch on Thursday — he’s particularly focused on Alaska, Maine and Michigan.

The meeting was hosted by the Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate’s top GOP super PAC, and was used to rally Republican donors, according to two people in the room who were granted anonymity to share details of the private discussions.

Republicans are bullish about their chances of holding their seat in Maine after the Democratic side devolved into chaos over the summer, when Graham Plater suspended his campaign following an allegation of sexual assault, which he denies. Now, a largely untested, progressive Troy Jackson is looking to unseat five-term GOP Sen. Susan Collins.

In Alaska, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is locked in a tight race with Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, but they are optimistic about his prospects in the state that President Donald Trump won by double digits in 2024.

Michigan is another opportunity: Republicans have been leaning into attacks warning of the takeover of socialism this cycle. They are spending heavily to boost Republican Mike Rogers, who is running against progressive Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee who’s backed by the Democratic Socialists of America and who has become a boogeyman for Republicans.

TEXAS IS FOR TRUMP

Senior Republicans also indicated they would continue to leave shoring up imperiled Ken Paxton in Texas largely to Trump, given that he helped unseat Sen. John Cornyn by backing Paxton in the primary.

Trump said in his convention speech Wednesday night that he would help boost Paxton. His affiliated super PAC, MAGA Inc. has already started spending in Texas to shore up the Republican. Senate Leadership Fund, which publicly backed Cornyn during the GOP primary, has not announced any spending in Texas.

THE PROBLEM CHILDREN

Georgia, where Republican Rep. Mike Collins is facing rising Democratic star Sen. Jon Ossoff, didn’t come up in the SLF meeting with Thune, according to the people. One of the people who was in the room later told Blue Light News that North Carolina would be “tough.”

Republicans have been increasingly worried about Collins falling behind in Georgia and Michael Whatley, a former RNC chair, in North Carolina. Public polling shows both candidates trailing their Democratic opponents. They are also both being outraised on the candidate level, but Republicans have a substantial overall fundraising advantage — buoyed in large part by Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC.

Sen. Rick Scott, a former NRSC chair, said in an interview at the convention this week that if the Georgia GOP gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson “runs an unbelievable race in Georgia, he gives Mike Collins an opportunity possibly to beat Ossoff.” He also painted North Carolina as “probably one of the hardest ones,” given that Whatley is facing popular former Gov. Roy Cooper for an open seat.

Democrats need to hold onto all of their seats — including defending the open seat in Michigan — while also flipping four GOP-held ones to gain control of the upper chamber. Republicans are also eager to boost John Sununu in New Hampshire after his primary win this week, as they work to beat back serious challenges in Ohio and Iowa.

Collins and Whatley both welcomed additional financial support coming into the final stretch of their races in interviews during the convention.

“Listen, we’ll always make a case for more money,” Collins told Blue Light News he left a closed-door meeting with the NRSC, SLF head Alex Latcham and top Senate Republicans on Wednesday.

Congress

House will vote on legislation shielding consumers from data center energy costs

Published

8 hours ago

September 10, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House GOP leaders will put legislation on the floor next week designed to compel tech companies to pay for the infrastructure associated with energy-sucking data centers, according to the offices of Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise.

It comes as vulnerable House Republicans have been pleading with leadership to take some sort of action before the midterms to address the rising power prices linked to the data center boom, necessary to meet the growing artificial intelligence demand.

Many of these Republicans, who were hammered on the issue during the summer recess by fed-up constituents, have been calling for consideration specifically of the so-called Ratepayer Protection Act, which passed unanimously out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in July.

Leaders, however, have been weighing whether or not to move forward with the measure on the floor, with Scalise’s office claiming late last month that some of his members had problems with the proposal that still needed to be worked out.

That Scalise and others have now caved is a sign of the political pressure the party is feeling on the matter as Election Day draws near. This is one the last bills lawmakers will vote on before leaving town for a six week recess before the midterms.

According to four people with knowledge of next week’s agenda, the bill will come to the floor under an expedited floor procedure that only requires a two-thirds majority of those present and voting to secure passage. That means Republican leaders won’t have to worry about the legislation overcoming a procedural, party-line rule that GOP lawmakers could tank for any number of reasons, including outstanding concerns over the Ratepayer Protection Act.

One person granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations said the bill that passed out of Energy and Commerce has not been revised, meaning there could still be lingering opposition.

Many Republicans, in recent weeks, have continued to argue that data center construction is a local matter that ought not be regulated at the national level.

“I’m a true believer in local control,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer said in an interview Thursday along the sidelines of the GOP midterm convention in Dallas this week.

The news of the planned vote was first reported by Axios.

Lawmakers next week will also vote on the so-called AM Radio in Every Vehicle Act, legislation that would force automakers to include AM radio capabilities in all new vehicles, according to two people granted anonymity to describe private scheduling.

The measure has wide bipartisan appeal but has been criticized as too onerous by some electric vehicle manufacturers who say their car designs cannot currently accommodate AM radio functionality.

Congress

Tom Emmer has a message for House GOP chairs: Term limits matter

Published

10 hours ago

September 10, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

DALLAS — House Majority Whip Tom Emmer has a message for the multiple House committee chairs seeking an exception from Republicans’ term limit rule: He’s “not a fan” of waivers, and you should have a good reason for seeking one.

“I’ve never liked waivers,” Emmer said in an interview at the GOP midterm convention. “I think it’s one of the things that helped the Republican majority stay more connected to Main Street.”

As the No. 3 Republican leader, Emmer does not control the waivers, which are in the hands of the 35-member GOP Steering Committee and the larger House Republican Conference.

But he has an influential voice as a top leader and Steering Committee member, and he said there are only “limited circumstances where it might make sense” to allow Republicans to lead a committee for more than three terms.

Several chairs, including Agriculture’s G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) and Armed Services’ Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), have applied for waivers to continue in their posts next Congress. The three-term limit includes time served leading panels in both the majority and minority.

Emmer said members should be free to make their case to continue on but, he said, the bar should be high.

“I love our members who have been around for years and have institutional knowledge,” Emmer said. “But unlike Democrats, we have turnover on the Republican side.”

He added, “Every two election cycles or so, you have close to 50 percent turnover in the Republican House. You don’t get that in the Senate. You get people who are serving as octogenarians, and they’re showing no signs of leaving.”

One GOP chair who is planning on handing off his gavel is Judiciary’s Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a MAGA favorite who could start the new Congress without a perch of power — leading to rampant speculation about what he has planned.

“I heard the president saylast week in the Rose Garden that we need to keep Jim right where he is, which was interesting because it’s like — OK, but I think he’s termed out,” Emmer said.

Many believe that Jordan — as well as Emmer and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise — could seek to run for the top leadership post now held by Speaker Mike Johnson if Republicans lose their majority in November. Emmer reiterated that he believes that won’t happen and that the GOP leadership will stay the same.

“It’s going to be Mike Johnson, Steve Scalise. I hope I’m rehired, and I expect Lisa McClain will be rehired,” he said, referring to the No. 4 GOP leader from Michigan.