Congress

Senators consider taking legislative action on prediction markets

Published

2 months ago

May 20, 2026

Senators are signaling an appetite for pursuing legislation that would create federal standards for prediction markets that allow people to place cheap bets on sports — and just about anything else.

“There’s interest from members on the panel to move forward and get something on the books,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said Wednesday in an interview after she presided over a Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing on the topic.

She added she planned to confer with the full Commerce Committee chair, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), about a path forward.

The hearing, convened by the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, was billed as a fact-gathering exercise on the risks associated with popular online platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket — especially among young people — as well as sports scandals related to match-fixing and insider trading.

It came as House lawmakers are beginning their own internal conversations about cracking down specifically on the ability of lawmakers, their spouses and dependent children to exploit their insider knowledge to game the system across prediction markets, according to three people granted anonymity to share direct knowledge of the conversations.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Wednesday that House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) was “looking at” legislative options but details are still murky.

The Senate hearing revealed there could be strong industry pushback to efforts to regulate the prediction market space. For instance, Patrick McHenry — the former chair of the House Financial Services Committee who is now an adviser for the Coalition for Prediction Markets — argued prediction markets are already thoroughly regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

He also defended platforms like Kalshi and Robinhood, likening them to commodities futures that allow people to hedge against uncertain actions: “When grain futures came to fruition over 100 years ago, it was viewed much the same,” he said.

McHenry said he welcomed Congress’ input, but in an interview after the hearing he stressed the need to educate lawmakers.

“Part of this is just exposure on what we are doing — how these things function, what are these things doing to protect consumers,” McHenry said, adding that technology has allowed the platforms to be more proactive to find and penalize bad actors. “There has not been a significant education campaign prior to this year,” he said.

But senators also heard from Bill Miller, CEO of the American Gambling Association, who argued prediction markets were skirting rigorous rules established for sports betting and costing local governments tax funding.

“What we’ve seen is basically this tsunami created by prediction markets in a completely unregulated manner,” Miller said. “Yes, they are absolutely not competent to handle this, and … they are absolutely hurting tribes and states.”

Cruz appeared somewhat sympathetic to the argument.

“There is serious disagreement about whether the CFTC can unilaterally allow prediction markets to offer sports events contracts pursuant to the Commodity Exchanges Act,” he said in opening remarks Wednesday. “Many simply see prediction markets as a work around to state gambling laws. The courts are split. Ultimately, unless Congress acts, the Supreme Court may have to decide the issue.”

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Congress

Chuck Edwards recommended for censure by House Ethics Committee

Published

22 minutes ago

August 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House Ethics Committee recommended Monday that lawmakers censure Rep. Chuck Edwards for engaging in “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards two young female staffers” — cataloguing multiple episodes of sexual harassment by the married lawmaker.

Censure is the most severe punishment the panel can recommend short of expulsion, requiring targeted members to submit to a public shaming on the floor. The bipartisan panel said it plans to bring a privileged resolution to a vote once the House returns to session later this month.

A spokesperson for Edwards, 65, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a 15-page rebuttal, lawyers for Edwards said that the Ethics Committee “failed to demonstrate that either of the two staffers expressed discomfort to Representative Edwards regarding his conduct with them.” They also rejected the need for censure, noting that it has been used “sparingly in this context and directed only at matters of severe sexual misconduct.”

The panel itself released a trove of evidence including emails, text messages and photographs showing how Edwards had insinuated himself into intimate aspects of their lives.

Edwards, the committee found, made comments on the appearance of two young female staffers in his congressional office, telling them they looked “pretty” or “breathtaking” and made a comment on one staffer’s weight. He also lavished the young women with gifts, including purses valued at more than $1,000, as well as guns, shoes, flowers and one-on-one dinners.

Text messages from one of the women showed Edwards at one point sent her more than 20 containers of ice cream because, he said, she needed “a lot of cheering up!”

Sexual harassment is prohibited by House rules and federal law, and the committee found that Edwards violated “the spirit of the House’s prohibitions on sexual harassment and unwanted advances, as well as the requirement to act in a manner that reflects credibly upon the House.”

The report found Edwards brought one of the staffers to a holiday event at the White House, gave her flowers and texted her how he was “so excited about tonight” and that he pressured her to continue the night with him after the event. Edwards told the committee he accompanied that staffer to her home in Virginia because he “felt uncomfortable dumping a young lady on the street.”

Edwards also talked to that staffer and others about going to strip clubs in Washington, the report says.

The panel concluded that Edwards did not engage in sexual activity with either of the women, nor did he explicitly proposition them or other staff members for sex. Edwards, who is facing a competitive race for reelection in his western North Carolina district, cooperated with the probe, the committee said.

In one instance, the panel found, Edwards skipped House votes one night to decorate the second staffer’s Christmas tree. He also went out drinking and gambling with her. On another occasion, he recited a poem at her going-away party in his office and cried during that incident, making his staff noticeably uncomfortable.

When the second staffer left his office, Edwards helped her move back to North Carolina and sent her a handwritten letter in which he described her as “the most amazing woman” and that she had “written a complex chapter in my heart that I will never stop reading.”

Edwards told the committee that letter was not romantic.

“It was only to imply that we had a relationship on so many different levels — on a congressional level, on a professional level, on a friendship level, on a helping-one-another-out-with-our-chores-and-responsibility level,” he said.

Congress

Cornyn, Tillis confirm they will vote for Blanche

Published

5 hours ago

August 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has a clear path to the Senate Judiciary Committee advancing his nomination to the permanent job after two GOP holdouts confirmed Monday they would vote for him.

The statement from Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) comes after the late-night announcement Sunday of a Justice Department agreement to clarify a controversial May settlement agreement between President Donald Trump and the IRS.

A successful Judiciary vote Tuesday would set Blanche up for confirmation on the Senate floor later this week, before the chamber breaks for August recess.

“We want to express our gratitude to Mr. Blanche and his staff for working with us on this, and we look forward to voting to advance his nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee soon,” Cornyn and Tillis said in a joint statement.

The senators suggested their agreement with Blanche also satisfies the concerns of several other Republican senators off the Judiciary Committee who have raised concerns about the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” created in the original settlement, as well as provisions immunizing Trump and his family from some tax audits.

“We are pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund. Additionally, the Department has acknowledged in a binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and the scope does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the Treasury, addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share,” Cornyn and Tillis said.

Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, John Curtis of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are among the other Republicans who have expressed concerns about the payout fund. Blanche recently visited Alaska and announced a flurry of settlements benefiting Alaska as he courts Murkowski’s vote.

Congress

Maryland Dems kick off latest redistricting effort after a year of infighting

Published

5 hours ago

August 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland Democrats kicked off a special session on redistricting Monday, with the battle to redraw House districts around the country showing no signs of stopping at the November midterm elections.

Democrats are gearing up for a process to ultimately draw out the state’s only Republican member of Congress, Rep. Andy Harris. But any new map wouldn’t kick in until 2028.

Instead, the state Legislature is in town this week to vote on a constitutional amendment that some party leaders believe would insulate future redistricting efforts from legal scrutiny. This, after a Maryland state court blocked a proposed 8-0 Democratic district map in 2022, charging that it ran afoul of the state Constitution.

While Democrats around the state, including Gov. Wes Moore, had called for the Legislature to enact redistricting in time for this year’s midterms, Senate President Bill Ferguson — also a Democrat — has long argued that any map redraw coming before an amendment wouldn’t pass legal muster, and that the downside risks were “catastrophic.”

“We’ve known from the beginning what is at stake, and most importantly, we have known that in this moment of American history, it is insufficient to act with haste when the consequences of missteps are so impactful,” Ferguson said at a Monday press conference. “What those consequences could have looked like: a map rejected by Maryland’s Supreme Court. A map drawn by the court that sends us backwards when we could least afford it.”

The new language aims to make clear that certain requirements around compactness and respecting natural and political boundaries apply only to legislative districts and not congressional ones, which could clear a path for the state to gerrymander.

Should lawmakers pass it, Maryland voters would still need to approve the proposed amendment in November.

Republicans have taken a major lead in the interparty redistricting war for this year’s election, particularly after redrawing maps in a handful of Southern states after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in April.

“A legal earthquake changed the landscape this spring,” Ferguson said. “Even worse, we saw states like Tennessee, Louisiana, and South Carolina act with haste to attempt to eliminate majority-minority congressional districts. These acts changed the calculus, and that’s why we’re here.”

(Tennessee and Louisiana changed their lines for 2026, but South Carolina ultimately did not.)

The amendment, Ferguson said, “ensures that Maryland has the ability to respond if the Trump administration or any future federal administration seeks to further erode the basic standards of democracy.”