Congress

The next shutdown threat is around the corner

Published

11 months ago

November 13, 2025

The longest shutdown in U.S. history is ending. Yet Congress’ most onerous government funding work remains unfinished — setting up a potential repeat early next year.

The bipartisan deal to end the funding lapse includes a long-term agreement on just three of the dozen bills lawmakers need to finish each year to keep cash flowing to federal programs. And those three measures are some of the easiest to rally around — including money for veterans programs, food aid, assistance for farmers and the operations of Congress itself.

Together, they represent only about 10 percent of the roughly $1.8 trillion Congress doles out each year to federal agencies. Under the deal, everything else is funded on a temporary basis through Jan. 30 at levels first set by Congress in March 2024, when Joe Biden was president.

That leaves behind major open decisions about the vast majority of discretionary dollars — including for the military and public health programs — along with the stickiest policy issues. It doesn’t help that House and Senate leaders still haven’t agreed on an overall total for fiscal 2026 spending, amid GOP divisions over how deeply to cut.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise acknowledged this month that the hardest part of the funding negotiations is ahead after President Donald Trump signs the current deal to end the shutdown.

“We’ve got to just find a resolution to get the lights back on,” Scalise said. “But the real negotiation is going to be: Can we get an agreement on how to properly fund the government with individual appropriations bills, packages of appropriations bills?”

If lawmakers don’t figure it all out by the new January deadline, Congress risks another partial shutdown or running most of the federal government on what are essentially two-year-old budgets. Some Democrats are already hinting they are willing to shut down the government again without a deal on Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies that expire at the end of this year.

Compounding the challenge are fears that partisan strife during the six-week shutdown will only complicate the already-grueling task of striking a cross-party compromise.

“If we’re going to function again, we’ve got to be able to trust each other,” senior appropriator Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) told reporters this week, after helping broker the deal to end the shutdown.

The three-bill deal appears to have done little to repair the breach. One of Congress’ top four appropriators, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), objected to how final negotiations played out over the weekend to close out the funding package.

“The entire House was marginalized in this process,” she said Tuesday night during a Rules Committee meeting.

DeLauro accused Senate Republicans of “abruptly” stopping talks in the middle of negotiations, making the bills public before she signed off and secretly adding controversial language without consulting House lawmakers.

In the Senate, leaders have committed to quickly advancing more funding measures. Majority Leader John Thune said senators would be “off to the races” on a second package of spending measures when the chamber gavels back in on Tuesday.

Up to five bills are under consideration for inclusion in that package, covering funding for the military and the departments of Education, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Justice, Transportation, Interior and Housing and Urban Development.

Getting that done will be hard enough. All 100 senators would have to consent to quickly assemble the bills on the floor, likely followed by weeks of debate before a vote on passage. Then top Senate appropriators would need to strike a compromise with their House counterparts.

But the remaining spending bills will be even tougher. Four are so divisive that Senate appropriators didn’t even approve them in committee this summer. Lawmakers in both parties agree it is likely that agencies covered under that slate — among them the departments of Energy, Homeland Security, State and Treasury, including the IRS — will eventually be funded through a stopgap that spans through next September.

Democrats warn that any partisan demands from Trump or hard-liners in the House could deadlock the effort to reach agreements on the nine bills left.

“If they want to add poison pills, obviously the whole thing will fall apart,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a senior appropriator, said in a brief interview.

But Democrats are also motivated to strike bipartisan deals in light of Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought’s moves this year to shift, freeze and cancel billions of dollars Congress already approved.

Senators have been careful to be more explicit in the new trio of funding bills about how the Trump administration must spend the money.

“Obviously, those are not the bills I would have written,” the Senate’s top Democratic appropriator, Washington Sen. Patty Murray, said in a floor speech this week. But those bills, she added, are “immeasurably better than Trump and Vought holding the pen.”

“We have a lot of work ahead, and I know we can get there — passing full-year funding bills to ensure Congress, not Trump or Russ Vought, decides how taxpayer dollars are spent,” she continued.

A couple of the remaining bills, however, are subject to much more profound disputes. An intraparty disagreement over funding levels between Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), for instance, has left the energy bill in limbo.

“I know that is a new experience for everybody on the committee,” Kennedy said this week. “But I’m not backing down.”

And then there’s the DHS measure, which hasn’t been unveiled, let alone advanced through committee amid a deep partisan dispute over curbing Trump’s immigration agenda.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democrat on the panel that funds DHS, said he wants “real constraints” to prevent what he calls the Trump administration’s “clearly illegal” transfers of funding to support border enforcement and mass deportations.

“It’s going to be really hard to get a bipartisan long-term budget,” Murphy said, pointing to $600 million the administration is now using for detaining immigrants despite Congress explicitly approving it for “non-detention” efforts.

Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, who has clashed with Murphy as his GOP counterpart on the panel, acknowledged appropriators have “a lot of hard work in front of us” when asked this week about the challenge of advancing the next tranche of spending bills.

“I don’t think anyone is naive,” she said.

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Congress

Senate passes bipartisan bill to overhaul college sports

Published

5 hours ago

September 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate passed a sweeping bipartisan bill Monday that would overhaul the multibillion-dollar college sports industry — a major legislative victory shared by members of both parties and President Donald Trump, who wants to sign the package as soon as possible.

A high priority for Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz of Texas and the panel’s top Democrat, Maria Cantwell of Washington, the Protect College Sports Act would replace a patchwork of state laws governing student athlete compensation, transfers and eligibility with one overarching federal rulebook.

“Today the Senate has the opportunity to protect the half million college athletes and the millions more who follow in their footsteps,” said Cruz in a floor speech Monday. “Students are transferring three or four times. Pros are trying to play ball against college kids. Conflicting court decisions have created a fragmented system — one that no one intended. And young men and women are losing opportunities to compete and receive an education.”

But while the 77-22 vote would ordinarily present itself as a welcome glimpse of cross-party unity, it is now being overshadowed by a murky outlook in the House, where Republicans oppose multiple provisions of the Senate package.

Democrats, meanwhile, are smarting from a highly-charged debate over whether the legislation would exploit college athletes of color — and some are questioning why their colleagues would split from the AFL-CIO and the NAACP, two organizations core to the party’s base that oppose the legislation.

That the vote was one of the last actions senators will take before leaving Washington to campaign for the midterms also has also presented unsavory optics for many Republicans, who are desperate to show they are serious about alleviating concerns around rising gas prices and interest rates.

“Is this really what we should be spending our time on?” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), one of the most vocal opponents of the legislation, asked Monday night on the Senate floor. “Our country faces real challenges. Gas is at $5. Diesel costs are a record high. We’re at war abroad. Health care expenses are skyrocketing.”

“And,” Booker continued, “the United States Senate is spending precious time rewriting the rules of college sports while athletes’ groups, survivors of sexual assault, labor, civil rights leaders are all begging Congress to slow down and listen to their voices. What does this say about our priorities?”

In one apparent acknowledgement of the dynamics at play, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) offered an amendment that would have put limits on how much schools and conferences can increase the price of tickets for games — arguing it would help keep costs stable for fans amid a nationwide affordability crisis. Cruz objected to the proposal, arguing it would “harm schools from being able to respond when market factors change.”

Kennedy’s amendment was ultimately rejected, while senators adopted a change to the bill sought by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) to require the disclosure of foreign financing of intercollegiate athletics.

Cruz in a Senate floor speech Monday presented the Protect College Sports Act as a binary choice for his colleagues: Stand by, or turn their backs, on student athletes who are currently being undercut by bidding wars that force schools to scrap programs because they don’t make headlines or big time television contracts.

Cantwell, meanwhile, has insisted the “historic bill” is a victory for the half-million college athletes across the country — particularly women and participants in Olympic sports programs — who are losing out on money and resources as big-ticket departments like football spend big money to attract top talent.

“We need to stop stealing money out of college [and] university institutions for education, for tuition, for professors, and putting it into an arms race on sports,” she said.

These arguments are lost on members of the Congressional Black Caucus, of which Booker is a part — with its chair, Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), saying in an interview last week the bill fails to “center the lives of the athletes.”

“There’s so much that this bill neglects,” she said, pointing specifically to health care provisions.

The all-Democratic CBC has been unanimously opposed to moving forward on any college sports bill since May, following the late April Supreme Court decision that allowed Republican-led states to eliminate majority-minority districts across the South.

In a statement at the time, the CBC said it would not support legislation “benefiting major athletic institutions that continue to remain silent while Black voting rights and Black political power are being systematically dismantled.”

Some Democrats in the Senate also lamented that the bill would set student athletes back after many have benefited from various federal court rulings entitling them to compensation for their name, image and likeness.

“This bill…only caps the money going to the players — does nothing to cap the money going to the coaches,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said on the floor Monday.

On the Republican side of the aisle, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise — who was heavily involved in working on a House version of a college sports overhaul bill that has repeatedly fallen short of support — has consistently raised concerns that the Senate measure would leave the door open to possible unionization efforts by players.

House conservatives are also expected to oppose provisions in the Senate bill that would provide $1 billion for competitive grants to Historically Black Colleges and Universities without offsets; could increase litigation related to student unionization efforts; provide no cap on granting international student scholarships; and generally insert Congress into the business of college sports.

GOP Rep. Michael Baumgartner of Washington, who introduced an earlier House version of the bill, posted on social media Monday that the bill will “have a better than 50% chance in the House.” He also said that even with the president’s blessing, the legislation will need Democratic votes, pointing out the “Dem CBC will be a factor.”

But Republicans may ultimately face pressure to fall in line: Trump promoted the Senate bill as recently as this weekend in an interview with Clay Travis, founder of the digital sports column Sport & State.

Trump also suggested Speaker Mike Johnson might bring the House back before the midterms to clear the measure for his signature.

“We have to get it voted on,” he told Travis, “and we’re counting on the House — and I think the House will come through, too.”

Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.

Congress

Republicans scheme to block Trump’s funding cancellations

Published

5 hours ago

September 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Lawmakers are fuming over President Donald Trump’s latest challenge to Congress’ funding power and already plotting to stop him in the future — a move that would require Republicans to buck their own party’s standard-bearer.

Trump declared Friday that he unilaterally nixed a total of $810 million across several pots of cash Congress enacted for specific programs. It’s the second time in two years he has deployed the “pocket rescission” tactic to automatically claw back federal funds.

It’s now too late for lawmakers to stop that money from expiring when the fiscal year ends late Wednesday: The House has adjourned until after the midterms, and Congress relinquished a key piece of leverage by clearing a short-term funding patch weeks ago to keep government operations afloat through mid-December.

But lawmakers in both parties are talking about ways to prevent Trump from circumventing the congressional funding process during the final two years of his presidency.

“We’re already looking at whether there’s language we can put in the next set of appropriations bills that would prohibit this from happening,” Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters Monday evening. “But it’s going to take some legal work.”

Since lawmakers need to enact another funding bill by Dec. 11 to avert a government shutdown, they could add provisions to it barring Trump from sidestepping congressional spending mandates. Or lawmakers could add similar stipulations to whatever spending measures Congress might enact next year.

That will require bipartisan cooperation. After Trump used the same pocket rescissions tactic last year to cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid, the Supreme Court allowed the administration to withhold the funding until it expired. In the months that followed, Democrats repeatedly attempted to use funding bills to thwart that kind of late-stage clawback but fell short without alliances across the aisle.

“I have been trying to get that language in there. … The Republicans objected,” Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate appropriations panel, told reporters Monday evening.

Republicans who now say they are interested in blocking Trump from employing the maneuver are also thinking about the support they would need in both chambers to override a presidential veto.

“How many votes does it take to bar him?” said South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, a senior Republican appropriator. “Depending upon the strategy that you’re talking about, it’s going to be a vetoable item. If that’s the case, then you’ve got to have two-thirds in the House and the Senate. So we have to talk about things we can actually get done.”

Some lawmakers have floated the idea of seeking to bar the president from sending a rescission package to Congress in the last quarter of the fiscal year. That could stop Trump from unilaterally canceling federal cash because such a move only works in the final weeks of the fiscal year.

Under decades-old impoundment law, the president is allowed to send Congress a request to rescind funding and must then withhold the money for 45 days while lawmakers consider whether to approve, reject or ignore the ask. In a legal interpretation many lawmakers challenge, Trump administration officials argue that sending a rescission request less than 45 days before the end of the fiscal year ensures its expiration on Sept. 30.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, another top Republican appropriator, described the strategy as a “sneaky” ploy “designed to go around Congress … where you basically just run the clock out.”

“I think Congress needs to save ourselves,” Murkowski told reporters Monday. “I don’t think that our strategy should be just hoping for a good decision out of the courts. I think we have a role here, and it’s up to us to exercise it.”

“Easier said than done,” she added.

Some Republicans argue that it’s futile to enact another law to reinforce the limits they believe are already clearly laid out in the original impoundment law Congress enacted in the 1970s, which was designed to prevent presidents from withholding money lawmakers approve.

“So if we pass another law that basically says the same thing, then that’s going to change it?” Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), a member of the Appropriations Committee, said in an interview.

“The Impoundment Control Act was set up to make sure that Congress had the power of the purse and the funds were expended. The executive is interpreting it differently,” he continued. “That’s why I don’t know how you resolve it without the court stepping in.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday that he is also assuming “that it’s going to continue to get litigated.”

He wouldn’t say whether he agrees with top appropriators like Collins who argue that Trump’s move is against the law.

“There’s that argument, for sure,” Thune said. “And I think as an appropriator she feels strongly that these are decisions made by appropriators and that the administration doesn’t have this authority. But again, that is probably something the courts probably decide.”

Jordain Carney contributed to this report.

Congress

Taxpayer-funded ads are the latest Trump headache for beleaguered GOP senators

Published

6 hours ago

September 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans want to spend this week insulating themselves from a deteriorating political environment before getting back on the campaign trail. Instead, they’re fending off some final curveballs from President Donald Trump.

White House decisions to use air campaign-style ads with taxpayer funds while separately rescinding about a billion dollars in congressionally approved spending are the latest pre-midterm frustrations for GOP senators — who spent much of Monday fielding off-message questions about the president’s latest actions.

The distractions come as Republicans grow increasingly anxious that the economic fallout from the Iran war could doom their majority in November. They decided to spend a few extra days in Washington to take affordability-related votes they hope their vulnerable members can use back home.

Instead, they’re being quizzed on the propriety of federally funded ads promoting Trump, which ran during weekend football games and other programming.

“I will just tell you that right now in Utah, they’re worried about affordability, and they don’t want to be worried about how their taxpayer dollars are being spent,” Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) said of how his constituents could regard the ads.

The ads and the spending cuts created twin — though not necessarily overlapping — circles of pushback inside the Senate GOP.

Appropriators, in particular, fumed over White House budget director Russ Vought’s Friday night announcement of fresh “pocket rescissions” that Congress cannot vote to overrule. A budget office spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Monday night.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins — who is now campaigning for reelection in part on her hefty influence over federal spending — called Trump’s action “illegal” and told reporters Monday that she and allies would work to ban similar steps in the future. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) warned the latest rescission would “make it very hard” to get government funding deals in the future.

The bigger reaction among Senate Republicans Monday was to the taxpayer-funded ad campaign. One spot is virtually identical to a 2024 Trump campaign spot; another includes images of the president and a caption including that “America will never be a communist country.”

The Trump administration has not disclosed the amount being spent on the ads or where the funding is being drawn from but is defending them as “public service announcements.”

A White House official granted anonymity to speak candidly noted that Trump is not on the ballot in November. A White House spokesperson said the ads are about “reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending” — not midterm politics.

Still, Republicans from Senate Majority Leader John Thune on down distanced themselves from the ads.

“It’s a great message. I like the message. But it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars,” Thune told reporters.

Other Republican senators tried to toe a similar line — disagreeing with the decision without directly criticizing Trump. Rounds, who is up for reelection, said that “it’s not something that I would have done.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) gave a similar response over the weekend, saying that no public official “should spend public money on private ads for themselves.”

Asked if using public funds for the ads was appropriate, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said, “No, it’s not even a close question.”

The bristling inside the GOP comes after some of them previously questioned Department of Homeland Security-funded ads that heavily featured then-Secretary Kristi Noem. GOP senators privately viewed the ads as an effort by Noem to promote herself, and they believe they factored into Trump’s decision to move her into another job.

The latest ads put Republicans in an even tighter spot given the president’s direct involvement and the political winds blowing against them — especially as they prepare for votes later this week aimed at convincing voters they are in touch with their concerns.

“I hate them,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who announced last year that he would retire after policy splits with Trump. “Again, these are taxpayer dollars. People say it wasn’t that much money. Well, you go talk to people that are struggling and figure out whether or not they think it was that much money.”

Yet other GOP senators — including members of leadership such as Sens. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and James Lankford of Oklahoma, as well as Sen. Steve Daines of Montana — gave a tried-and-true response to the Trump controversy du jour.

“Here’s the honest truth … I didn’t see it,” Daines told reporters, laughing as explained he was watching his grandkids over the weekend. “I really didn’t.”

Chris Marquette and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.