{"id":21151,"date":"2026-04-10T08:46:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T08:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/these-republican-on-republican-disputes-are-keeping-congress-frozen\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T08:46:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T08:46:42","slug":"these-republican-on-republican-disputes-are-keeping-congress-frozen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/these-republican-on-republican-disputes-are-keeping-congress-frozen\/","title":{"rendered":"These Republican-on-Republican disputes are keeping Congress frozen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Republican infighting is leaving Congress in legislative limbo.<\/p>\n

While there are plenty of partisan disputes that have frustrated Capitol Hill \u2014 such as the nearly two-month shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security \u2014 divisions between House and Senate Republicans have been the more significant obstacle for a laundry list of stalled legislation that could otherwise sail to President Donald Trump\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n

Trump could intervene to settle many of these disputes, but he has kept his distance in most cases. That has left each chamber pushing ahead with their own proposals \u2014 and against their counterparts in the other chamber.<\/p>\n

In the one instance where the president appears truly invested, in passage of a sweeping GOP elections bill, his fixation has only made the intraparty divisions worse.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers will return to Washington next week with the pre-midterm legislative calendar dwindling and leaders eyeing action on at least one party-line budget reconciliation bill \u2014 a time-consuming process that could make it even tougher to find consensus on these pending items:<\/p>\n

Housing affordability<\/h4>\n

With cost-of-living concerns dominating the pre-midterm political landscape, a bipartisan effort to address housing prices should be a no-brainer, but disputes over niche policy provisions are holding up dueling House and Senate housing packages.<\/p>\n

The Senate passed a bill last month that includes a temporary ban on central bank digital currency as well as a provision restricting large investors from owning more than 350 homes. Both provisions face serious opposition from House Republicans, who joined with Democrats in their chamber to pass their own bill in February.<\/p>\n

While the Senate wants the House to accept its version, House Financial Services Chair French Hill<\/a> (R-Ark.) and others in the GOP are pushing for the two chambers to go to conference \u2014 potentially adding months to the process.<\/p>\n

Aviation safety<\/h4>\n

Legislation aiming to respond to the deadly crash near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport last year is stuck in a battle of wills among GOP committee chairs. A bill backed by Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz<\/a> (R-Texas) appeared set for Trump\u2019s desk earlier this year until the heads of two key House committees, Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers<\/a> (R-Ala.) and Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Sam Graves<\/a> (R-Mo.), came out against it, causing the measure to fail on the House floor.<\/p>\n

The Senate bill\u2019s requirement for advanced aircraft location-alerting technology has been one of the biggest points of contention among Republicans, with the House version of the bill opting for more open-ended language. The House bill focuses on a different technology, which major aviation labor groups<\/a> argue wouldn\u2019t have prevented the Washington disaster.<\/p>\n

Cruz has called the House rejection of his ROTOR Act a \u201ctemporary delay,\u201d but the House chairs are pushing forward with their own ALERT Act, with a floor vote expected Tuesday. How the policy disputes will be settled from there remains uncertain.<\/p>\n

College sports<\/h4>\n

Trump has taken a keen interest in college athletics, issuing a flurry of executive orders on this topic. But Congress has struggled to act on legislation tackling the controversial \u201cname, image and likeness\u201d regime for compensating student athletes<\/p>\n

House Republicans last year made a push for the SCORE Act, which would create new standards for how college athletes are paid and give antitrust exemptions, before opposition from hard-liners and many Democrats put it on ice.<\/p>\n

While there has been new chatter about putting it on the floor this month, the bill is dead on arrival in the Senate, where Cruz and Sen. Maria Cantwell<\/a> (D-Wash.), the top Commerce Committee senators, have warned the measure doesn\u2019t have enough support. The two are discussing ways to address NIL concerns but have yet to produce a bill.<\/p>\n

Tech regulation<\/h4>\n

The House and Senate have failed to reach consensus on a number of tech-industry flashpoints, including artificial intelligence and children\u2019s online safety.<\/p>\n

The House GOP largely wants to codify a Trump executive order creating a national AI rulebook, but some Senate Republicans appear concerned that the president\u2019s plan could limit state-level regulations the White House wants to override.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a similar standoff over online safety bills. The Senate cleared a privacy bill by unanimous consent, but the House hasn\u2019t taken it up and instead is pushing ahead with a package that doesn’t include key Senate-passed provisions.<\/p>\n

One of the key differences is on state preemption \u2014 included in the House version but not the Senate version. Another dispute is over \u201cduty of care\u201d language in the Senate bill that requires tech companies to design their platforms with an eye toward preventing harm to children. Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> floated pairing AI legislation with kids online safety legislation in an interview earlier this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s cryptocurrency: A closely watched \u201cmarket structure\u201d bill is stuck for now in the Senate after it was excluded from a landmark crypto bill signed into law last year despite a push in the House.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration is increasing pressure, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying Thursday<\/a> that \u201cSenate time is precious, and now is the time to act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elections oversight<\/h4>\n

Conservative lawmakers and Trump have joined forces behind the SAVE America Act \u2014 a GOP bill aimed at fully eliminating noncitizen voting \u2014 as a top-level, must-pass agenda item even as many Senate Republicans doubt it can ever skirt their chamber\u2019s 60-vote filibuster threshold.<\/p>\n

Trump views the bill as his \u201cNo. 1 priority,\u201d and House hard-liners are pushing for a filibuster workaround. Sen. Mike Lee<\/a> (R-Utah) has pushed to force Democrats into a \u201ctalking filibuster\u201d where they would have to hold the floor to block the bill, and the Senate will resume debate early next week with no indication of when GOP leaders will choose to hold a likely doomed vote and move on.<\/p>\n

Some Republicans, including Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham<\/a> of South Carolina, want to try to pass parts of the bill through the reconciliation process later this fall. But hard-liners view that as a nonstarter because most of the bill likely violates the strict Senate rules governing the party-line reconciliation process.<\/p>\n

DHS funding<\/h4>\n

There\u2019s no bigger dispute for House and Senate Republicans to settle than DHS funding, which has already been subject to nearly a month of back-and-forth.<\/p>\n

A Senate-passed bill delivering funding for all of the department save for immigration enforcement agencies is currently held up in the House. Republicans there aren\u2019t enthused about a plan that would instead fund ICE and other agencies through the reconciliation process \u2014 an idea Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a> called \u201cgarbage\u201d before flipping in support.<\/p>\n

Now, many House Republicans want their Senate counterparts to pass immigration enforcement funding before the House passes the balance of DHS spending. The hard-line Freedom Caucus has gone further, demanding GOP leaders fund all of DHS through reconciliation.<\/p>\n

As party leaders make plans to pass a narrowly targeted reconciliation bill ahead of a Trump-imposed June 1 deadline, most Senate Republicans want the House to fund most of DHS now \u2014 or risk prolonging the infighting that even one GOP senator called a \u201ccircular firing squad.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Katherine Hapgood, Gabby Miller, Alfred Ng, Nick Niedzwiadek and Sam Ogozalek contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican infighting is leaving Congress in legislative limbo. While there are plenty of partisan disputes that have frustrated Capitol Hill \u2014 such as the nearly two-month shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security \u2014 divisions between House and Senate Republicans have been the more significant obstacle for a laundry list of stalled legislation that could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}