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Republicans Boebert and Massie were the ones who came up with this? Why didn't Democrats do it?

Either this is legit, or there are devils in the details. Either way, you can look this over yourselves

#SurveillanceAccountabilityAct

#GovTrack

#tech #privacy #digitalprivacy #4thAmendment

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr8470/text

Republicans Boebert and Massie were the ones who came up with this? Why didn't Democrats do it?

#HR8470 : Either this is legit, or there are devils in the details. Either way, you can look this over yourselves

#SurveillanceAccountabilityAct

#GovTrack

#tech #privacy #digitalprivacy #4thAmendment

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr8470/text

#law #USLaw #GetAWarrant

Republicans Boebert and Massie were the ones who came up with this? Why didn't Democrats do it?

Either this is legit, or there are devils in the details. Either way, you can look this over yourselves

#SurveillanceAccountabilityAct

#GovTrack

#tech #privacy #digitalprivacy #4thAmendment

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr8470/text

Republicans Boebert and Massie were the ones who came up with this? Why didn't Democrats do it?

#HR8470 : Either this is legit, or there are devils in the details. Either way, you can look this over yourselves

#SurveillanceAccountabilityAct

#GovTrack

#tech #privacy #digitalprivacy #4thAmendment

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr8470/text

#law #USLaw #GetAWarrant

Republicans Boebert and Massie were the ones who came up with this? Why didn't Democrats do it?

Either this is legit, or there are devils in the details. Either way, you can look this over yourselves

#SurveillanceAccountabilityAct

#GovTrack

#tech #privacy #digitalprivacy #4thAmendment

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/119/hr8470/text

Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files – GovTrack.us

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Legislative Recap Jan. 30, 2026: Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files »

1. News From Us
2. Legislative Recap

Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files

Jan. 30, 2026 · by Amy West

Shutdown? Shutdown

By midday on Friday, January 30 the Senate had not passed the remaining appropriations bills and the current continuing resolution funding parts of the federal government ended Saturday night at midnight. The House is not in session this weekend, so there will definitely be a brief partial weekend shutdown, but the government is expected to be funded again, for a time, by later in the week.

As a recap, Congress is supposed to pass appropriations bills before the fiscal year begins on October 1, and last year’s failure to do so led to the long October-November shutdown. In November, Congress reached a deal to fund some federal entities through the rest of this fiscal year (Agriculture, VA, and Congress itself) and then in mid-January reached a deal to fund others (Commerce, DOJ, Interior, and more), but that still left out a lot. Now, Congress is working to fund Defense, Homeland Security (DHS), Labor, HHS, Education, Transportation, HUD, State, and more). It looked like a deal had been reached until CBP killed Minnesotan Alex Pretti.

Friday night, the Senate passed 71-29 a revised version of H.R. 7148: Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026. While it has the same bill number as the one passed in the House last Friday, the content is different. The Senate changed DHS funding to a two-week continuing resolution, after which point DHS would face another potential shutdown, and attached that to the other five appropriations bills to fund those remaining parts of the government for the rest of the fiscal year.

So now, in order to keep this shutdown short, the House must vote again on H.R. 7148. Given that the White House has signaled support for this plan, the expectation was that things would go smoothly in the House on Monday. But as of February 1, House Democrats are blocking fast-track rules, which will add a few extra days to the process at most.

There was a hiccup on Thursday when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), said he was objecting to this plan unless a repealed-in-the-House provision was reinstated. That provision would allow a small number of senators to sue the government for exorbitant monetary damages as the result of searches in Operation Arctic Frost. (This article is about the first unanimous House vote to repeal that provision, but they again voted unanimously last week and attached the repeal to the appropriations bills.) As of this morning, Sen. Graham also says he objects to the plan because he wants a vote on banning sanctuary cities.

Graham agreed to let the vote go forward once Majority Leader Thune agreed to separate votes later on reinstating the monetary damages provision as well as a vote on legislation against sanctuary cities.

What Effect Will the Two Week Continuing Resolution Have on ICE?

Very little. As Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) noted on X about just ICE, an agency within DHS:

In 2025, ICE received $10 billion in appropriations. The 2026 bill holds ICE at $10 billion — but last year Congress gave them $75 billion in advance funding. So even if ICE appropriations were eliminated, ICE would still have a 750% increase over last year.

Two articles this week have noted how ICE has been spending its vast sums of money: The powerful tools in ICE’s arsenal to track suspects — and protesters from the Washington Post and ICE Begins Buying ‘Mega’ Warehouse Detention Centers Across US from Bloomberg. A shutdown or continuing resolution would have no effect on these expenditures. Heck, even if ICE received no new funding at all this year, it would have no effect because these are expenditures based on appropriations already made.

Other parts of DHS do need funding to continue full normal operations, such as TSA, FEMA, and CISA.

Epstein Files

According to Ryan Nobles, an NBC reporter:

JUST IN: Deputy AG Todd Blanche says the Department of Justice has now released every file connected to the Epstein investigation that they are legally allowed and/or forced to release.

The files are posted on the Department of Justice website.

Today marks six weeks since the files were supposed to be released, if the administration felt compelled to follow the law. Is it all of the files? Definitely not since many have been redacted to prevent identifying Epstein survivors and because an unknown amount of legal activity remains in place. Is it all of the files that are required by the law that Congress passed? Also unclear. It just happened Friday morning and there’s a lot of files, so more information will doubtless come out in the near future.

Updated on February 1 to add some context and update the status of the bill.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files – GovTrack.us

Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files – GovTrack.us

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Legislative Recap Jan. 30, 2026: Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files »

1. News From Us
2. Legislative Recap

Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files

Jan. 30, 2026 · by Amy West

Shutdown? Shutdown

By midday on Friday, January 30 the Senate had not passed the remaining appropriations bills and the current continuing resolution funding parts of the federal government ended Saturday night at midnight. The House is not in session this weekend, so there will definitely be a brief partial weekend shutdown, but the government is expected to be funded again, for a time, by later in the week.

As a recap, Congress is supposed to pass appropriations bills before the fiscal year begins on October 1, and last year’s failure to do so led to the long October-November shutdown. In November, Congress reached a deal to fund some federal entities through the rest of this fiscal year (Agriculture, VA, and Congress itself) and then in mid-January reached a deal to fund others (Commerce, DOJ, Interior, and more), but that still left out a lot. Now, Congress is working to fund Defense, Homeland Security (DHS), Labor, HHS, Education, Transportation, HUD, State, and more). It looked like a deal had been reached until CBP killed Minnesotan Alex Pretti.

Friday night, the Senate passed 71-29 a revised version of H.R. 7148: Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026. While it has the same bill number as the one passed in the House last Friday, the content is different. The Senate changed DHS funding to a two-week continuing resolution, after which point DHS would face another potential shutdown, and attached that to the other five appropriations bills to fund those remaining parts of the government for the rest of the fiscal year.

So now, in order to keep this shutdown short, the House must vote again on H.R. 7148. Given that the White House has signaled support for this plan, the expectation was that things would go smoothly in the House on Monday. But as of February 1, House Democrats are blocking fast-track rules, which will add a few extra days to the process at most.

There was a hiccup on Thursday when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), said he was objecting to this plan unless a repealed-in-the-House provision was reinstated. That provision would allow a small number of senators to sue the government for exorbitant monetary damages as the result of searches in Operation Arctic Frost. (This article is about the first unanimous House vote to repeal that provision, but they again voted unanimously last week and attached the repeal to the appropriations bills.) As of this morning, Sen. Graham also says he objects to the plan because he wants a vote on banning sanctuary cities.

Graham agreed to let the vote go forward once Majority Leader Thune agreed to separate votes later on reinstating the monetary damages provision as well as a vote on legislation against sanctuary cities.

What Effect Will the Two Week Continuing Resolution Have on ICE?

Very little. As Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) noted on X about just ICE, an agency within DHS:

In 2025, ICE received $10 billion in appropriations. The 2026 bill holds ICE at $10 billion — but last year Congress gave them $75 billion in advance funding. So even if ICE appropriations were eliminated, ICE would still have a 750% increase over last year.

Two articles this week have noted how ICE has been spending its vast sums of money: The powerful tools in ICE’s arsenal to track suspects — and protesters from the Washington Post and ICE Begins Buying ‘Mega’ Warehouse Detention Centers Across US from Bloomberg. A shutdown or continuing resolution would have no effect on these expenditures. Heck, even if ICE received no new funding at all this year, it would have no effect because these are expenditures based on appropriations already made.

Other parts of DHS do need funding to continue full normal operations, such as TSA, FEMA, and CISA.

Epstein Files

According to Ryan Nobles, an NBC reporter:

JUST IN: Deputy AG Todd Blanche says the Department of Justice has now released every file connected to the Epstein investigation that they are legally allowed and/or forced to release.

The files are posted on the Department of Justice website.

Today marks six weeks since the files were supposed to be released, if the administration felt compelled to follow the law. Is it all of the files? Definitely not since many have been redacted to prevent identifying Epstein survivors and because an unknown amount of legal activity remains in place. Is it all of the files that are required by the law that Congress passed? Also unclear. It just happened Friday morning and there’s a lot of files, so more information will doubtless come out in the near future.

Updated on February 1 to add some context and update the status of the bill.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files – GovTrack.us

Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files – GovTrack.us

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Legislative Recap Jan. 30, 2026: Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files »

1. News From Us
2. Legislative Recap

Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files

Jan. 30, 2026 · by Amy West

Shutdown? Shutdown

By midday on Friday, January 30 the Senate had not passed the remaining appropriations bills and the current continuing resolution funding parts of the federal government ended Saturday night at midnight. The House is not in session this weekend, so there will definitely be a brief partial weekend shutdown, but the government is expected to be funded again, for a time, by later in the week.

As a recap, Congress is supposed to pass appropriations bills before the fiscal year begins on October 1, and last year’s failure to do so led to the long October-November shutdown. In November, Congress reached a deal to fund some federal entities through the rest of this fiscal year (Agriculture, VA, and Congress itself) and then in mid-January reached a deal to fund others (Commerce, DOJ, Interior, and more), but that still left out a lot. Now, Congress is working to fund Defense, Homeland Security (DHS), Labor, HHS, Education, Transportation, HUD, State, and more). It looked like a deal had been reached until CBP killed Minnesotan Alex Pretti.

Friday night, the Senate passed 71-29 a revised version of H.R. 7148: Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026. While it has the same bill number as the one passed in the House last Friday, the content is different. The Senate changed DHS funding to a two-week continuing resolution, after which point DHS would face another potential shutdown, and attached that to the other five appropriations bills to fund those remaining parts of the government for the rest of the fiscal year.

So now, in order to keep this shutdown short, the House must vote again on H.R. 7148. Given that the White House has signaled support for this plan, the expectation was that things would go smoothly in the House on Monday. But as of February 1, House Democrats are blocking fast-track rules, which will add a few extra days to the process at most.

There was a hiccup on Thursday when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), said he was objecting to this plan unless a repealed-in-the-House provision was reinstated. That provision would allow a small number of senators to sue the government for exorbitant monetary damages as the result of searches in Operation Arctic Frost. (This article is about the first unanimous House vote to repeal that provision, but they again voted unanimously last week and attached the repeal to the appropriations bills.) As of this morning, Sen. Graham also says he objects to the plan because he wants a vote on banning sanctuary cities.

Graham agreed to let the vote go forward once Majority Leader Thune agreed to separate votes later on reinstating the monetary damages provision as well as a vote on legislation against sanctuary cities.

What Effect Will the Two Week Continuing Resolution Have on ICE?

Very little. As Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) noted on X about just ICE, an agency within DHS:

In 2025, ICE received $10 billion in appropriations. The 2026 bill holds ICE at $10 billion — but last year Congress gave them $75 billion in advance funding. So even if ICE appropriations were eliminated, ICE would still have a 750% increase over last year.

Two articles this week have noted how ICE has been spending its vast sums of money: The powerful tools in ICE’s arsenal to track suspects — and protesters from the Washington Post and ICE Begins Buying ‘Mega’ Warehouse Detention Centers Across US from Bloomberg. A shutdown or continuing resolution would have no effect on these expenditures. Heck, even if ICE received no new funding at all this year, it would have no effect because these are expenditures based on appropriations already made.

Other parts of DHS do need funding to continue full normal operations, such as TSA, FEMA, and CISA.

Epstein Files

According to Ryan Nobles, an NBC reporter:

JUST IN: Deputy AG Todd Blanche says the Department of Justice has now released every file connected to the Epstein investigation that they are legally allowed and/or forced to release.

The files are posted on the Department of Justice website.

Today marks six weeks since the files were supposed to be released, if the administration felt compelled to follow the law. Is it all of the files? Definitely not since many have been redacted to prevent identifying Epstein survivors and because an unknown amount of legal activity remains in place. Is it all of the files that are required by the law that Congress passed? Also unclear. It just happened Friday morning and there’s a lot of files, so more information will doubtless come out in the near future.

Updated on February 1 to add some context and update the status of the bill.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files – GovTrack.us

Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files – GovTrack.us

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Legislative Recap Jan. 30, 2026: Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files »

1. News From Us
2. Legislative Recap

Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files

Jan. 30, 2026 · by Amy West

Shutdown? Shutdown

By midday on Friday, January 30 the Senate had not passed the remaining appropriations bills and the current continuing resolution funding parts of the federal government ended Saturday night at midnight. The House is not in session this weekend, so there will definitely be a brief partial weekend shutdown, but the government is expected to be funded again, for a time, by later in the week.

As a recap, Congress is supposed to pass appropriations bills before the fiscal year begins on October 1, and last year’s failure to do so led to the long October-November shutdown. In November, Congress reached a deal to fund some federal entities through the rest of this fiscal year (Agriculture, VA, and Congress itself) and then in mid-January reached a deal to fund others (Commerce, DOJ, Interior, and more), but that still left out a lot. Now, Congress is working to fund Defense, Homeland Security (DHS), Labor, HHS, Education, Transportation, HUD, State, and more). It looked like a deal had been reached until CBP killed Minnesotan Alex Pretti.

Friday night, the Senate passed 71-29 a revised version of H.R. 7148: Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026. While it has the same bill number as the one passed in the House last Friday, the content is different. The Senate changed DHS funding to a two-week continuing resolution, after which point DHS would face another potential shutdown, and attached that to the other five appropriations bills to fund those remaining parts of the government for the rest of the fiscal year.

So now, in order to keep this shutdown short, the House must vote again on H.R. 7148. Given that the White House has signaled support for this plan, the expectation was that things would go smoothly in the House on Monday. But as of February 1, House Democrats are blocking fast-track rules, which will add a few extra days to the process at most.

There was a hiccup on Thursday when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), said he was objecting to this plan unless a repealed-in-the-House provision was reinstated. That provision would allow a small number of senators to sue the government for exorbitant monetary damages as the result of searches in Operation Arctic Frost. (This article is about the first unanimous House vote to repeal that provision, but they again voted unanimously last week and attached the repeal to the appropriations bills.) As of this morning, Sen. Graham also says he objects to the plan because he wants a vote on banning sanctuary cities.

Graham agreed to let the vote go forward once Majority Leader Thune agreed to separate votes later on reinstating the monetary damages provision as well as a vote on legislation against sanctuary cities.

What Effect Will the Two Week Continuing Resolution Have on ICE?

Very little. As Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) noted on X about just ICE, an agency within DHS:

In 2025, ICE received $10 billion in appropriations. The 2026 bill holds ICE at $10 billion — but last year Congress gave them $75 billion in advance funding. So even if ICE appropriations were eliminated, ICE would still have a 750% increase over last year.

Two articles this week have noted how ICE has been spending its vast sums of money: The powerful tools in ICE’s arsenal to track suspects — and protesters from the Washington Post and ICE Begins Buying ‘Mega’ Warehouse Detention Centers Across US from Bloomberg. A shutdown or continuing resolution would have no effect on these expenditures. Heck, even if ICE received no new funding at all this year, it would have no effect because these are expenditures based on appropriations already made.

Other parts of DHS do need funding to continue full normal operations, such as TSA, FEMA, and CISA.

Epstein Files

According to Ryan Nobles, an NBC reporter:

JUST IN: Deputy AG Todd Blanche says the Department of Justice has now released every file connected to the Epstein investigation that they are legally allowed and/or forced to release.

The files are posted on the Department of Justice website.

Today marks six weeks since the files were supposed to be released, if the administration felt compelled to follow the law. Is it all of the files? Definitely not since many have been redacted to prevent identifying Epstein survivors and because an unknown amount of legal activity remains in place. Is it all of the files that are required by the law that Congress passed? Also unclear. It just happened Friday morning and there’s a lot of files, so more information will doubtless come out in the near future.

Updated on February 1 to add some context and update the status of the bill.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files – GovTrack.us

Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files – GovTrack.us

Tracking Congress & the White House

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Legislative Recap Jan. 30, 2026: Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files »

1. News From Us
2. Legislative Recap

Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files

Jan. 30, 2026 · by Amy West

Shutdown? Shutdown

By midday on Friday, January 30 the Senate had not passed the remaining appropriations bills and the current continuing resolution funding parts of the federal government ended Saturday night at midnight. The House is not in session this weekend, so there will definitely be a brief partial weekend shutdown, but the government is expected to be funded again, for a time, by later in the week.

As a recap, Congress is supposed to pass appropriations bills before the fiscal year begins on October 1, and last year’s failure to do so led to the long October-November shutdown. In November, Congress reached a deal to fund some federal entities through the rest of this fiscal year (Agriculture, VA, and Congress itself) and then in mid-January reached a deal to fund others (Commerce, DOJ, Interior, and more), but that still left out a lot. Now, Congress is working to fund Defense, Homeland Security (DHS), Labor, HHS, Education, Transportation, HUD, State, and more). It looked like a deal had been reached until CBP killed Minnesotan Alex Pretti.

Friday night, the Senate passed 71-29 a revised version of H.R. 7148: Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026. While it has the same bill number as the one passed in the House last Friday, the content is different. The Senate changed DHS funding to a two-week continuing resolution, after which point DHS would face another potential shutdown, and attached that to the other five appropriations bills to fund those remaining parts of the government for the rest of the fiscal year.

So now, in order to keep this shutdown short, the House must vote again on H.R. 7148. Given that the White House has signaled support for this plan, the expectation was that things would go smoothly in the House on Monday. But as of February 1, House Democrats are blocking fast-track rules, which will add a few extra days to the process at most.

There was a hiccup on Thursday when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), said he was objecting to this plan unless a repealed-in-the-House provision was reinstated. That provision would allow a small number of senators to sue the government for exorbitant monetary damages as the result of searches in Operation Arctic Frost. (This article is about the first unanimous House vote to repeal that provision, but they again voted unanimously last week and attached the repeal to the appropriations bills.) As of this morning, Sen. Graham also says he objects to the plan because he wants a vote on banning sanctuary cities.

Graham agreed to let the vote go forward once Majority Leader Thune agreed to separate votes later on reinstating the monetary damages provision as well as a vote on legislation against sanctuary cities.

What Effect Will the Two Week Continuing Resolution Have on ICE?

Very little. As Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) noted on X about just ICE, an agency within DHS:

In 2025, ICE received $10 billion in appropriations. The 2026 bill holds ICE at $10 billion — but last year Congress gave them $75 billion in advance funding. So even if ICE appropriations were eliminated, ICE would still have a 750% increase over last year.

Two articles this week have noted how ICE has been spending its vast sums of money: The powerful tools in ICE’s arsenal to track suspects — and protesters from the Washington Post and ICE Begins Buying ‘Mega’ Warehouse Detention Centers Across US from Bloomberg. A shutdown or continuing resolution would have no effect on these expenditures. Heck, even if ICE received no new funding at all this year, it would have no effect because these are expenditures based on appropriations already made.

Other parts of DHS do need funding to continue full normal operations, such as TSA, FEMA, and CISA.

Epstein Files

According to Ryan Nobles, an NBC reporter:

JUST IN: Deputy AG Todd Blanche says the Department of Justice has now released every file connected to the Epstein investigation that they are legally allowed and/or forced to release.

The files are posted on the Department of Justice website.

Today marks six weeks since the files were supposed to be released, if the administration felt compelled to follow the law. Is it all of the files? Definitely not since many have been redacted to prevent identifying Epstein survivors and because an unknown amount of legal activity remains in place. Is it all of the files that are required by the law that Congress passed? Also unclear. It just happened Friday morning and there’s a lot of files, so more information will doubtless come out in the near future.

Updated on February 1 to add some context and update the status of the bill.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Shutdown? Shutdown. Also More Epstein Files – GovTrack.us

Censure and How the House of Representatives Polices itself – GovTrack.us

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Analysis and Commentary Jan. 14, 2026: Censure and How the House of Representatives Polices itself »

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2. Analysis and Commentary

Censure and How the House of Representatives Polices itself

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Jan. 14, 2026 · by Amy West and Joshua Tauberer

If you’ve watched Law & Order, you know the stories are each divided between the police investigation and the district attorney’s prosecution. Well, for legislators in the House of Representatives, it’s more the police on one hand and the House Committee on Ethics (HCE) on the other. Dun dun.

A bipartisan committee, but politics in practice

Law enforcement, both local and federal, investigate alleged violations of the law. The HCE investigates violations of House Rules. Some things are violations of both laws and House Rules so a representative might get investigated both by law enforcement and HCE. For example, Rep. Cuellar was indicted by federal prosecutors in 2024 for allegedly accepting bribes. The HCE also opened an investigation. Last year he was pardoned by President Trump. So is he free of all concerns now? Probably, but not necessarily. While the legal case is over, the HCE can still investigate the allegations of bribery and censure, and even recommend to expel him, because bribery is also against House Rules.

How did this dual structure come to be?

Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution says

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

Only expulsion has any detail to it and that’s that it requires a 2/3rd majority. Otherwise, the House has a range of punishments that have evolved over time to include censure – where not only does a majority vote to agree to a resolution of censure, but the censured member has to come down into the well of the House Floor while the resolution is read – but also reprimand/disapproval in which a majority of the House votes to agree to a resolution of reprimand/disapproval (but the member isn’t called down front to be shamed) and then a range of lesser public indications of “this was bad behavior”.

Until a standing committee to handle ethical or criminal allegations was created in the 1960s, reviews of and votes on censures or reprimands were handled by the whole House. With the establishment of the House Committee on Ethics (HCE), concerns were moved to the small group to investigate and then recommend action to the House as a whole. The HCE has an equal number of members from both the majority and minority parties in the House with the chair coming from the majority party. Most actions require a majority vote, or in other words, require members from both parties to vote in favor of them. In theory, this keeps the HCE from being purely a vehicle for political punishment. Again, in theory.

In 2008, the Office of Congressional Conduct (OCC, originally the Office of Congressional Ethics) was established as an independent and non-partisan office, staffed by career civil servants rather than elected politicians, to handle allegations of misconduct and then make recommendations to the HCE on how or whether to proceed.

Why was the OCC created? Because of the pervasive belief that investigations of legislators were based solely on political goals despite its attempt to avoid this problem in its design. In theory then, an allegation would come to the OCC, they’d investigate to see if there was anything to it and, if so, recommend that HCE use their work to decide how to proceed.

There’s just one problem: all ethics investigations are political because Congress is an inherently political body.

There’s never a case when choosing to investigate a specific legislator’s actions, where the member is in either the majority or minority, won’t have political ramifications. So, when a legislator under investigation complains that they’re being attacked for politics, they’re not wrong, but it’s also not necessarily exculpatory because they may have indeed also broken laws or violated House rules.

Take the recent example of former Rep. George Santos. As soon as he won his election, stories began to appear in the press indicating that he had lied outrageously about a wide range of things in order to get elected. It soon became clear there was evidence that he had also committed a number of criminal campaign finance violations. As a result, there was a lot of pressure within the House to expel him. But, at that time, the Republicans held a very narrow majority in Congress. So as much as he could creditably be said to bring disrepute on the House just by being there and there were vocal objections to his presence from members of his own party, there was a political problem for the Republicans because they needed every vote they could get. Do they let the criminal process play out and keep him as a voting member? Or do they acknowledge his many violations of House rules in addition to criminal codes and take the high road? After nearly a year in Congress, the House chose to expel Santos. He was subsequently tried, convicted, served a few months in prison and then released when President Trump commuted his sentence. This was an unusually obvious case of unethical behavior and even so, political considerations were never not part of the equation.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Censure and How the House of Representatives Polices itself – GovTrack.us

Censure and How the House of Representatives Polices itself – GovTrack.us

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Analysis and Commentary Jan. 14, 2026: Censure and How the House of Representatives Polices itself »

1. News From Us
2. Analysis and Commentary

Censure and How the House of Representatives Polices itself

Get Analysis and Commentary Updates In Your Inbox!

Jan. 14, 2026 · by Amy West and Joshua Tauberer

If you’ve watched Law & Order, you know the stories are each divided between the police investigation and the district attorney’s prosecution. Well, for legislators in the House of Representatives, it’s more the police on one hand and the House Committee on Ethics (HCE) on the other. Dun dun.

A bipartisan committee, but politics in practice

Law enforcement, both local and federal, investigate alleged violations of the law. The HCE investigates violations of House Rules. Some things are violations of both laws and House Rules so a representative might get investigated both by law enforcement and HCE. For example, Rep. Cuellar was indicted by federal prosecutors in 2024 for allegedly accepting bribes. The HCE also opened an investigation. Last year he was pardoned by President Trump. So is he free of all concerns now? Probably, but not necessarily. While the legal case is over, the HCE can still investigate the allegations of bribery and censure, and even recommend to expel him, because bribery is also against House Rules.

How did this dual structure come to be?

Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution says

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

Only expulsion has any detail to it and that’s that it requires a 2/3rd majority. Otherwise, the House has a range of punishments that have evolved over time to include censure – where not only does a majority vote to agree to a resolution of censure, but the censured member has to come down into the well of the House Floor while the resolution is read – but also reprimand/disapproval in which a majority of the House votes to agree to a resolution of reprimand/disapproval (but the member isn’t called down front to be shamed) and then a range of lesser public indications of “this was bad behavior”.

Until a standing committee to handle ethical or criminal allegations was created in the 1960s, reviews of and votes on censures or reprimands were handled by the whole House. With the establishment of the House Committee on Ethics (HCE), concerns were moved to the small group to investigate and then recommend action to the House as a whole. The HCE has an equal number of members from both the majority and minority parties in the House with the chair coming from the majority party. Most actions require a majority vote, or in other words, require members from both parties to vote in favor of them. In theory, this keeps the HCE from being purely a vehicle for political punishment. Again, in theory.

In 2008, the Office of Congressional Conduct (OCC, originally the Office of Congressional Ethics) was established as an independent and non-partisan office, staffed by career civil servants rather than elected politicians, to handle allegations of misconduct and then make recommendations to the HCE on how or whether to proceed.

Why was the OCC created? Because of the pervasive belief that investigations of legislators were based solely on political goals despite its attempt to avoid this problem in its design. In theory then, an allegation would come to the OCC, they’d investigate to see if there was anything to it and, if so, recommend that HCE use their work to decide how to proceed.

There’s just one problem: all ethics investigations are political because Congress is an inherently political body.

There’s never a case when choosing to investigate a specific legislator’s actions, where the member is in either the majority or minority, won’t have political ramifications. So, when a legislator under investigation complains that they’re being attacked for politics, they’re not wrong, but it’s also not necessarily exculpatory because they may have indeed also broken laws or violated House rules.

Take the recent example of former Rep. George Santos. As soon as he won his election, stories began to appear in the press indicating that he had lied outrageously about a wide range of things in order to get elected. It soon became clear there was evidence that he had also committed a number of criminal campaign finance violations. As a result, there was a lot of pressure within the House to expel him. But, at that time, the Republicans held a very narrow majority in Congress. So as much as he could creditably be said to bring disrepute on the House just by being there and there were vocal objections to his presence from members of his own party, there was a political problem for the Republicans because they needed every vote they could get. Do they let the criminal process play out and keep him as a voting member? Or do they acknowledge his many violations of House rules in addition to criminal codes and take the high road? After nearly a year in Congress, the House chose to expel Santos. He was subsequently tried, convicted, served a few months in prison and then released when President Trump commuted his sentence. This was an unusually obvious case of unethical behavior and even so, political considerations were never not part of the equation.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Censure and How the House of Representatives Polices itself – GovTrack.us

Venezuela and Congress – GovTrack.us

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Jan. 8, 2026 · by Amy West

What has the U.S. done to Venezuela?

Was it an invasion, law enforcement, or extortion? Since last fall we’ve

• bombed small boats and their civilian Venezuelan crews that we have claimed were smuggling drugs to the U.S.
• Brought a fleet of military vessels to the region
• Dropped bombs near Caracas, the capital of Venezuela
• Seized President Maduro and his wife and indicted him in federal court over drug trafficking
• Announced a plan to seize some Venezuelan crude oil indefinitely and spend it at the President’s discretion.

Whether any of this was legal is a difficult and a somewhat philosophical question.

What is the War Powers Resolution?

The War Powers Resolution, a 1973 law,, “requires that the President communicate to Congress the committal of troops within 48 hours. Further, the statute requires the President to remove all troops after 60 days if Congress has not granted an extension,” per the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University. Since military action appears to be over, although the President has threatened further action around the world, the War Powers Resolution may have been satisfied.

What are Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs)?

The Constitution gives the power to declare war to Congress, not the President, but all recent presidents have engaged in military actions without declaring war. In most cases, it came with an authorization from Congress instead.

Per Congress.gov, AUMFs are laws which “permit the President to use United States military forces in pursuit of set objectives and within defined parameters.” Without an AUMF, the President must rely on inherent Constitutional powers of the presidency, which may or may not apply. For example, after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Congress passed an AUMF that was used as the legal basis for military force in a wide range of places around the world because the authorization was for military force against terrorists. That authorization, along with one from 1991, were both repealed in the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. President Trump signed that law last year about a week before he attacked Venezuela and captured the Venezuelan president.

Whether removing a head of state is tantamount to declaring war, and thus not permitted without Congress’s approval, is not likely to be resolved.

Are we bound by international law?

Well, we agreed to be bound by international law when we joined the United Nations, of which we are still a member. In general, UN members are prohibited from unilaterally using force against other nations, with very few exceptions. This is the point of having an entity like the UN – to help manage disputes in order to avoid or at least decrease violent conflict around the world. 

On the other hand, who’s going to stop us if we ignore international law?

Can the President control the proceeds from selling Venezuelan oil?

The Constitution is very direct in giving Congress ultimate control over government spending: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” Trump’s social media post that the “money will be controlled by me” makes a big assumption that Congress writes him a blank check in law first. Currently, many members of Congress are going on the record saying that they want oversight over any US revenues from Venezuelan oil sales, side-stepping the Constitutional issue of how the revenue is spent.

What Might Congress Do?

This week the Senate will vote on a War Powers bill to stop President Trump’s actions in Venezuela. It’s not expected to pass, and certainly not with enough votes to override the President’s veto. Democrats might also withhold votes on upcoming government funding bills, triggering another government shutdown at the end of the month, unless military funding is restricted or to extract other policy concessions around Venezuela and the sale of its oil.

Or Congress could pass legislation affirming the administration’s actions, instead.

What is Congress Likely to Do?

Nothing. It’s the safest choice politically. If you come out too strongly for or against and then public attitudes about the Administration’s actions go heavily one way or the other, it’ll cost votes. So the best thing to do politically is often nothing.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Venezuela and Congress – GovTrack.us

Venezuela and Congress – GovTrack.us

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Jan. 8, 2026 · by Amy West

What has the U.S. done to Venezuela?

Was it an invasion, law enforcement, or extortion? Since last fall we’ve

• bombed small boats and their civilian Venezuelan crews that we have claimed were smuggling drugs to the U.S.
• Brought a fleet of military vessels to the region
• Dropped bombs near Caracas, the capital of Venezuela
• Seized President Maduro and his wife and indicted him in federal court over drug trafficking
• Announced a plan to seize some Venezuelan crude oil indefinitely and spend it at the President’s discretion.

Whether any of this was legal is a difficult and a somewhat philosophical question.

What is the War Powers Resolution?

The War Powers Resolution, a 1973 law,, “requires that the President communicate to Congress the committal of troops within 48 hours. Further, the statute requires the President to remove all troops after 60 days if Congress has not granted an extension,” per the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University. Since military action appears to be over, although the President has threatened further action around the world, the War Powers Resolution may have been satisfied.

What are Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs)?

The Constitution gives the power to declare war to Congress, not the President, but all recent presidents have engaged in military actions without declaring war. In most cases, it came with an authorization from Congress instead.

Per Congress.gov, AUMFs are laws which “permit the President to use United States military forces in pursuit of set objectives and within defined parameters.” Without an AUMF, the President must rely on inherent Constitutional powers of the presidency, which may or may not apply. For example, after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Congress passed an AUMF that was used as the legal basis for military force in a wide range of places around the world because the authorization was for military force against terrorists. That authorization, along with one from 1991, were both repealed in the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. President Trump signed that law last year about a week before he attacked Venezuela and captured the Venezuelan president.

Whether removing a head of state is tantamount to declaring war, and thus not permitted without Congress’s approval, is not likely to be resolved.

Are we bound by international law?

Well, we agreed to be bound by international law when we joined the United Nations, of which we are still a member. In general, UN members are prohibited from unilaterally using force against other nations, with very few exceptions. This is the point of having an entity like the UN – to help manage disputes in order to avoid or at least decrease violent conflict around the world. 

On the other hand, who’s going to stop us if we ignore international law?

Can the President control the proceeds from selling Venezuelan oil?

The Constitution is very direct in giving Congress ultimate control over government spending: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” Trump’s social media post that the “money will be controlled by me” makes a big assumption that Congress writes him a blank check in law first. Currently, many members of Congress are going on the record saying that they want oversight over any US revenues from Venezuelan oil sales, side-stepping the Constitutional issue of how the revenue is spent.

What Might Congress Do?

This week the Senate will vote on a War Powers bill to stop President Trump’s actions in Venezuela. It’s not expected to pass, and certainly not with enough votes to override the President’s veto. Democrats might also withhold votes on upcoming government funding bills, triggering another government shutdown at the end of the month, unless military funding is restricted or to extract other policy concessions around Venezuela and the sale of its oil.

Or Congress could pass legislation affirming the administration’s actions, instead.

What is Congress Likely to Do?

Nothing. It’s the safest choice politically. If you come out too strongly for or against and then public attitudes about the Administration’s actions go heavily one way or the other, it’ll cost votes. So the best thing to do politically is often nothing.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Venezuela and Congress – GovTrack.us

Venezuela and Congress – GovTrack.us

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Jan. 8, 2026 · by Amy West

What has the U.S. done to Venezuela?

Was it an invasion, law enforcement, or extortion? Since last fall we’ve

• bombed small boats and their civilian Venezuelan crews that we have claimed were smuggling drugs to the U.S.
• Brought a fleet of military vessels to the region
• Dropped bombs near Caracas, the capital of Venezuela
• Seized President Maduro and his wife and indicted him in federal court over drug trafficking
• Announced a plan to seize some Venezuelan crude oil indefinitely and spend it at the President’s discretion.

Whether any of this was legal is a difficult and a somewhat philosophical question.

What is the War Powers Resolution?

The War Powers Resolution, a 1973 law,, “requires that the President communicate to Congress the committal of troops within 48 hours. Further, the statute requires the President to remove all troops after 60 days if Congress has not granted an extension,” per the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University. Since military action appears to be over, although the President has threatened further action around the world, the War Powers Resolution may have been satisfied.

What are Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs)?

The Constitution gives the power to declare war to Congress, not the President, but all recent presidents have engaged in military actions without declaring war. In most cases, it came with an authorization from Congress instead.

Per Congress.gov, AUMFs are laws which “permit the President to use United States military forces in pursuit of set objectives and within defined parameters.” Without an AUMF, the President must rely on inherent Constitutional powers of the presidency, which may or may not apply. For example, after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Congress passed an AUMF that was used as the legal basis for military force in a wide range of places around the world because the authorization was for military force against terrorists. That authorization, along with one from 1991, were both repealed in the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. President Trump signed that law last year about a week before he attacked Venezuela and captured the Venezuelan president.

Whether removing a head of state is tantamount to declaring war, and thus not permitted without Congress’s approval, is not likely to be resolved.

Are we bound by international law?

Well, we agreed to be bound by international law when we joined the United Nations, of which we are still a member. In general, UN members are prohibited from unilaterally using force against other nations, with very few exceptions. This is the point of having an entity like the UN – to help manage disputes in order to avoid or at least decrease violent conflict around the world. 

On the other hand, who’s going to stop us if we ignore international law?

Can the President control the proceeds from selling Venezuelan oil?

The Constitution is very direct in giving Congress ultimate control over government spending: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” Trump’s social media post that the “money will be controlled by me” makes a big assumption that Congress writes him a blank check in law first. Currently, many members of Congress are going on the record saying that they want oversight over any US revenues from Venezuelan oil sales, side-stepping the Constitutional issue of how the revenue is spent.

What Might Congress Do?

This week the Senate will vote on a War Powers bill to stop President Trump’s actions in Venezuela. It’s not expected to pass, and certainly not with enough votes to override the President’s veto. Democrats might also withhold votes on upcoming government funding bills, triggering another government shutdown at the end of the month, unless military funding is restricted or to extract other policy concessions around Venezuela and the sale of its oil.

Or Congress could pass legislation affirming the administration’s actions, instead.

What is Congress Likely to Do?

Nothing. It’s the safest choice politically. If you come out too strongly for or against and then public attitudes about the Administration’s actions go heavily one way or the other, it’ll cost votes. So the best thing to do politically is often nothing.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Venezuela and Congress – GovTrack.us

Venezuela and Congress – GovTrack.us

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Jan. 8, 2026 · by Amy West

What has the U.S. done to Venezuela?

Was it an invasion, law enforcement, or extortion? Since last fall we’ve

• bombed small boats and their civilian Venezuelan crews that we have claimed were smuggling drugs to the U.S.
• Brought a fleet of military vessels to the region
• Dropped bombs near Caracas, the capital of Venezuela
• Seized President Maduro and his wife and indicted him in federal court over drug trafficking
• Announced a plan to seize some Venezuelan crude oil indefinitely and spend it at the President’s discretion.

Whether any of this was legal is a difficult and a somewhat philosophical question.

What is the War Powers Resolution?

The War Powers Resolution, a 1973 law,, “requires that the President communicate to Congress the committal of troops within 48 hours. Further, the statute requires the President to remove all troops after 60 days if Congress has not granted an extension,” per the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University. Since military action appears to be over, although the President has threatened further action around the world, the War Powers Resolution may have been satisfied.

What are Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs)?

The Constitution gives the power to declare war to Congress, not the President, but all recent presidents have engaged in military actions without declaring war. In most cases, it came with an authorization from Congress instead.

Per Congress.gov, AUMFs are laws which “permit the President to use United States military forces in pursuit of set objectives and within defined parameters.” Without an AUMF, the President must rely on inherent Constitutional powers of the presidency, which may or may not apply. For example, after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Congress passed an AUMF that was used as the legal basis for military force in a wide range of places around the world because the authorization was for military force against terrorists. That authorization, along with one from 1991, were both repealed in the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. President Trump signed that law last year about a week before he attacked Venezuela and captured the Venezuelan president.

Whether removing a head of state is tantamount to declaring war, and thus not permitted without Congress’s approval, is not likely to be resolved.

Are we bound by international law?

Well, we agreed to be bound by international law when we joined the United Nations, of which we are still a member. In general, UN members are prohibited from unilaterally using force against other nations, with very few exceptions. This is the point of having an entity like the UN – to help manage disputes in order to avoid or at least decrease violent conflict around the world. 

On the other hand, who’s going to stop us if we ignore international law?

Can the President control the proceeds from selling Venezuelan oil?

The Constitution is very direct in giving Congress ultimate control over government spending: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” Trump’s social media post that the “money will be controlled by me” makes a big assumption that Congress writes him a blank check in law first. Currently, many members of Congress are going on the record saying that they want oversight over any US revenues from Venezuelan oil sales, side-stepping the Constitutional issue of how the revenue is spent.

What Might Congress Do?

This week the Senate will vote on a War Powers bill to stop President Trump’s actions in Venezuela. It’s not expected to pass, and certainly not with enough votes to override the President’s veto. Democrats might also withhold votes on upcoming government funding bills, triggering another government shutdown at the end of the month, unless military funding is restricted or to extract other policy concessions around Venezuela and the sale of its oil.

Or Congress could pass legislation affirming the administration’s actions, instead.

What is Congress Likely to Do?

Nothing. It’s the safest choice politically. If you come out too strongly for or against and then public attitudes about the Administration’s actions go heavily one way or the other, it’ll cost votes. So the best thing to do politically is often nothing.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Venezuela and Congress – GovTrack.us

Congress’s productive 2025 (And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise) – GovTrack.us

Editor’s Note: Featured image on top is from WP AI. –DrWeb

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Congress’s productive 2025 (And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise)

Get Analysis and Commentary Updates In Your Inbox! – Sign up (it’s free!) to get posts like this straight to your inbox. You’ll be able to choose posts from these categories: Legislative Recap   –   Analysis and Commentary   –   Legislative Preview   –   The White House   –   News About GovTrack   –   Using GovTrack Tips

Dec. 29, 2025 · by Joshua Tauberer

The media loves to tell you your government isn’t working, even when it is. Don’t let anyone tell you 2025 was an unproductive year for Congress.

1,976 pages of new law

At 1,976 pages of new law enacted since President Trump took office, including an increase of the national debt limit by $4 trillion, any journalist telling you not much happened in Congress this year is sleeping on the job.

Using rules that exempt certain bills from the filibuster, Congress passed (and President Trump signed into law) the 330-page “reconciliation” bill which included tax breaks adding $500 billion to the deficit; new limits on Medicaid, SNAP, federal student loads, and green energy; and $171 billion for immigration enforcement, making ICE the largest law enforcement agency in the United States. Also exempt from the filibuster was the “rescissions” bill which slashed most funding for foreign aid (saving about $800 million and potentially causing 1 million deaths world-wide and a geopolitical vacuum that China is ready to fill) and public broadcasting (saving about $100 million).

Those were perhaps the most controversial bills ever enacted, with senators voting yes on the reconciliation bill representing just 44% of the country’s population. I don’t think that’s ever happened before and really captures the political climate. (For comparison, the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, passed the Senate with the yea votes representing 62% of the country’s population.)

Earlier this month, Congress passed the 1,259-page National Defense Authorization Act, a yearly bill that sets military and related policies. This year, the NDAA incorporated 40 other bills on a range of topics, including police first aid kits and reuniting Korean American families with family members in North Korea. It also included a provision intended to force the Secretary of Defense to provide more information on the military strikes on Venezuelan civilian boats.

Using a rarely-used rule to override the Speaker of the House, legislators passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act to force the Trump Administration to release Epstein files. It’s incredibly significant any time the Speaker loses control over the floor since setting the floor schedule is the Speaker’s most important job.

Congress also quashed numerous Biden Administration regulations.

And the Senate confirmed 341 Trump nominees, which is a fairly fast pace.

196 bills enacted

196 bills were enacted. The mainstream media will tell you it’s only 61 because they don’t look at what’s inside omnibus bills. Fewer bills are getting a vote and presidential signature, but they are getting longer and longer and often bundle a number of other bills. (That’s a trend that started decades ago.)

The 1,976 pages Trump signed into law is on the low side: More than Reagan (1,528) and GW Bush (1,024) did by this point in their terms, less than the first Bush (2,518), Clinton (2,705), Obama (3,478), Trump in his first term (2,236), and Biden (2,450).

But more isn’t better, and not every page of legislation enacted is actually important.

The reverse is also true. The just two pages cutting foreign aid has enormous domestic and geopolitical consequences.

What Congress hasn’t done

It’s also true that there are things that Congress hasn’t done. Like not being in session. House Republicans took their chamber out of session for some 40 days vowing to not negotiate with Democrats to end October’s government shutdown, only to come back into session to approve a bill negotiated with Democrats in the Senate.

They could have used that time to figure out agency funding levels for the remainder of the fiscal year after January. Instead, another government shutdown may be around the corner. (Congress is supposed to have figured this out before the fiscal year began on October 1.)

Nor has Congress done much for government efficiency, allowing Trump to fabricate cuts and fire Inspectors General, the abuse watchdogs at federal agencies. Republicans also hope to downsize Congress’s abuse investigators at the Government Accountability Office. These cuts would cost taxpayers billions of dollars by allowing waste, fraud, and abuse to go unchecked. Or more likely, abuse would be checked just when it advances the President’s interests.

Congress has also been silent on Trump’s tariffs, despite the power to tariff being reserved to Congress. Congress could also address the Trump Administration’s illegal deployment of National Guard troops in Illinois, or the swirling conflicts of interest in the Trump family.

Let us know what you think about these updates by tooting us on Mastodon or sending us an email.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Congress’s productive 2025 (And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise) – GovTrack.us

Congress’s productive 2025 (And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise) – GovTrack.us

Editor’s Note: Featured image on top is from WP AI. –DrWeb

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Congress’s productive 2025 (And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise)

Get Analysis and Commentary Updates In Your Inbox! – Sign up (it’s free!) to get posts like this straight to your inbox. You’ll be able to choose posts from these categories: Legislative Recap   –   Analysis and Commentary   –   Legislative Preview   –   The White House   –   News About GovTrack   –   Using GovTrack Tips

Dec. 29, 2025 · by Joshua Tauberer

The media loves to tell you your government isn’t working, even when it is. Don’t let anyone tell you 2025 was an unproductive year for Congress.

1,976 pages of new law

At 1,976 pages of new law enacted since President Trump took office, including an increase of the national debt limit by $4 trillion, any journalist telling you not much happened in Congress this year is sleeping on the job.

Using rules that exempt certain bills from the filibuster, Congress passed (and President Trump signed into law) the 330-page “reconciliation” bill which included tax breaks adding $500 billion to the deficit; new limits on Medicaid, SNAP, federal student loads, and green energy; and $171 billion for immigration enforcement, making ICE the largest law enforcement agency in the United States. Also exempt from the filibuster was the “rescissions” bill which slashed most funding for foreign aid (saving about $800 million and potentially causing 1 million deaths world-wide and a geopolitical vacuum that China is ready to fill) and public broadcasting (saving about $100 million).

Those were perhaps the most controversial bills ever enacted, with senators voting yes on the reconciliation bill representing just 44% of the country’s population. I don’t think that’s ever happened before and really captures the political climate. (For comparison, the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, passed the Senate with the yea votes representing 62% of the country’s population.)

Earlier this month, Congress passed the 1,259-page National Defense Authorization Act, a yearly bill that sets military and related policies. This year, the NDAA incorporated 40 other bills on a range of topics, including police first aid kits and reuniting Korean American families with family members in North Korea. It also included a provision intended to force the Secretary of Defense to provide more information on the military strikes on Venezuelan civilian boats.

Using a rarely-used rule to override the Speaker of the House, legislators passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act to force the Trump Administration to release Epstein files. It’s incredibly significant any time the Speaker loses control over the floor since setting the floor schedule is the Speaker’s most important job.

Congress also quashed numerous Biden Administration regulations.

And the Senate confirmed 341 Trump nominees, which is a fairly fast pace.

196 bills enacted

196 bills were enacted. The mainstream media will tell you it’s only 61 because they don’t look at what’s inside omnibus bills. Fewer bills are getting a vote and presidential signature, but they are getting longer and longer and often bundle a number of other bills. (That’s a trend that started decades ago.)

The 1,976 pages Trump signed into law is on the low side: More than Reagan (1,528) and GW Bush (1,024) did by this point in their terms, less than the first Bush (2,518), Clinton (2,705), Obama (3,478), Trump in his first term (2,236), and Biden (2,450).

But more isn’t better, and not every page of legislation enacted is actually important.

The reverse is also true. The just two pages cutting foreign aid has enormous domestic and geopolitical consequences.

What Congress hasn’t done

It’s also true that there are things that Congress hasn’t done. Like not being in session. House Republicans took their chamber out of session for some 40 days vowing to not negotiate with Democrats to end October’s government shutdown, only to come back into session to approve a bill negotiated with Democrats in the Senate.

They could have used that time to figure out agency funding levels for the remainder of the fiscal year after January. Instead, another government shutdown may be around the corner. (Congress is supposed to have figured this out before the fiscal year began on October 1.)

Nor has Congress done much for government efficiency, allowing Trump to fabricate cuts and fire Inspectors General, the abuse watchdogs at federal agencies. Republicans also hope to downsize Congress’s abuse investigators at the Government Accountability Office. These cuts would cost taxpayers billions of dollars by allowing waste, fraud, and abuse to go unchecked. Or more likely, abuse would be checked just when it advances the President’s interests.

Congress has also been silent on Trump’s tariffs, despite the power to tariff being reserved to Congress. Congress could also address the Trump Administration’s illegal deployment of National Guard troops in Illinois, or the swirling conflicts of interest in the Trump family.

Let us know what you think about these updates by tooting us on Mastodon or sending us an email.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Congress’s productive 2025 (And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise) – GovTrack.us

Congress Passes Laws; Trump Administration Ignores Some of Them – GovTrack.us

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Legislative Recap Dec. 19, 2025: Congress Passes Laws; Trump Administration Ignores Some of Them »

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Congress Passes Laws; Trump Administration Ignores Some of Them

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Dec. 19, 2025 · by Amy West

One characteristic of the current Trump Administration has been a disregard for laws if they don’t align with Administration goals. One of the most influential members of the Administration, both in terms of influence on Trump himself as well as control over the flow of funds from the government, is the Directer of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought. He said in 2024

“I don’t want President Trump having to lose a moment of time having fights in the Oval Office about whether something is legal or doable or moral.”

And, well, the Administration has not. Sometimes the choices are relatively trivial, like adding Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center even though the name is set by Congress and they haven’t changed it. Sometimes, it’s not trivial as in the case of the various strikes on boats in the Caribbean. Even if one finds the Administration’s various claims about shooting down boats persuasive, killing survivors of strikes is clearly illegal.

There are many more examples of this approach but today we’ll start with one of the more contentious issues the Trump Administration has faced.

Epstein Files

Today, December 19, 2025 is the day that all the Department of Justice files on Jeffrey Epstein were to be released. A month ago, both chambers passed the bill and then the President signed it. However, as of this morning, and in contravention of the text of the law, the Administration says it will only release some files today and the rest will be released as the Administration says they’re ready.

Another Discharge Petition

This week four House Republicans signed onto an otherwise entirely Democratic discharge petition to force the House to hold a vote on extending the subsidies for health insurance premiums for people who get their health insurance via the Obamacare Marketplace.

In response, Speaker Johnson adjourned the House a day early to ensure the vote would not take place before the subsidies end and premium costs would rise for millions of people.

Because it’s a discharge petition, the bill will get a vote. Just not until January. If it passes though, it will still have to get through the Senate. It’s very likely that the Senate would amend the bill in some way and send it back to the House. So whether the subsidies get extended after all remains very much up in the air.

New Laws

• S. 222: Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025 passed by voice vote.
• S. 284: Congressional Award Program Reauthorization Act passed by voice vote.
• S. 216: Save Our Seas 2.0 Amendments Act passed by voice vote.
• S. 2878: Great Lakes Fishery Research Reauthorization Act passed by voice vote.
• S. 284: Congressional Award Program Reauthorization Act passed 370-22.
• S. 1071: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 passed the Senate by 77-20. The NDAA includes a decrease in the Secretary of Defense’s travel budget unless he releases full video of the various boat strikes this fall. The Secretary of Defense says he will not release the videos, so will the Administration stay within the authorized travel budget?

Bills Passed in the House Only

All of the bills below will have to pass the Senate before they become law.

• H.R. 3187: To require the Secretary of Agriculture to convey a parcel of property of the Forest Service to Perry County, Arkansas, and for other purposes passed 388-0
• H.R. 4371: Kayla Hamilton Act, which would allow invasive exams of children for tattoos or gang-related markings, passed 225-201.
• H.R. 3616: Reliable Power Act, which would require assessments of new plans for reliability, passed 225-203.
• H.R. 3632: Power Plant Reliability Act of 2025, which would require assessments of plants or components to be retired, passed 222-202.
• H.R. 4776: SPEED Act, which would speed up energy project approvals passed, but only after an anti-wind power amendment was added, by 221-196.
• H.R. 1366: Mining Regulatory Clarity Act, which would override a 2022 court decision and restore mining rules in effect before that decision, passed 219-198.

The bills below, all of which received a vote, passed with fewer votes overall in support than the ACA health insurance premium subsidies discharge petition has. Why did they come to the floor? Well, because these bills are primarily supported by Republicans while the ACA one is not.

• H.R. 6703: Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act , which includes a number of provisions intended to lower premium costs, but does not include an extension of the subsidies in contention, passed 216-211.
• H.R. 3492: Protect Children’s Innocence Act, which would criminalize gender affirming health care for minors, passed 216-211.
• H.R. 498: Do No Harm in Medicaid Act, which would ban gender affirming health care for minors receiving Medicaid, passed 215-201.
• H.R. 845: Pet and Livestock Protection Act, which would remove the gray wolf from the Endangered Species list, passed 211-204.

The Realities of Trying to Get a Bill Passed

The Bulwark published a story today about the realities of trying to get a pediatric cancer bill passed. It highlights a basic question that legislators face all the time: when is a bill good enough to warrant a vote in support? What if opposing the bill now sets up that bill plus others that are also important to the legislator for passage later? What if that bet turns out to be wrong and none of the bills ever get passed? Highly recommended read.

Congress will not return until after New Years, so you probably won’t hear from us either until then. We hope any holidays you already are celebrating or plan to celebrate soon are joyful and we’ll see you in a few weeks.

Let us know what you think about these updates by tooting us on Mastodon or sending us an email.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Congress Passes Laws; Trump Administration Ignores Some of Them – GovTrack.us

Congress Passes Laws; Trump Administration Ignores Some of Them – GovTrack.us

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Legislative Recap Dec. 19, 2025: Congress Passes Laws; Trump Administration Ignores Some of Them »

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Congress Passes Laws; Trump Administration Ignores Some of Them

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Dec. 19, 2025 · by Amy West

One characteristic of the current Trump Administration has been a disregard for laws if they don’t align with Administration goals. One of the most influential members of the Administration, both in terms of influence on Trump himself as well as control over the flow of funds from the government, is the Directer of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought. He said in 2024

“I don’t want President Trump having to lose a moment of time having fights in the Oval Office about whether something is legal or doable or moral.”

And, well, the Administration has not. Sometimes the choices are relatively trivial, like adding Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center even though the name is set by Congress and they haven’t changed it. Sometimes, it’s not trivial as in the case of the various strikes on boats in the Caribbean. Even if one finds the Administration’s various claims about shooting down boats persuasive, killing survivors of strikes is clearly illegal.

There are many more examples of this approach but today we’ll start with one of the more contentious issues the Trump Administration has faced.

Epstein Files

Today, December 19, 2025 is the day that all the Department of Justice files on Jeffrey Epstein were to be released. A month ago, both chambers passed the bill and then the President signed it. However, as of this morning, and in contravention of the text of the law, the Administration says it will only release some files today and the rest will be released as the Administration says they’re ready.

Another Discharge Petition

This week four House Republicans signed onto an otherwise entirely Democratic discharge petition to force the House to hold a vote on extending the subsidies for health insurance premiums for people who get their health insurance via the Obamacare Marketplace.

In response, Speaker Johnson adjourned the House a day early to ensure the vote would not take place before the subsidies end and premium costs would rise for millions of people.

Because it’s a discharge petition, the bill will get a vote. Just not until January. If it passes though, it will still have to get through the Senate. It’s very likely that the Senate would amend the bill in some way and send it back to the House. So whether the subsidies get extended after all remains very much up in the air.

New Laws

• S. 222: Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025 passed by voice vote.
• S. 284: Congressional Award Program Reauthorization Act passed by voice vote.
• S. 216: Save Our Seas 2.0 Amendments Act passed by voice vote.
• S. 2878: Great Lakes Fishery Research Reauthorization Act passed by voice vote.
• S. 284: Congressional Award Program Reauthorization Act passed 370-22.
• S. 1071: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 passed the Senate by 77-20. The NDAA includes a decrease in the Secretary of Defense’s travel budget unless he releases full video of the various boat strikes this fall. The Secretary of Defense says he will not release the videos, so will the Administration stay within the authorized travel budget?

Bills Passed in the House Only

All of the bills below will have to pass the Senate before they become law.

• H.R. 3187: To require the Secretary of Agriculture to convey a parcel of property of the Forest Service to Perry County, Arkansas, and for other purposes passed 388-0
• H.R. 4371: Kayla Hamilton Act, which would allow invasive exams of children for tattoos or gang-related markings, passed 225-201.
• H.R. 3616: Reliable Power Act, which would require assessments of new plans for reliability, passed 225-203.
• H.R. 3632: Power Plant Reliability Act of 2025, which would require assessments of plants or components to be retired, passed 222-202.
• H.R. 4776: SPEED Act, which would speed up energy project approvals passed, but only after an anti-wind power amendment was added, by 221-196.
• H.R. 1366: Mining Regulatory Clarity Act, which would override a 2022 court decision and restore mining rules in effect before that decision, passed 219-198.

The bills below, all of which received a vote, passed with fewer votes overall in support than the ACA health insurance premium subsidies discharge petition has. Why did they come to the floor? Well, because these bills are primarily supported by Republicans while the ACA one is not.

• H.R. 6703: Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act , which includes a number of provisions intended to lower premium costs, but does not include an extension of the subsidies in contention, passed 216-211.
• H.R. 3492: Protect Children’s Innocence Act, which would criminalize gender affirming health care for minors, passed 216-211.
• H.R. 498: Do No Harm in Medicaid Act, which would ban gender affirming health care for minors receiving Medicaid, passed 215-201.
• H.R. 845: Pet and Livestock Protection Act, which would remove the gray wolf from the Endangered Species list, passed 211-204.

The Realities of Trying to Get a Bill Passed

The Bulwark published a story today about the realities of trying to get a pediatric cancer bill passed. It highlights a basic question that legislators face all the time: when is a bill good enough to warrant a vote in support? What if opposing the bill now sets up that bill plus others that are also important to the legislator for passage later? What if that bet turns out to be wrong and none of the bills ever get passed? Highly recommended read.

Congress will not return until after New Years, so you probably won’t hear from us either until then. We hope any holidays you already are celebrating or plan to celebrate soon are joyful and we’ll see you in a few weeks.

Let us know what you think about these updates by tooting us on Mastodon or sending us an email.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Congress Passes Laws; Trump Administration Ignores Some of Them – GovTrack.us

Legislative Recap for 11/21/25 – GovTrack.us

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Legislative Recap for 11/21/25

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Nov. 21, 2025 · by Amy West

The House was certainly back this week. A lot of legislative energy had been pent up for a very long time. Several bills passed unanimously or nearly so; several more were highly partisan while another batch were censure resolutions expressing various kinds of frustration, both partisan and personal. So, in general order of topic and level of support, here’s what the House was up to. Plus one Senate vote that sends a regulation nullification to the President for his signature.

Regular Bills

One bill listed below is now law; that’s the Epstein Files Transparency Act. All the rest are still early in the legislative process and are not yet law.

• H.R. 6019: To repeal certain provisions relating to notification to Senate offices regarding legal process on disclosure of Senate data, and for other purposes, which would repeal provisions in the continuing resolution that was just passed which would provide a small number of Senators an opportunity for significant payments from the government, passed 426-0. It’s unknown whether this bill will receive a vote in the Senate or whether it will pass.
• H.R. 4405: Epstein Files Transparency Act passed 427-1 on Tuesday, November 18. We talked about the bill and the legislative maneuvering involved in more detail in this week’s preview. Since the preview, not only did the bill pass almost unanimously in the House, but the Senate passed it the same day by unanimous consent and the President signed it on Wednesday, November 19.
• H.R. 1608: Department of Homeland Security Vehicular Terrorism Prevention and Mitigation Act of 2025, which would require a report on vehicular terrorism and methods of mitigating it, passed 400-15.
• H.R. 2659: Strengthening Cyber Resilience Against State-Sponsored Threats Act, which would establish an interagency task force and require a report on cyber resilience against state sponsored threats, passed 402-8. 
• H.R. 4058: Enhancing Stakeholder Support and Outreach for Preparedness Grants Act, which would direct the Department of Homeland Security to extend stakeholder support and outreach for applicants and recipients of preparedness grants, passed 380-45. 
• H.R. 5214: District of Columbia Cash Bail Reform Act of 2025, which would require pre-trial and pre-conviction mandatory detention as well as mandatory cash bail in the District of Columbia, passed 237-179. This bill was in response to reforms made by local D.C. leaders in 2022.
• H.R. 5107: Common-Sense Law Enforcement and Accountability Now in DC Act of 2025, which is another bill that would repeal reforms made by local D.C. leaders, passed 233-190
• H.R. 3109: REFINER Act, which would direct the National Petroleum Council (an industry trade group which acts as an advisory council to the Department of Energy) to issue a report with respect to petrochemical refinery capacity in the United States, passed 230-176.
• H.R. 1949: Unlocking our Domestic LNG Potential Act of 2025, which would repeal restrictions on the export and import of natural gas, passed 217-188.

Regulation Nullifications

The last two of these three will now become law. The first still has to receive a vote in the Senate.

• H.J.Res. 131: Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program Record of Decision” passed 217-209.
• H.J.Res. 130: Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Buffalo Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment” passed 214-212 on November 18. The Senate passed it 51-43 on November 20 and now it next goes to the President to be signed into law.
• S.J.Res. 80: A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska Integrated Activity Plan Record of Decision” passed 216-209. It next goes to the President to be signed into law.

Censures

Censures are one of the three ways Congress can police the behavior of members. The other two are expulsion (extremely rare) and investigation by the House Ethics Committee (more common than censures or expulsions). We’ll have more to say about the rapid increase this Congress in censure/censure-like resolutions in a separate post, but for now we’ll list the votes for this week. They do not go to the Senate since they are exclusively about House matters and are not legislation that becomes law.

• H.Res. 878: Disapproving the behavior of Representative Jesús G. “Chuy” García of Illinois, which does what it says, passed 236-183. Rep. Garciá chose to time his retirement announcement until after his preferred successor had submitted her own petition to get on the primary ballot and near the deadline for submitting petitions to be on the ballot. The end result is that his preferred successor is now the only person in the 2026 Democratic primary for his seat. This resolution was sponsored by fellow Democrat Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA3). Yes, this is unusual.
• H.Res. 888: Censuring and condemning Delegate Stacey Plaskett and removing her from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for conduct that reflects discreditably on the House of Representatives for colluding with convicted felony sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a congressional hearing failed 209-214. Plaskett did text with Epstein, who, she noted, was a constituent at the time. A slight majority of the House felt that this did not reflect discreditably on the House, or at least not so much to warrant a censure and removal from committee memberships. This resolution was sponsored by Rep. Norman (R-SC5). Del. Plaskett is a Democrat, so a Republican sponsoring a censure is usual. Or it would be if it weren’t one of a rash of them just this week.
• H.Res. 893: Censuring Representative Cory Mills of Florida and removing him from the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Affairs was converted to a motion to refer the allegations in the censure resolution to the House Ethics Committee and passed 310-103. Mills retains his committee memberships. Mills also already has been under investigation for different allegations for over a year. He further has an active restraining order against him as a direct result of an alleged and subsequently recanted assault on a woman in Washington, D.C. The censure resolution and new investigation rolls in the assault allegations as well as several campaign finance allegations. The Ethics Committee announced on November 19 that they are establishing an Investigative Subcommittee and will announce members soon. The censure resolution was sponsored by fellow Republican Rep. Mace (R-SC1). Yes, this is unusual.

Next Week

Both chambers of Congress are out for the Thanksgiving holiday and will return the week of December 1st.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Legislative Recap for 11/21/25 – GovTrack.us

#congressionalLegislation #govtrack #govtrackUs #legislativeRecap #november212025 #tracking #uSCongress

Legislative Recap for 11/21/25 – GovTrack.us

1. News From Us
2. Legislative Recap

Legislative Recap for 11/21/25

Get Legislative Recap Updates In Your Inbox!
Sign up (it’s free!) to get posts like this straight to your inbox. You’ll be able to choose posts from these categories: Analysis and Commentary   –   Legislative Recap   –   Legislative Preview   –   The White House   –   News About GovTrack   –   Using GovTrack Tips

Nov. 21, 2025 · by Amy West

The House was certainly back this week. A lot of legislative energy had been pent up for a very long time. Several bills passed unanimously or nearly so; several more were highly partisan while another batch were censure resolutions expressing various kinds of frustration, both partisan and personal. So, in general order of topic and level of support, here’s what the House was up to. Plus one Senate vote that sends a regulation nullification to the President for his signature.

Regular Bills

One bill listed below is now law; that’s the Epstein Files Transparency Act. All the rest are still early in the legislative process and are not yet law.

• H.R. 6019: To repeal certain provisions relating to notification to Senate offices regarding legal process on disclosure of Senate data, and for other purposes, which would repeal provisions in the continuing resolution that was just passed which would provide a small number of Senators an opportunity for significant payments from the government, passed 426-0. It’s unknown whether this bill will receive a vote in the Senate or whether it will pass.
• H.R. 4405: Epstein Files Transparency Act passed 427-1 on Tuesday, November 18. We talked about the bill and the legislative maneuvering involved in more detail in this week’s preview. Since the preview, not only did the bill pass almost unanimously in the House, but the Senate passed it the same day by unanimous consent and the President signed it on Wednesday, November 19.
• H.R. 1608: Department of Homeland Security Vehicular Terrorism Prevention and Mitigation Act of 2025, which would require a report on vehicular terrorism and methods of mitigating it, passed 400-15.
• H.R. 2659: Strengthening Cyber Resilience Against State-Sponsored Threats Act, which would establish an interagency task force and require a report on cyber resilience against state sponsored threats, passed 402-8. 
• H.R. 4058: Enhancing Stakeholder Support and Outreach for Preparedness Grants Act, which would direct the Department of Homeland Security to extend stakeholder support and outreach for applicants and recipients of preparedness grants, passed 380-45. 
• H.R. 5214: District of Columbia Cash Bail Reform Act of 2025, which would require pre-trial and pre-conviction mandatory detention as well as mandatory cash bail in the District of Columbia, passed 237-179. This bill was in response to reforms made by local D.C. leaders in 2022.
• H.R. 5107: Common-Sense Law Enforcement and Accountability Now in DC Act of 2025, which is another bill that would repeal reforms made by local D.C. leaders, passed 233-190
• H.R. 3109: REFINER Act, which would direct the National Petroleum Council (an industry trade group which acts as an advisory council to the Department of Energy) to issue a report with respect to petrochemical refinery capacity in the United States, passed 230-176.
• H.R. 1949: Unlocking our Domestic LNG Potential Act of 2025, which would repeal restrictions on the export and import of natural gas, passed 217-188.

Regulation Nullifications

The last two of these three will now become law. The first still has to receive a vote in the Senate.

• H.J.Res. 131: Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program Record of Decision” passed 217-209.
• H.J.Res. 130: Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Buffalo Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment” passed 214-212 on November 18. The Senate passed it 51-43 on November 20 and now it next goes to the President to be signed into law.
• S.J.Res. 80: A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska Integrated Activity Plan Record of Decision” passed 216-209. It next goes to the President to be signed into law.

Censures

Censures are one of the three ways Congress can police the behavior of members. The other two are expulsion (extremely rare) and investigation by the House Ethics Committee (more common than censures or expulsions). We’ll have more to say about the rapid increase this Congress in censure/censure-like resolutions in a separate post, but for now we’ll list the votes for this week. They do not go to the Senate since they are exclusively about House matters and are not legislation that becomes law.

• H.Res. 878: Disapproving the behavior of Representative Jesús G. “Chuy” García of Illinois, which does what it says, passed 236-183. Rep. Garciá chose to time his retirement announcement until after his preferred successor had submitted her own petition to get on the primary ballot and near the deadline for submitting petitions to be on the ballot. The end result is that his preferred successor is now the only person in the 2026 Democratic primary for his seat. This resolution was sponsored by fellow Democrat Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA3). Yes, this is unusual.
• H.Res. 888: Censuring and condemning Delegate Stacey Plaskett and removing her from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for conduct that reflects discreditably on the House of Representatives for colluding with convicted felony sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a congressional hearing failed 209-214. Plaskett did text with Epstein, who, she noted, was a constituent at the time. A slight majority of the House felt that this did not reflect discreditably on the House, or at least not so much to warrant a censure and removal from committee memberships. This resolution was sponsored by Rep. Norman (R-SC5). Del. Plaskett is a Democrat, so a Republican sponsoring a censure is usual. Or it would be if it weren’t one of a rash of them just this week.
• H.Res. 893: Censuring Representative Cory Mills of Florida and removing him from the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Affairs was converted to a motion to refer the allegations in the censure resolution to the House Ethics Committee and passed 310-103. Mills retains his committee memberships. Mills also already has been under investigation for different allegations for over a year. He further has an active restraining order against him as a direct result of an alleged and subsequently recanted assault on a woman in Washington, D.C. The censure resolution and new investigation rolls in the assault allegations as well as several campaign finance allegations. The Ethics Committee announced on November 19 that they are establishing an Investigative Subcommittee and will announce members soon. The censure resolution was sponsored by fellow Republican Rep. Mace (R-SC1). Yes, this is unusual.

Next Week

Both chambers of Congress are out for the Thanksgiving holiday and will return the week of December 1st.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Legislative Recap for 11/21/25 – GovTrack.us

#congressionalLegislation #govtrack #govtrackUs #legislativeRecap #november212025 #tracking #uSCongress

The Shutdown is Over – GovTrack.us

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2. Legislative Recap

The Shutdown is Over

Nov. 14, 2025 · by Amy West and Joshua Tauberer

Both sides caved. Senate Democrats didn’t get the extension of expiring health care subsidies they asked for or a guarantee in law that President Trump won’t cut programs funded by Congress (although they did get workforce protections — see below). And House Republicans, who vowed they would not negotiate with Democrats, came back into session to accept the deal struck in the Senate with a provision on payouts for senators which they already want to repeal (more on that too, below).

H.R. 5371: Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026 is the bill that ended the shutdown. It includes funding for the remainder of the fiscal year for the food assistance program SNAP, the Department of Agriculture, the FDA, the military, Veterans Affairs, and Congress itself (that is, through Sept. 30, 2026), and a continuation of Trump-level funding for the rest of the federal government just through January. It also contains a handful of extraneous provisions discussed below.

It cleared the Senate in a vote Monday night with 8 Democrats defecting. Then it passed the House on Wednesday 222-209, with six Democrats voting for it and two Republicans against. The President signed the bill later that evening and by Thursday, furloughed workers were returning to work and backpay was supposed to start disbursing without delay. Midday Thursday, the Department of Justice withdrew its case against SNAP payments so those payments that were held up should also be disbursed in the next few days.

What Democrats Got

The first of three notable extraneous provisions reverses firings of federal workers that occurred during the shutdown and prohibits any further mass firings of federal workers until the end of this continuing resolution which is January 30, 2026. (Whether that actually stops the Trump Administration from doing more mass firings remains to be seen.)

Democrats did get one other thing out of the shutdown: Delay. By grinding Congress nearly to a halt in what is usually one of the most productive months for legislating, Democrats prevented the Republicans’ agenda from moving forward. Although the Senate kept working during the shutdown as we mentioned last update, floor time was occupied by numerous failed votes to end the shutdown. And no Republican legislation moved forward in the House for 54 days, though that was on account of House Republicans’ choice to leave town.

A Payout for Some Republican Senators

The next extraneous item — and one that caused one of the two House Republicans to vote no — is a part of a new section on surveillance by the Executive Branch of the Senate. Though the provisions are written generically, it seems to give several senators a payout over the seizure of their phone records during DOJ investigations into the events around January 6, 2021. This section provides for $500,000 to each Senator for each “instance” of record collection that doesn’t meet new but retroactive requirements. Potentially this could be quite the payday for the senators involved, possibly in violation of Senate ethics rules. As of Friday, November 14, some of the Senators who would benefit say they won’t pursue the money. Sen. Graham (R-SC) on the other hand says he’s going to go for as much as he can get. The House says it will hold a vote soon to repeal that provision, but that likely won’t go anywhere without the senators who put the provision there in the first place.

Food Safety Rules Weakened

According to The Lever, “Amid a lobbying blitz and a flood of campaign cash, senators inserted language into this week’s emergency spending bill that eliminates rules designed to prevent food contamination and foodborne illnesses at farms and restaurants, according to legislative text reviewed by The Lever. The bill would also limit the development of rules to regulate ultra-processed foods, despite such foods being derided by the ‘Make America Healthy Again Movement,’ championed by President Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.”

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: The Shutdown is Over – GovTrack.us

#8DemocratsDefecting #democrats #ends #federalGovernmentShutdown #foodSafety #foodSafetyRules #govtrack #govtrackUs #hR5371 #noGuarantees #payoutToGopSenators #republicans #stopped #trumpsAgenda

The Shutdown is Over – GovTrack.us

1. News From Us
2. Legislative Recap

The Shutdown is Over

Nov. 14, 2025 · by Amy West and Joshua Tauberer

Both sides caved. Senate Democrats didn’t get the extension of expiring health care subsidies they asked for or a guarantee in law that President Trump won’t cut programs funded by Congress (although they did get workforce protections — see below). And House Republicans, who vowed they would not negotiate with Democrats, came back into session to accept the deal struck in the Senate with a provision on payouts for senators which they already want to repeal (more on that too, below).

H.R. 5371: Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026 is the bill that ended the shutdown. It includes funding for the remainder of the fiscal year for the food assistance program SNAP, the Department of Agriculture, the FDA, the military, Veterans Affairs, and Congress itself (that is, through Sept. 30, 2026), and a continuation of Trump-level funding for the rest of the federal government just through January. It also contains a handful of extraneous provisions discussed below.

It cleared the Senate in a vote Monday night with 8 Democrats defecting. Then it passed the House on Wednesday 222-209, with six Democrats voting for it and two Republicans against. The President signed the bill later that evening and by Thursday, furloughed workers were returning to work and backpay was supposed to start disbursing without delay. Midday Thursday, the Department of Justice withdrew its case against SNAP payments so those payments that were held up should also be disbursed in the next few days.

What Democrats Got

The first of three notable extraneous provisions reverses firings of federal workers that occurred during the shutdown and prohibits any further mass firings of federal workers until the end of this continuing resolution which is January 30, 2026. (Whether that actually stops the Trump Administration from doing more mass firings remains to be seen.)

Democrats did get one other thing out of the shutdown: Delay. By grinding Congress nearly to a halt in what is usually one of the most productive months for legislating, Democrats prevented the Republicans’ agenda from moving forward. Although the Senate kept working during the shutdown as we mentioned last update, floor time was occupied by numerous failed votes to end the shutdown. And no Republican legislation moved forward in the House for 54 days, though that was on account of House Republicans’ choice to leave town.

A Payout for Some Republican Senators

The next extraneous item — and one that caused one of the two House Republicans to vote no — is a part of a new section on surveillance by the Executive Branch of the Senate. Though the provisions are written generically, it seems to give several senators a payout over the seizure of their phone records during DOJ investigations into the events around January 6, 2021. This section provides for $500,000 to each Senator for each “instance” of record collection that doesn’t meet new but retroactive requirements. Potentially this could be quite the payday for the senators involved, possibly in violation of Senate ethics rules. As of Friday, November 14, some of the Senators who would benefit say they won’t pursue the money. Sen. Graham (R-SC) on the other hand says he’s going to go for as much as he can get. The House says it will hold a vote soon to repeal that provision, but that likely won’t go anywhere without the senators who put the provision there in the first place.

Food Safety Rules Weakened

According to The Lever, “Amid a lobbying blitz and a flood of campaign cash, senators inserted language into this week’s emergency spending bill that eliminates rules designed to prevent food contamination and foodborne illnesses at farms and restaurants, according to legislative text reviewed by The Lever. The bill would also limit the development of rules to regulate ultra-processed foods, despite such foods being derided by the ‘Make America Healthy Again Movement,’ championed by President Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.”

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: The Shutdown is Over – GovTrack.us

#8DemocratsDefecting #democrats #ends #federalGovernmentShutdown #foodSafety #foodSafetyRules #govtrack #govtrackUs #hR5371 #noGuarantees #payoutToGopSenators #republicans #stopped #trumpsAgenda

The Government Shutdown at Day 40: Where are we and how did we get here? – GovTrack.us

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The Government Shutdown at Day 40: Where are we and how did we get here?

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Nov. 9, 2025 · by Joshua Tauberer

On October 1 funding for many federal government programs expired, and 40 days later Congress still has not reached an agreement on how to proceed. This has never happened before for so long.

What the shutdown means

About half of federal government employees are still working, including federal police like ICE, TSA, and air traffic controllers, the military, and staff deemed essential throughout the government. But those workers won’t get paid until the shutdown ends, and it’s legally dubious that many should be working at all. Payments out of a contingency fund for SNAP, the food assistance program, are only covering part of SNAP’s benefits and recent payments may be clawed back (the Supreme Court also ruled on it). That’s all because the Constitution requires that federal dollars are only spent when a law is enacted to authorize it, and the last laws authorizing all this spending expired on September 30.

What each side wants

To end the shutdown, Republicans must find at least 8 Democrats in the Senate to agree on an “appropriations” bill for either short-term funding (called a “continuing resolution”) or year-long funding.

Republicans proposed to continue Trump-level funding until November 21, which would include the major increase in spending on immigration enforcement, major cuts to foreign aid, student loans, and food and medical benefits for the poor, and workforce reductions throughout much of the federal government that Republicans enacted during the year. The time until November 21 was to be used to negotiate full-year appropriations bills (which should have already been enacted before the fiscal year ended, ideally).

Democrats have said that they would agree to that with 1) an extension to expiring health insurance subsidies for middle-class families and 2) a guarantee that Republicans won’t break the deal in the middle of the fiscal year (again). More on all that below.

Senate Republicans offered to hold a vote on extending the subsidies, but they didn’t offer to vote for it. Democrats didn’t accept the symbolic offer, but negotiations in the Senate continue. House Republicans in any case said they would not negotiate until the shutdown ended. (Democrats didn’t ask for funding for illegal immigrants, contrary to lies from the other side.)

Republicans expected Democrats to concede rather than be blamed in the public eye for the shutdown. Neither happened.

Lights on, lights off in Congress

The shutdown doesn’t prevent Congress from being in session, and since the shutdown began the Senate has been working: The Senate passed a bipartisan full-year defense spending bill, passed bills to end Trump tariffs and reverse Biden-era regulations, confirmed a handful of Trump nominations for federal judges, agency leaders, and military positions, and voted several times on (failed) proposals to end the shutdown. And Senate leaders from both parties have been negotiating an end to the shutdown.

The House of Representatives, on the other hand, has had the lights off. Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson sent House Republicans home a week before the shutdown began until Democrats accede to the Republican proposal. Rather than actually being in recess, every few days a token representative gavels the chamber in and then a few minutes later gavels it out as if there is nothing to do. Most representatives are not in D.C., nor holding town halls in their districts, or apparently doing any work at all.

With the chamber technically in session, the Constitution would like a word: Johnson has refused to seat a representative elected in September. It’s unprecedented, and it’s to avoid a vote on an issue that would embarrass the President: Seating Rep.-elect Grijalva could trigger a vote on releasing DOJ’s Epstein files. (This is the second time the Speaker has kept the House out of session to avoid the Epstein issue.)

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: The Government Shutdown at Day 40: Where are we and how did we get here? – GovTrack.us

#AmericansHealth #FederalGovernmentShutdown #GovernmentShutdown #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #HealthSubsidies #HowDidWeGetHere #Trump #USCongress #USHouseOfRepresentatives #USSenate #WhereAreWe

The Government Shutdown at Day 40: Where are we and how did we get here? – GovTrack.us

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The Government Shutdown at Day 40: Where are we and how did we get here?

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Nov. 9, 2025 · by Joshua Tauberer

On October 1 funding for many federal government programs expired, and 40 days later Congress still has not reached an agreement on how to proceed. This has never happened before for so long.

What the shutdown means

About half of federal government employees are still working, including federal police like ICE, TSA, and air traffic controllers, the military, and staff deemed essential throughout the government. But those workers won’t get paid until the shutdown ends, and it’s legally dubious that many should be working at all. Payments out of a contingency fund for SNAP, the food assistance program, are only covering part of SNAP’s benefits and recent payments may be clawed back (the Supreme Court also ruled on it). That’s all because the Constitution requires that federal dollars are only spent when a law is enacted to authorize it, and the last laws authorizing all this spending expired on September 30.

What each side wants

To end the shutdown, Republicans must find at least 8 Democrats in the Senate to agree on an “appropriations” bill for either short-term funding (called a “continuing resolution”) or year-long funding.

Republicans proposed to continue Trump-level funding until November 21, which would include the major increase in spending on immigration enforcement, major cuts to foreign aid, student loans, and food and medical benefits for the poor, and workforce reductions throughout much of the federal government that Republicans enacted during the year. The time until November 21 was to be used to negotiate full-year appropriations bills (which should have already been enacted before the fiscal year ended, ideally).

Democrats have said that they would agree to that with 1) an extension to expiring health insurance subsidies for middle-class families and 2) a guarantee that Republicans won’t break the deal in the middle of the fiscal year (again). More on all that below.

Senate Republicans offered to hold a vote on extending the subsidies, but they didn’t offer to vote for it. Democrats didn’t accept the symbolic offer, but negotiations in the Senate continue. House Republicans in any case said they would not negotiate until the shutdown ended. (Democrats didn’t ask for funding for illegal immigrants, contrary to lies from the other side.)

Republicans expected Democrats to concede rather than be blamed in the public eye for the shutdown. Neither happened.

Lights on, lights off in Congress

The shutdown doesn’t prevent Congress from being in session, and since the shutdown began the Senate has been working: The Senate passed a bipartisan full-year defense spending bill, passed bills to end Trump tariffs and reverse Biden-era regulations, confirmed a handful of Trump nominations for federal judges, agency leaders, and military positions, and voted several times on (failed) proposals to end the shutdown. And Senate leaders from both parties have been negotiating an end to the shutdown.

The House of Representatives, on the other hand, has had the lights off. Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson sent House Republicans home a week before the shutdown began until Democrats accede to the Republican proposal. Rather than actually being in recess, every few days a token representative gavels the chamber in and then a few minutes later gavels it out as if there is nothing to do. Most representatives are not in D.C., nor holding town halls in their districts, or apparently doing any work at all.

With the chamber technically in session, the Constitution would like a word: Johnson has refused to seat a representative elected in September. It’s unprecedented, and it’s to avoid a vote on an issue that would embarrass the President: Seating Rep.-elect Grijalva could trigger a vote on releasing DOJ’s Epstein files. (This is the second time the Speaker has kept the House out of session to avoid the Epstein issue.)

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: The Government Shutdown at Day 40: Where are we and how did we get here? – GovTrack.us

#AmericansHealth #FederalGovernmentShutdown #GovernmentShutdown #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #HealthSubsidies #HowDidWeGetHere #Trump #USCongress #USHouseOfRepresentatives #USSenate #WhereAreWe

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Legislative Recap Oct. 24, 2025: You Are Here »

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Oct. 24, 2025 · by Amy West

Current Status

It’s the 23rd day of the government shutdown. Most federal employees, whether still working or furloughed, have begun to miss paychecks. The House has been out of session since September 19 and shows no sign of returning to do any of the work for which they continue to be paid.

The Senate comes in a few days a week; votes on a few nominations and re-votes on the House’s continuing resolution. When it fails, as it has every time so far (along with an alternative bill from Sen. Johnson which has also failed multiple times, most recently October 23), they head out for their usual 3 day weekends.

The President apparently isn’t concerned about the shutdown given that he’s leaving town for a week, but more importantly, the Senate has become passive as described by Semafor. The President’s trip also means that even if a bill passed next week, the shutdown still wouldn’t end until he returned to sign it.

Procedural Note: It’s possible for a bill to become law without a presidential signature but it requires a lot of time and for both chambers to be in session for that time period, so for all practical purposes, assume any continuing resolution that gets passed will need the President’s signature.

What’s the Standoff About?

During the Biden Administration, the Democrats used their majorities pass more extensive health insurance premium subsidies for people who pay for their own insurance (as opposed to employer provided insurance or medicare, etc).

The catch was that the subsidies were temporary. Why wouldn’t they make them permanent? Maybe they couldn’t get agreement from enough of their own members at the time, maybe it was the price of Republican votes or maybe it was a cynical political ploy as described by the New York Times.

Those subsidies will expire at the end of this calendar year. Democrats have made the extension of these subsidies their primary demand in exchange for their support in the Senate for the House’s continuing resolution.

Republicans have refused, so Democrats have refused. To apparently everyone’s surprise, but especially Republicans’, Democrats have held their ground on this demand.

So here we all are and here we’ll stay for at least one more week. FYI, if you are one of the people who pays for your own insurance, you should probably start talking to your insurance company now about what to expect in premium costs for next year, because it does not look like the subsidies will be extended.

Effects of the Shutdown So Far

So far, most essential federal employees have continued to work despite not being paid. Thus, air traffic controllers are at their desks, weather is monitored and so on.

Federally funded cultural institutions in D.C. have closed to the public including the National Zoo, the National Gallery and the Smithsonian museums. (Yes, the zoo animals are still receiving care – the zoo staff are working without pay just like most other federal employees)

Members of the military got paid on Oct. 15, apparently by shifting around unspent funds originally allocated for other purposes. In this, the Trump Administration is spending funds in ways not authorized by Congress and the legality is unclear. It’s also not clear how the military will be paid on Oct. 30.

ICE Officers are being paid. This too represents using funds authorized by Congress for other purposes and is of dubious legality.

People who need food aid will not get it after November 1 if the shutdown is not resolved before then. It’s unclear why, if other agencies can repurpose funds (legally or not) to fill gaps from the shutdown, the Department of Agriculture isn’t also working to protect poor Americans.

The House simply isn’t doing anything at all. They aren’t working on regular appropriations bills, they aren’t holding hearings, they haven’t sworn in a new member elected in September, nothing except for introducing new bills that will see no action any time soon. NOTUS wrote about frustrations in the House and Senate over Speaker Johnson’s refusal to allow the House to do its work.

Predictions

Steven Dennis, a Congressional reporter for Bloomberg has a series of posts on standoffs that go something like this one from 2022:

How the omnibus came together: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO YES TO FRAMEWORK NO NO NO NO NO DEAL! HAS ANYONE TALKED TO MIKE LEE, RAND PAUL? NO NO NO TIME AGREEMENT LOCKED IN 68-29

The point being that public statements may or may not accurately reflect efforts to find compromise behind the scenes and you don’t know about it until after the agreement is made when things suddenly move quickly to resolution.

Right now, the public stance of both parties is still firmly in the “NO NO NO NO NO…” stage. There’s no evidence of negotiations behind the scenes, but perhaps we’ll get a surprise “YES TO FRAMEWORK” next week even if not an actual resolution.

See you next Friday for the next update.

Editor’s Note: There’s a lying phoney page from Trump (.gov), about blaming the Democrats for the shutdown. Talk about blatant lying to the American public. Anyway, ignore the lies at:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/government-shutdown-clock/

Continue/Read Original Article Here: You Are Here – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #BlameGame #Congress #DonaldTrump #Education #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Science #Shutdown #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates

You Are Here – GovTrack.us

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Legislative Recap Oct. 24, 2025: You Are Here »

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Oct. 24, 2025 · by Amy West

Current Status

It’s the 23rd day of the government shutdown. Most federal employees, whether still working or furloughed, have begun to miss paychecks. The House has been out of session since September 19 and shows no sign of returning to do any of the work for which they continue to be paid.

The Senate comes in a few days a week; votes on a few nominations and re-votes on the House’s continuing resolution. When it fails, as it has every time so far (along with an alternative bill from Sen. Johnson which has also failed multiple times, most recently October 23), they head out for their usual 3 day weekends.

The President apparently isn’t concerned about the shutdown given that he’s leaving town for a week, but more importantly, the Senate has become passive as described by Semafor. The President’s trip also means that even if a bill passed next week, the shutdown still wouldn’t end until he returned to sign it.

Procedural Note: It’s possible for a bill to become law without a presidential signature but it requires a lot of time and for both chambers to be in session for that time period, so for all practical purposes, assume any continuing resolution that gets passed will need the President’s signature.

What’s the Standoff About?

During the Biden Administration, the Democrats used their majorities pass more extensive health insurance premium subsidies for people who pay for their own insurance (as opposed to employer provided insurance or medicare, etc).

The catch was that the subsidies were temporary. Why wouldn’t they make them permanent? Maybe they couldn’t get agreement from enough of their own members at the time, maybe it was the price of Republican votes or maybe it was a cynical political ploy as described by the New York Times.

Those subsidies will expire at the end of this calendar year. Democrats have made the extension of these subsidies their primary demand in exchange for their support in the Senate for the House’s continuing resolution.

Republicans have refused, so Democrats have refused. To apparently everyone’s surprise, but especially Republicans’, Democrats have held their ground on this demand.

So here we all are and here we’ll stay for at least one more week. FYI, if you are one of the people who pays for your own insurance, you should probably start talking to your insurance company now about what to expect in premium costs for next year, because it does not look like the subsidies will be extended.

Effects of the Shutdown So Far

So far, most essential federal employees have continued to work despite not being paid. Thus, air traffic controllers are at their desks, weather is monitored and so on.

Federally funded cultural institutions in D.C. have closed to the public including the National Zoo, the National Gallery and the Smithsonian museums. (Yes, the zoo animals are still receiving care – the zoo staff are working without pay just like most other federal employees)

Members of the military got paid on Oct. 15, apparently by shifting around unspent funds originally allocated for other purposes. In this, the Trump Administration is spending funds in ways not authorized by Congress and the legality is unclear. It’s also not clear how the military will be paid on Oct. 30.

ICE Officers are being paid. This too represents using funds authorized by Congress for other purposes and is of dubious legality.

People who need food aid will not get it after November 1 if the shutdown is not resolved before then. It’s unclear why, if other agencies can repurpose funds (legally or not) to fill gaps from the shutdown, the Department of Agriculture isn’t also working to protect poor Americans.

The House simply isn’t doing anything at all. They aren’t working on regular appropriations bills, they aren’t holding hearings, they haven’t sworn in a new member elected in September, nothing except for introducing new bills that will see no action any time soon. NOTUS wrote about frustrations in the House and Senate over Speaker Johnson’s refusal to allow the House to do its work.

Predictions

Steven Dennis, a Congressional reporter for Bloomberg has a series of posts on standoffs that go something like this one from 2022:

How the omnibus came together: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO YES TO FRAMEWORK NO NO NO NO NO DEAL! HAS ANYONE TALKED TO MIKE LEE, RAND PAUL? NO NO NO TIME AGREEMENT LOCKED IN 68-29

The point being that public statements may or may not accurately reflect efforts to find compromise behind the scenes and you don’t know about it until after the agreement is made when things suddenly move quickly to resolution.

Right now, the public stance of both parties is still firmly in the “NO NO NO NO NO…” stage. There’s no evidence of negotiations behind the scenes, but perhaps we’ll get a surprise “YES TO FRAMEWORK” next week even if not an actual resolution.

See you next Friday for the next update.

Editor’s Note: There’s a lying phoney page from Trump (.gov), about blaming the Democrats for the shutdown. Talk about blatant lying to the American public. Anyway, ignore the lies at:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/government-shutdown-clock/

Continue/Read Original Article Here: You Are Here – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #BlameGame #Congress #DonaldTrump #Education #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Science #Shutdown #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates

You Are Here – GovTrack.us

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Legislative Recap Oct. 24, 2025: You Are Here »

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Oct. 24, 2025 · by Amy West

Current Status

It’s the 23rd day of the government shutdown. Most federal employees, whether still working or furloughed, have begun to miss paychecks. The House has been out of session since September 19 and shows no sign of returning to do any of the work for which they continue to be paid.

The Senate comes in a few days a week; votes on a few nominations and re-votes on the House’s continuing resolution. When it fails, as it has every time so far (along with an alternative bill from Sen. Johnson which has also failed multiple times, most recently October 23), they head out for their usual 3 day weekends.

The President apparently isn’t concerned about the shutdown given that he’s leaving town for a week, but more importantly, the Senate has become passive as described by Semafor. The President’s trip also means that even if a bill passed next week, the shutdown still wouldn’t end until he returned to sign it.

Procedural Note: It’s possible for a bill to become law without a presidential signature but it requires a lot of time and for both chambers to be in session for that time period, so for all practical purposes, assume any continuing resolution that gets passed will need the President’s signature.

What’s the Standoff About?

During the Biden Administration, the Democrats used their majorities pass more extensive health insurance premium subsidies for people who pay for their own insurance (as opposed to employer provided insurance or medicare, etc).

The catch was that the subsidies were temporary. Why wouldn’t they make them permanent? Maybe they couldn’t get agreement from enough of their own members at the time, maybe it was the price of Republican votes or maybe it was a cynical political ploy as described by the New York Times.

Those subsidies will expire at the end of this calendar year. Democrats have made the extension of these subsidies their primary demand in exchange for their support in the Senate for the House’s continuing resolution.

Republicans have refused, so Democrats have refused. To apparently everyone’s surprise, but especially Republicans’, Democrats have held their ground on this demand.

So here we all are and here we’ll stay for at least one more week. FYI, if you are one of the people who pays for your own insurance, you should probably start talking to your insurance company now about what to expect in premium costs for next year, because it does not look like the subsidies will be extended.

Effects of the Shutdown So Far

So far, most essential federal employees have continued to work despite not being paid. Thus, air traffic controllers are at their desks, weather is monitored and so on.

Federally funded cultural institutions in D.C. have closed to the public including the National Zoo, the National Gallery and the Smithsonian museums. (Yes, the zoo animals are still receiving care – the zoo staff are working without pay just like most other federal employees)

Members of the military got paid on Oct. 15, apparently by shifting around unspent funds originally allocated for other purposes. In this, the Trump Administration is spending funds in ways not authorized by Congress and the legality is unclear. It’s also not clear how the military will be paid on Oct. 30.

ICE Officers are being paid. This too represents using funds authorized by Congress for other purposes and is of dubious legality.

People who need food aid will not get it after November 1 if the shutdown is not resolved before then. It’s unclear why, if other agencies can repurpose funds (legally or not) to fill gaps from the shutdown, the Department of Agriculture isn’t also working to protect poor Americans.

The House simply isn’t doing anything at all. They aren’t working on regular appropriations bills, they aren’t holding hearings, they haven’t sworn in a new member elected in September, nothing except for introducing new bills that will see no action any time soon. NOTUS wrote about frustrations in the House and Senate over Speaker Johnson’s refusal to allow the House to do its work.

Predictions

Steven Dennis, a Congressional reporter for Bloomberg has a series of posts on standoffs that go something like this one from 2022:

How the omnibus came together: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO YES TO FRAMEWORK NO NO NO NO NO DEAL! HAS ANYONE TALKED TO MIKE LEE, RAND PAUL? NO NO NO TIME AGREEMENT LOCKED IN 68-29

The point being that public statements may or may not accurately reflect efforts to find compromise behind the scenes and you don’t know about it until after the agreement is made when things suddenly move quickly to resolution.

Right now, the public stance of both parties is still firmly in the “NO NO NO NO NO…” stage. There’s no evidence of negotiations behind the scenes, but perhaps we’ll get a surprise “YES TO FRAMEWORK” next week even if not an actual resolution.

See you next Friday for the next update.

Editor’s Note: There’s a lying phoney page from Trump (.gov), about blaming the Democrats for the shutdown. Talk about blatant lying to the American public. Anyway, ignore the lies at:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/government-shutdown-clock/

Continue/Read Original Article Here: You Are Here – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #BlameGame #Congress #DonaldTrump #Education #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Science #Shutdown #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates

You Are Here – GovTrack.us

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Legislative Recap Oct. 24, 2025: You Are Here »

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Oct. 24, 2025 · by Amy West

Current Status

It’s the 23rd day of the government shutdown. Most federal employees, whether still working or furloughed, have begun to miss paychecks. The House has been out of session since September 19 and shows no sign of returning to do any of the work for which they continue to be paid.

The Senate comes in a few days a week; votes on a few nominations and re-votes on the House’s continuing resolution. When it fails, as it has every time so far (along with an alternative bill from Sen. Johnson which has also failed multiple times, most recently October 23), they head out for their usual 3 day weekends.

The President apparently isn’t concerned about the shutdown given that he’s leaving town for a week, but more importantly, the Senate has become passive as described by Semafor. The President’s trip also means that even if a bill passed next week, the shutdown still wouldn’t end until he returned to sign it.

Procedural Note: It’s possible for a bill to become law without a presidential signature but it requires a lot of time and for both chambers to be in session for that time period, so for all practical purposes, assume any continuing resolution that gets passed will need the President’s signature.

What’s the Standoff About?

During the Biden Administration, the Democrats used their majorities pass more extensive health insurance premium subsidies for people who pay for their own insurance (as opposed to employer provided insurance or medicare, etc).

The catch was that the subsidies were temporary. Why wouldn’t they make them permanent? Maybe they couldn’t get agreement from enough of their own members at the time, maybe it was the price of Republican votes or maybe it was a cynical political ploy as described by the New York Times.

Those subsidies will expire at the end of this calendar year. Democrats have made the extension of these subsidies their primary demand in exchange for their support in the Senate for the House’s continuing resolution.

Republicans have refused, so Democrats have refused. To apparently everyone’s surprise, but especially Republicans’, Democrats have held their ground on this demand.

So here we all are and here we’ll stay for at least one more week. FYI, if you are one of the people who pays for your own insurance, you should probably start talking to your insurance company now about what to expect in premium costs for next year, because it does not look like the subsidies will be extended.

Effects of the Shutdown So Far

So far, most essential federal employees have continued to work despite not being paid. Thus, air traffic controllers are at their desks, weather is monitored and so on.

Federally funded cultural institutions in D.C. have closed to the public including the National Zoo, the National Gallery and the Smithsonian museums. (Yes, the zoo animals are still receiving care – the zoo staff are working without pay just like most other federal employees)

Members of the military got paid on Oct. 15, apparently by shifting around unspent funds originally allocated for other purposes. In this, the Trump Administration is spending funds in ways not authorized by Congress and the legality is unclear. It’s also not clear how the military will be paid on Oct. 30.

ICE Officers are being paid. This too represents using funds authorized by Congress for other purposes and is of dubious legality.

People who need food aid will not get it after November 1 if the shutdown is not resolved before then. It’s unclear why, if other agencies can repurpose funds (legally or not) to fill gaps from the shutdown, the Department of Agriculture isn’t also working to protect poor Americans.

The House simply isn’t doing anything at all. They aren’t working on regular appropriations bills, they aren’t holding hearings, they haven’t sworn in a new member elected in September, nothing except for introducing new bills that will see no action any time soon. NOTUS wrote about frustrations in the House and Senate over Speaker Johnson’s refusal to allow the House to do its work.

Predictions

Steven Dennis, a Congressional reporter for Bloomberg has a series of posts on standoffs that go something like this one from 2022:

How the omnibus came together: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO YES TO FRAMEWORK NO NO NO NO NO DEAL! HAS ANYONE TALKED TO MIKE LEE, RAND PAUL? NO NO NO TIME AGREEMENT LOCKED IN 68-29

The point being that public statements may or may not accurately reflect efforts to find compromise behind the scenes and you don’t know about it until after the agreement is made when things suddenly move quickly to resolution.

Right now, the public stance of both parties is still firmly in the “NO NO NO NO NO…” stage. There’s no evidence of negotiations behind the scenes, but perhaps we’ll get a surprise “YES TO FRAMEWORK” next week even if not an actual resolution.

See you next Friday for the next update.

Editor’s Note: There’s a lying phoney page from Trump (.gov), about blaming the Democrats for the shutdown. Talk about blatant lying to the American public. Anyway, ignore the lies at:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/government-shutdown-clock/

Continue/Read Original Article Here: You Are Here – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #BlameGame #Congress #DonaldTrump #Education #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Science #Shutdown #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates

You Are Here – GovTrack.us

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Legislative Recap Oct. 24, 2025: You Are Here »

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2. Legislative Recap

Get Legislative Recap Updates In Your Inbox!

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Oct. 24, 2025 · by Amy West

Current Status

It’s the 23rd day of the government shutdown. Most federal employees, whether still working or furloughed, have begun to miss paychecks. The House has been out of session since September 19 and shows no sign of returning to do any of the work for which they continue to be paid.

The Senate comes in a few days a week; votes on a few nominations and re-votes on the House’s continuing resolution. When it fails, as it has every time so far (along with an alternative bill from Sen. Johnson which has also failed multiple times, most recently October 23), they head out for their usual 3 day weekends.

The President apparently isn’t concerned about the shutdown given that he’s leaving town for a week, but more importantly, the Senate has become passive as described by Semafor. The President’s trip also means that even if a bill passed next week, the shutdown still wouldn’t end until he returned to sign it.

Procedural Note: It’s possible for a bill to become law without a presidential signature but it requires a lot of time and for both chambers to be in session for that time period, so for all practical purposes, assume any continuing resolution that gets passed will need the President’s signature.

What’s the Standoff About?

During the Biden Administration, the Democrats used their majorities pass more extensive health insurance premium subsidies for people who pay for their own insurance (as opposed to employer provided insurance or medicare, etc).

The catch was that the subsidies were temporary. Why wouldn’t they make them permanent? Maybe they couldn’t get agreement from enough of their own members at the time, maybe it was the price of Republican votes or maybe it was a cynical political ploy as described by the New York Times.

Those subsidies will expire at the end of this calendar year. Democrats have made the extension of these subsidies their primary demand in exchange for their support in the Senate for the House’s continuing resolution.

Republicans have refused, so Democrats have refused. To apparently everyone’s surprise, but especially Republicans’, Democrats have held their ground on this demand.

So here we all are and here we’ll stay for at least one more week. FYI, if you are one of the people who pays for your own insurance, you should probably start talking to your insurance company now about what to expect in premium costs for next year, because it does not look like the subsidies will be extended.

Effects of the Shutdown So Far

So far, most essential federal employees have continued to work despite not being paid. Thus, air traffic controllers are at their desks, weather is monitored and so on.

Federally funded cultural institutions in D.C. have closed to the public including the National Zoo, the National Gallery and the Smithsonian museums. (Yes, the zoo animals are still receiving care – the zoo staff are working without pay just like most other federal employees)

Members of the military got paid on Oct. 15, apparently by shifting around unspent funds originally allocated for other purposes. In this, the Trump Administration is spending funds in ways not authorized by Congress and the legality is unclear. It’s also not clear how the military will be paid on Oct. 30.

ICE Officers are being paid. This too represents using funds authorized by Congress for other purposes and is of dubious legality.

People who need food aid will not get it after November 1 if the shutdown is not resolved before then. It’s unclear why, if other agencies can repurpose funds (legally or not) to fill gaps from the shutdown, the Department of Agriculture isn’t also working to protect poor Americans.

The House simply isn’t doing anything at all. They aren’t working on regular appropriations bills, they aren’t holding hearings, they haven’t sworn in a new member elected in September, nothing except for introducing new bills that will see no action any time soon. NOTUS wrote about frustrations in the House and Senate over Speaker Johnson’s refusal to allow the House to do its work.

Predictions

Steven Dennis, a Congressional reporter for Bloomberg has a series of posts on standoffs that go something like this one from 2022:

How the omnibus came together: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO YES TO FRAMEWORK NO NO NO NO NO DEAL! HAS ANYONE TALKED TO MIKE LEE, RAND PAUL? NO NO NO TIME AGREEMENT LOCKED IN 68-29

The point being that public statements may or may not accurately reflect efforts to find compromise behind the scenes and you don’t know about it until after the agreement is made when things suddenly move quickly to resolution.

Right now, the public stance of both parties is still firmly in the “NO NO NO NO NO…” stage. There’s no evidence of negotiations behind the scenes, but perhaps we’ll get a surprise “YES TO FRAMEWORK” next week even if not an actual resolution.

See you next Friday for the next update.

Editor’s Note: There’s a lying phoney page from Trump (.gov), about blaming the Democrats for the shutdown. Talk about blatant lying to the American public. Anyway, ignore the lies at:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/government-shutdown-clock/

Continue/Read Original Article Here: You Are Here – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #BlameGame #Congress #DonaldTrump #Education #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Science #Shutdown #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates

Shutdown Update; Senate Votes – GovTrack.us

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Legislative Recap Oct. 10, 2025: Shutdown Update; Senate Votes »

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Shutdown Update; Senate Votes, Oct. 10, 2025 · by Amy West

Shutdown Update

Still going. 

The Senate voted for a seventh time on the two competing continuing resolutions in front of it to allocate funds to federal agencies (one Democratic, one Republican) and both failed again to reach the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. It’s possible that Republicans are beginning to soften their positions. On X, Igor Bobic posted about Democrats’ ask to extend expiring health care subsidies:

“[Sen.] Tillis says a deal on ACA subsidies wouldn’t be hard once government is funded, with mix of retiring senators & those up for reelection. “You’re telling me you can’t find eight people that could walk the plank?” “As a veteran plank-walker, it’s not near as bad as it seems””

One might reasonably ask why not walk the plank now in order to end the shutdown? However, if Senate Republicans have been asked this kind of question, no one has publicly recorded their responses.

(By the way, in a previous post we incorrectly wrote that these subsidies would affect low-income Americans. But that was wrong: It would affect middle class Americans who get health care through the ACA marketplace exchanges.)

The House remains in recess. Many House Democrats are in D.C. anyway to make a messaging point and to push Speaker Johnson on why Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva hasn’t been sworn in yet. Earlier this year, Republican representatives-elect Patronis (FL-1) and Fine (FL-6) were sworn in immediately after election while the House was in recess. Why won’t Johnson swear her in? Punchbowl takes a stab at answering the question. Maybe it’s not about Epstein files; maybe Johnson is just really committed to this stop-work action he’s making the House take during the shutdown. A few Republican House members are expressing dissatisfaction with Johnson’s strategy.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Shutdown Update; Senate Votes – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #DonaldTrump #Education #GOP #GOPShutdown #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #RepublicanShutdown #Resistance #Science #SenateVotes #Shutdown2025 #Trump #TrumpAdministration #USSenate #UnitedStates

Shutdown Update; Senate Votes – GovTrack.us

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Legislative Recap Oct. 10, 2025: Shutdown Update; Senate Votes »

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Shutdown Update; Senate Votes, Oct. 10, 2025 · by Amy West

Shutdown Update

Still going. 

The Senate voted for a seventh time on the two competing continuing resolutions in front of it to allocate funds to federal agencies (one Democratic, one Republican) and both failed again to reach the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. It’s possible that Republicans are beginning to soften their positions. On X, Igor Bobic posted about Democrats’ ask to extend expiring health care subsidies:

“[Sen.] Tillis says a deal on ACA subsidies wouldn’t be hard once government is funded, with mix of retiring senators & those up for reelection. “You’re telling me you can’t find eight people that could walk the plank?” “As a veteran plank-walker, it’s not near as bad as it seems””

One might reasonably ask why not walk the plank now in order to end the shutdown? However, if Senate Republicans have been asked this kind of question, no one has publicly recorded their responses.

(By the way, in a previous post we incorrectly wrote that these subsidies would affect low-income Americans. But that was wrong: It would affect middle class Americans who get health care through the ACA marketplace exchanges.)

The House remains in recess. Many House Democrats are in D.C. anyway to make a messaging point and to push Speaker Johnson on why Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva hasn’t been sworn in yet. Earlier this year, Republican representatives-elect Patronis (FL-1) and Fine (FL-6) were sworn in immediately after election while the House was in recess. Why won’t Johnson swear her in? Punchbowl takes a stab at answering the question. Maybe it’s not about Epstein files; maybe Johnson is just really committed to this stop-work action he’s making the House take during the shutdown. A few Republican House members are expressing dissatisfaction with Johnson’s strategy.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Shutdown Update; Senate Votes – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #DonaldTrump #Education #GOP #GOPShutdown #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #RepublicanShutdown #Resistance #Science #SenateVotes #Shutdown2025 #Trump #TrumpAdministration #USSenate #UnitedStates

Shutdown Update; Senate Votes – GovTrack.us

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Legislative Recap Oct. 10, 2025: Shutdown Update; Senate Votes »

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Shutdown Update; Senate Votes, Oct. 10, 2025 · by Amy West

Shutdown Update

Still going. 

The Senate voted for a seventh time on the two competing continuing resolutions in front of it to allocate funds to federal agencies (one Democratic, one Republican) and both failed again to reach the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. It’s possible that Republicans are beginning to soften their positions. On X, Igor Bobic posted about Democrats’ ask to extend expiring health care subsidies:

“[Sen.] Tillis says a deal on ACA subsidies wouldn’t be hard once government is funded, with mix of retiring senators & those up for reelection. “You’re telling me you can’t find eight people that could walk the plank?” “As a veteran plank-walker, it’s not near as bad as it seems””

One might reasonably ask why not walk the plank now in order to end the shutdown? However, if Senate Republicans have been asked this kind of question, no one has publicly recorded their responses.

(By the way, in a previous post we incorrectly wrote that these subsidies would affect low-income Americans. But that was wrong: It would affect middle class Americans who get health care through the ACA marketplace exchanges.)

The House remains in recess. Many House Democrats are in D.C. anyway to make a messaging point and to push Speaker Johnson on why Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva hasn’t been sworn in yet. Earlier this year, Republican representatives-elect Patronis (FL-1) and Fine (FL-6) were sworn in immediately after election while the House was in recess. Why won’t Johnson swear her in? Punchbowl takes a stab at answering the question. Maybe it’s not about Epstein files; maybe Johnson is just really committed to this stop-work action he’s making the House take during the shutdown. A few Republican House members are expressing dissatisfaction with Johnson’s strategy.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Shutdown Update; Senate Votes – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #DonaldTrump #Education #GOP #GOPShutdown #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #RepublicanShutdown #Resistance #Science #SenateVotes #Shutdown2025 #Trump #TrumpAdministration #USSenate #UnitedStates

Shutdown Update; Senate Votes – GovTrack.us

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Legislative Recap Oct. 10, 2025: Shutdown Update; Senate Votes »

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Shutdown Update; Senate Votes, Oct. 10, 2025 · by Amy West

Shutdown Update

Still going. 

The Senate voted for a seventh time on the two competing continuing resolutions in front of it to allocate funds to federal agencies (one Democratic, one Republican) and both failed again to reach the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. It’s possible that Republicans are beginning to soften their positions. On X, Igor Bobic posted about Democrats’ ask to extend expiring health care subsidies:

“[Sen.] Tillis says a deal on ACA subsidies wouldn’t be hard once government is funded, with mix of retiring senators & those up for reelection. “You’re telling me you can’t find eight people that could walk the plank?” “As a veteran plank-walker, it’s not near as bad as it seems””

One might reasonably ask why not walk the plank now in order to end the shutdown? However, if Senate Republicans have been asked this kind of question, no one has publicly recorded their responses.

(By the way, in a previous post we incorrectly wrote that these subsidies would affect low-income Americans. But that was wrong: It would affect middle class Americans who get health care through the ACA marketplace exchanges.)

The House remains in recess. Many House Democrats are in D.C. anyway to make a messaging point and to push Speaker Johnson on why Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva hasn’t been sworn in yet. Earlier this year, Republican representatives-elect Patronis (FL-1) and Fine (FL-6) were sworn in immediately after election while the House was in recess. Why won’t Johnson swear her in? Punchbowl takes a stab at answering the question. Maybe it’s not about Epstein files; maybe Johnson is just really committed to this stop-work action he’s making the House take during the shutdown. A few Republican House members are expressing dissatisfaction with Johnson’s strategy.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Shutdown Update; Senate Votes – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #DonaldTrump #Education #GOP #GOPShutdown #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #RepublicanShutdown #Resistance #Science #SenateVotes #Shutdown2025 #Trump #TrumpAdministration #USSenate #UnitedStates

Shutdown Update; Senate Votes – GovTrack.us

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Legislative Recap Oct. 10, 2025: Shutdown Update; Senate Votes »

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2. Legislative Recap

Shutdown Update; Senate Votes, Oct. 10, 2025 · by Amy West

Shutdown Update

Still going. 

The Senate voted for a seventh time on the two competing continuing resolutions in front of it to allocate funds to federal agencies (one Democratic, one Republican) and both failed again to reach the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. It’s possible that Republicans are beginning to soften their positions. On X, Igor Bobic posted about Democrats’ ask to extend expiring health care subsidies:

“[Sen.] Tillis says a deal on ACA subsidies wouldn’t be hard once government is funded, with mix of retiring senators & those up for reelection. “You’re telling me you can’t find eight people that could walk the plank?” “As a veteran plank-walker, it’s not near as bad as it seems””

One might reasonably ask why not walk the plank now in order to end the shutdown? However, if Senate Republicans have been asked this kind of question, no one has publicly recorded their responses.

(By the way, in a previous post we incorrectly wrote that these subsidies would affect low-income Americans. But that was wrong: It would affect middle class Americans who get health care through the ACA marketplace exchanges.)

The House remains in recess. Many House Democrats are in D.C. anyway to make a messaging point and to push Speaker Johnson on why Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva hasn’t been sworn in yet. Earlier this year, Republican representatives-elect Patronis (FL-1) and Fine (FL-6) were sworn in immediately after election while the House was in recess. Why won’t Johnson swear her in? Punchbowl takes a stab at answering the question. Maybe it’s not about Epstein files; maybe Johnson is just really committed to this stop-work action he’s making the House take during the shutdown. A few Republican House members are expressing dissatisfaction with Johnson’s strategy.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Shutdown Update; Senate Votes – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #DonaldTrump #Education #GOP #GOPShutdown #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #RepublicanShutdown #Resistance #Science #SenateVotes #Shutdown2025 #Trump #TrumpAdministration #USSenate #UnitedStates

Congress fails to pass a government funding bill, triggering a shutdown – GovTrack.us

 News From Us

Analysis and Commentary

Congress fails to pass a government funding bill, triggering a shutdown

Sept. 30, 2025 · by Joshua Tauberer

Federal government agencies with yearly funding are set to shut down tonight (or did last night, if you’re reading this tomorrow).

How this might affect you, or how long this might last, is anyone’s guess. About 60% of federal funding is unaffected by this, and of the rest some functions are deemed essential and continue anyway.

This was entirely predictable.

President Trump made sweeping changes to the federal government’s revenues and spending this year: A major increase in spending on immigration enforcement. A near total cut to foreign aid. Major cuts to student loans and food and medical benefits for the poor. Workforce reductions throughout much of the federal government. New across-the-board taxes on imports. Extensions of tax cuts primarily benefiting the wealthy. And, according to Republicans, a growing national debt.

Any one of these would have been a major change. All of them is major, major change, as Trump might say, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. (Not to mention countless other major policy changes that aren’t related to government funding.)

Of those policies that were passed by Congress, most Democrats and even some Republicans voted against it. Republicans passed them with slim majorities using special “reconciliation” and “rescission” rules that allow a simple majority vote in the Senate to cut spending.

But yearly appropriations bills require 3/5ths of the Senate, a supermajority, to agree because of the rules around filibusters.

Republicans knew they didn’t have the votes to pass yearly appropriations other than by making it a must-pass bill: Sign-off on policies Democrats just voted against or the government shuts down. You could call it holding the government hostage. House Republicans left town a week ago rather than be present to negotiate. (That part is not a uniquely Republican tactic.)

And since Republicans might use reconciliation and rescission rules again next year to cut anything Democrats agree to now, there was little incentive for Democrats to negotiate.

Republicans are trying to spin this as Democrats making excessive demands. What Democrats actually asked for is pretty underwhelming — a continuation of some health insurance subsidies for the poorest Americans. Compare that to how far Republicans moved the goal post to the right since President Trump took office.

It didn’t have to be that though: Republicans surely could have found a few more Democrats to vote with them by offering, well, anything.

So it didn’t work. At least for tonight. Republicans took on more than they could chew. Though if only a few Democrats switch position, a funding bill could be passed at any time. Or Senate Republicans could nuke the filibuster and pass their bill without Democrats.

Tonight Republicans got 55 votes in the Senate, that’s 5 short, on a bill to fund the government. (It wasn’t even a bill to fund the government for the whole 2026 fiscal year but just for another 7 weeks, after which point we’d be back facing a shutdown again.)

And maybe this is what some Republicans wanted anyway.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Congress fails to pass a government funding bill, triggering a shutdown – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #Bill #DonaldTrump #Education #Fails #FederalGovernment #GovernmentFunding #GovernmentShutdown #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #Libraries #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Science #Trump #TrumpAdministration #USCongress #UnitedStates

Congress fails to pass a government funding bill, triggering a shutdown – GovTrack.us

 News From Us

Analysis and Commentary

Congress fails to pass a government funding bill, triggering a shutdown

Sept. 30, 2025 · by Joshua Tauberer

Federal government agencies with yearly funding are set to shut down tonight (or did last night, if you’re reading this tomorrow).

How this might affect you, or how long this might last, is anyone’s guess. About 60% of federal funding is unaffected by this, and of the rest some functions are deemed essential and continue anyway.

This was entirely predictable.

President Trump made sweeping changes to the federal government’s revenues and spending this year: A major increase in spending on immigration enforcement. A near total cut to foreign aid. Major cuts to student loans and food and medical benefits for the poor. Workforce reductions throughout much of the federal government. New across-the-board taxes on imports. Extensions of tax cuts primarily benefiting the wealthy. And, according to Republicans, a growing national debt.

Any one of these would have been a major change. All of them is major, major change, as Trump might say, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. (Not to mention countless other major policy changes that aren’t related to government funding.)

Of those policies that were passed by Congress, most Democrats and even some Republicans voted against it. Republicans passed them with slim majorities using special “reconciliation” and “rescission” rules that allow a simple majority vote in the Senate to cut spending.

But yearly appropriations bills require 3/5ths of the Senate, a supermajority, to agree because of the rules around filibusters.

Republicans knew they didn’t have the votes to pass yearly appropriations other than by making it a must-pass bill: Sign-off on policies Democrats just voted against or the government shuts down. You could call it holding the government hostage. House Republicans left town a week ago rather than be present to negotiate. (That part is not a uniquely Republican tactic.)

And since Republicans might use reconciliation and rescission rules again next year to cut anything Democrats agree to now, there was little incentive for Democrats to negotiate.

Republicans are trying to spin this as Democrats making excessive demands. What Democrats actually asked for is pretty underwhelming — a continuation of some health insurance subsidies for the poorest Americans. Compare that to how far Republicans moved the goal post to the right since President Trump took office.

It didn’t have to be that though: Republicans surely could have found a few more Democrats to vote with them by offering, well, anything.

So it didn’t work. At least for tonight. Republicans took on more than they could chew. Though if only a few Democrats switch position, a funding bill could be passed at any time. Or Senate Republicans could nuke the filibuster and pass their bill without Democrats.

Tonight Republicans got 55 votes in the Senate, that’s 5 short, on a bill to fund the government. (It wasn’t even a bill to fund the government for the whole 2026 fiscal year but just for another 7 weeks, after which point we’d be back facing a shutdown again.)

And maybe this is what some Republicans wanted anyway.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Congress fails to pass a government funding bill, triggering a shutdown – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #Bill #DonaldTrump #Education #Fails #FederalGovernment #GovernmentFunding #GovernmentShutdown #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #Libraries #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Science #Trump #TrumpAdministration #USCongress #UnitedStates

Federal judges are above the law in the workplace: How a “Glassdoor for Judges” will help – GovTrack.us

 News From Us

Analysis and Commentary

Federal judges are above the law in the workplace: How a “Glassdoor for Judges” will help

Sept. 16, 2025 · by Aliza Shatzman

This guest post is from Aliza Shatzman, who in her first job after law school working for a judge learned the reality of judges’ conduct behind closed doors. She launched a transparency and accountability platform for recent law school graduates to rate their bosses and also advocates for policy reform.

While judges, regardless of party, rule for democracy, behind the bench, judges’ conduct is lawless and ungoverned. Judges regularly engage in misconduct that would be illegal — except that judges are exempt from all federal anti-discrimination laws.

Disturbingly, 1,700 federal judges who rule on issues of national significance and determine litigants’ lives, livelihoods, and liberty, are themselves above the laws they interpret. And more than 30,000 judicial branch employees — including judicial law clerks, permanent court staff, and federal public defenders — lack workplace protections, due to a legal loophole creating judicial immunity.

I learned the implications of this firsthand when, while serving as a judicial law clerk six years ago, I was harassed and discriminated against, fired, and retaliated against by the judge I worked for. When I tried to hold him accountable for attempting to destroy my career and reputation, I discovered law clerks like me are exempt from Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and all federal anti-discrimination laws. I could not sue my harasser and seek redress. I filed a complaint, but I did not realize the judge’s friends decided whether to discipline him, since judges “self-police” their colleagues (much like Congress).

Judicial clerkships are prestigious first legal jobs where recent law graduates spend a year or two working closely with and learning from judges — researching, writing, going to court, and assisting with judicial decision-making. Clerks gain valuable insight into judges’ thinking, a coveted credential and, if they’re lucky, a lifelong mentor. But law schools almost never discuss potential downsides of clerking — the small, isolated, hierarchical work environment that’s ripe for abuse; lack of workplace protections and oversight; enormous power disparity between judge and clerk; and judges’ far-reaching power over clerks’ careers. Young attorneys are blinded to the hazards inherent in these unregulated work environments.

Because law schools are obsessed with placing as many students as possible into prestigious clerkships, they’re loath to collect and disseminate negative information about judges, necessitating a third-party, independent platform to collect information from graduates and disseminate it to students.

In 2022 I testified in support of the Judiciary Accountability Act (JAA), which would finally extend anti-discrimination and whistleblower protections to the judiciary — protections extended to the other two branches of governmentin 1995.

Soon after, I launched The Legal Accountability Project (LAP), a court accountability and clerkship transparency nonprofit that’s leading the charge against harassment and workplace abuse in the courts.

A key aspect of LAP’s work is its award-winning, nationwide Clerkships Database (basically, “Glassdoor for Judges“), where clerks review their powerful, unaccountable bosses as managers — anonymously if they choose, to ensure candid responses. LAP’s Database — the largest independent repository of clerkship information in the U.S. — already contains nearly 2,000 candid reviews about approximately 1,200 federal and state judges, including information from every state, federal circuit, and most U.S. District Courts. It’s the only way for applicants to identify great bosses to apply to, and bad managers — or downright abusive judges — to avoid. LAP created accountability through transparency: there’s nothing imperious judges hate more than negative feedback they cannot see, dispute, or silence clerks from sharing through threats of retaliation.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Federal judges are above the law in the workplace: How a “Glassdoor for Judges” will help – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #DonaldTrump #Education #FederalJudges #GlassdoorForJudges #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #Judges #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Politics #Resistance #Science #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates #Workplace

Back in Business – U.S. Congress – GovTrak.us

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Back in Business

Sept. 5, 2025 · by Amy West

Ongoing Business

Rep. Massie’s (R-KY4) discharge petition to force a vote on releasing all of the Department of Justice’s files on Jeffrey Epstein now has 215 co-sponsors. It needs 218. Only three other Republicans have signed on and they can always remove their names if they think it’s in their interest. There’s no time limit on gathering co-sponsors for a discharge petition, so now it’s just a question of whether Republican voters remain interested enough in the topic to force any of their representatives to sign on or whether the Administration succeeds in preventing any more Republicans from signing on.

Senate Votes

There were two procedural votes on the Senate’s version of the S. 2296: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 (aka NDAA). Because we were asked about “the filibuster” for our August Mailbag and we elided some detail, this is a good and short opportunity to show the detail in action.

This bill is nowhere near becoming law. The actual bill has yet to be voted on in the Senate and there’s a competing version in the House (also not yet voted on). These votes were just moving along the process to get to the vote on the bill.

• Vote 1 on Sept. 2: “Motion to Invoke Cloture: Motion to Proceed to S. 2296”. Because this was a cloture vote, it required 60 votes in support to pass, which it got easily with 84-14. A yes vote meant “yes, I would like to end debate on whether we will move to the motion to proceed”. Successful cloture votes have a practical effect of a two business day wait for the next vote in the process. You can read much more about it from the Congressional Research Service.
• Vote 2 on Sept. 4: “Motion to Proceed on S. 2296: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026”. This vote required only a simple majority, which it exceeded significantly: 83-13. A yes vote in this case meant “yes, I would like to proceed to debate”.

Of these two, Vote 1 was a filibuster vote because it required a 3/5ths majority or 60 votes to pass.

What’s next for the Senate’s FY26 NDAA? Very probably a cloture vote on the bill itself, so another round of 60 votes required, at least a two day wait and then a vote on the bill itself which will need only a simple majority. There may well be lots more interim procedural votes too. It depends on how much negotiation is needed to get to a final product the chamber is willing to vote on. But they will likely follow the same pattern: a higher passage threshold to get going on {X} and a lower passage threshold to pass {X}.

House Votes

These bills are not near passage. Having passed the House, they would need to pass the Senate in identical form. The ones repealing Biden Administration regulations may get through the Senate fairly soon based on the Senate’s actions on previous similar bills, but there’s no timeline for the rest.

• H.R. 747: Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act of 2025, which would place sanctions on Chinese producers of fentanyl and , passed 407-4
• H.R. 4216: Made-in-America Defense Act, which would, according to Quiver Quantitative, streamline and enhance the process for selling defense articles and services to foreign entities, passed 395-20
• H.R. 4553: Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026 passed 214-213
• H.J.Res. 105 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “North Dakota Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan”’ passed 215-211
• H.J.Res. 106 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Central Yukon Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan”” passed 215-210
• H.J.Res. 104 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Miles City Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment”” passed 211-208

Notable Failure

Normally we don’t cover bills/resolutions that don’t pass. However, as the use of censure has become much more frequent in the last few years, we were surprised to see that the attempt to censure Rep. McIver (D-NJ10) failed this week thanks to support for a motion to table (aka kill) the censure resolution from a small number of Republicans.

Rep. McIver has been charged with assaulting law enforcement when ICE officers attempted to arrest the Mayor of Newark after three members of Congress had inspected an ICE facility in Newark and the members of Congress attempted to prevent ICE from doing so. The mayor was briefly detained and then released. The other Congress members were neither detained nor charged. Only McIver was charged. Her case has yet to be resolved.

Then, Rep. Higgins (R-LA3) introduced a resolution censuring McIver for being charged with assault and thus “not reflecting creditably on the House“. According to Axios, Republicans voting for the motion to table included members of the Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee, as is required whenever a member is indicted, has an open investigation into the incident.

Continue/Read Original Article: https://www.govtrack.us/posts/536/2025-09-05_back-in-business

#2025 #America #Congress #DonaldTrump #Education #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #LegislativeUpdate #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Science #Trump #TrumpAdministration #USCongress #UnitedStates

Back in Business – U.S. Congress – GovTrak.us

1. News From Us
2. Legislative Recap

Back in Business

Sept. 5, 2025 · by Amy West

Ongoing Business

Rep. Massie’s (R-KY4) discharge petition to force a vote on releasing all of the Department of Justice’s files on Jeffrey Epstein now has 215 co-sponsors. It needs 218. Only three other Republicans have signed on and they can always remove their names if they think it’s in their interest. There’s no time limit on gathering co-sponsors for a discharge petition, so now it’s just a question of whether Republican voters remain interested enough in the topic to force any of their representatives to sign on or whether the Administration succeeds in preventing any more Republicans from signing on.

Senate Votes

There were two procedural votes on the Senate’s version of the S. 2296: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 (aka NDAA). Because we were asked about “the filibuster” for our August Mailbag and we elided some detail, this is a good and short opportunity to show the detail in action.

This bill is nowhere near becoming law. The actual bill has yet to be voted on in the Senate and there’s a competing version in the House (also not yet voted on). These votes were just moving along the process to get to the vote on the bill.

• Vote 1 on Sept. 2: “Motion to Invoke Cloture: Motion to Proceed to S. 2296”. Because this was a cloture vote, it required 60 votes in support to pass, which it got easily with 84-14. A yes vote meant “yes, I would like to end debate on whether we will move to the motion to proceed”. Successful cloture votes have a practical effect of a two business day wait for the next vote in the process. You can read much more about it from the Congressional Research Service.
• Vote 2 on Sept. 4: “Motion to Proceed on S. 2296: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026”. This vote required only a simple majority, which it exceeded significantly: 83-13. A yes vote in this case meant “yes, I would like to proceed to debate”.

Of these two, Vote 1 was a filibuster vote because it required a 3/5ths majority or 60 votes to pass.

What’s next for the Senate’s FY26 NDAA? Very probably a cloture vote on the bill itself, so another round of 60 votes required, at least a two day wait and then a vote on the bill itself which will need only a simple majority. There may well be lots more interim procedural votes too. It depends on how much negotiation is needed to get to a final product the chamber is willing to vote on. But they will likely follow the same pattern: a higher passage threshold to get going on {X} and a lower passage threshold to pass {X}.

House Votes

These bills are not near passage. Having passed the House, they would need to pass the Senate in identical form. The ones repealing Biden Administration regulations may get through the Senate fairly soon based on the Senate’s actions on previous similar bills, but there’s no timeline for the rest.

• H.R. 747: Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act of 2025, which would place sanctions on Chinese producers of fentanyl and , passed 407-4
• H.R. 4216: Made-in-America Defense Act, which would, according to Quiver Quantitative, streamline and enhance the process for selling defense articles and services to foreign entities, passed 395-20
• H.R. 4553: Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026 passed 214-213
• H.J.Res. 105 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “North Dakota Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan”’ passed 215-211
• H.J.Res. 106 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Central Yukon Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan”” passed 215-210
• H.J.Res. 104 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Miles City Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment”” passed 211-208

Notable Failure

Normally we don’t cover bills/resolutions that don’t pass. However, as the use of censure has become much more frequent in the last few years, we were surprised to see that the attempt to censure Rep. McIver (D-NJ10) failed this week thanks to support for a motion to table (aka kill) the censure resolution from a small number of Republicans.

Rep. McIver has been charged with assaulting law enforcement when ICE officers attempted to arrest the Mayor of Newark after three members of Congress had inspected an ICE facility in Newark and the members of Congress attempted to prevent ICE from doing so. The mayor was briefly detained and then released. The other Congress members were neither detained nor charged. Only McIver was charged. Her case has yet to be resolved.

Then, Rep. Higgins (R-LA3) introduced a resolution censuring McIver for being charged with assault and thus “not reflecting creditably on the House“. According to Axios, Republicans voting for the motion to table included members of the Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee, as is required whenever a member is indicted, has an open investigation into the incident.

Continue/Read Original Article: https://www.govtrack.us/posts/536/2025-09-05_back-in-business

#2025 #America #Congress #DonaldTrump #Education #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #LegislativeUpdate #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Science #Trump #TrumpAdministration #USCongress #UnitedStates

Back in Business – U.S. Congress – GovTrak.us

1. News From Us
2. Legislative Recap

Back in Business

Sept. 5, 2025 · by Amy West

Ongoing Business

Rep. Massie’s (R-KY4) discharge petition to force a vote on releasing all of the Department of Justice’s files on Jeffrey Epstein now has 215 co-sponsors. It needs 218. Only three other Republicans have signed on and they can always remove their names if they think it’s in their interest. There’s no time limit on gathering co-sponsors for a discharge petition, so now it’s just a question of whether Republican voters remain interested enough in the topic to force any of their representatives to sign on or whether the Administration succeeds in preventing any more Republicans from signing on.

Senate Votes

There were two procedural votes on the Senate’s version of the S. 2296: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 (aka NDAA). Because we were asked about “the filibuster” for our August Mailbag and we elided some detail, this is a good and short opportunity to show the detail in action.

This bill is nowhere near becoming law. The actual bill has yet to be voted on in the Senate and there’s a competing version in the House (also not yet voted on). These votes were just moving along the process to get to the vote on the bill.

• Vote 1 on Sept. 2: “Motion to Invoke Cloture: Motion to Proceed to S. 2296”. Because this was a cloture vote, it required 60 votes in support to pass, which it got easily with 84-14. A yes vote meant “yes, I would like to end debate on whether we will move to the motion to proceed”. Successful cloture votes have a practical effect of a two business day wait for the next vote in the process. You can read much more about it from the Congressional Research Service.
• Vote 2 on Sept. 4: “Motion to Proceed on S. 2296: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026”. This vote required only a simple majority, which it exceeded significantly: 83-13. A yes vote in this case meant “yes, I would like to proceed to debate”.

Of these two, Vote 1 was a filibuster vote because it required a 3/5ths majority or 60 votes to pass.

What’s next for the Senate’s FY26 NDAA? Very probably a cloture vote on the bill itself, so another round of 60 votes required, at least a two day wait and then a vote on the bill itself which will need only a simple majority. There may well be lots more interim procedural votes too. It depends on how much negotiation is needed to get to a final product the chamber is willing to vote on. But they will likely follow the same pattern: a higher passage threshold to get going on {X} and a lower passage threshold to pass {X}.

House Votes

These bills are not near passage. Having passed the House, they would need to pass the Senate in identical form. The ones repealing Biden Administration regulations may get through the Senate fairly soon based on the Senate’s actions on previous similar bills, but there’s no timeline for the rest.

• H.R. 747: Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act of 2025, which would place sanctions on Chinese producers of fentanyl and , passed 407-4
• H.R. 4216: Made-in-America Defense Act, which would, according to Quiver Quantitative, streamline and enhance the process for selling defense articles and services to foreign entities, passed 395-20
• H.R. 4553: Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026 passed 214-213
• H.J.Res. 105 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “North Dakota Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan”’ passed 215-211
• H.J.Res. 106 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Central Yukon Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan”” passed 215-210
• H.J.Res. 104 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Miles City Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment”” passed 211-208

Notable Failure

Normally we don’t cover bills/resolutions that don’t pass. However, as the use of censure has become much more frequent in the last few years, we were surprised to see that the attempt to censure Rep. McIver (D-NJ10) failed this week thanks to support for a motion to table (aka kill) the censure resolution from a small number of Republicans.

Rep. McIver has been charged with assaulting law enforcement when ICE officers attempted to arrest the Mayor of Newark after three members of Congress had inspected an ICE facility in Newark and the members of Congress attempted to prevent ICE from doing so. The mayor was briefly detained and then released. The other Congress members were neither detained nor charged. Only McIver was charged. Her case has yet to be resolved.

Then, Rep. Higgins (R-LA3) introduced a resolution censuring McIver for being charged with assault and thus “not reflecting creditably on the House“. According to Axios, Republicans voting for the motion to table included members of the Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee, as is required whenever a member is indicted, has an open investigation into the incident.

Continue/Read Original Article: https://www.govtrack.us/posts/536/2025-09-05_back-in-business

#2025 #America #Congress #DonaldTrump #Education #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #LegislativeUpdate #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Science #Trump #TrumpAdministration #USCongress #UnitedStates

Back in Business – U.S. Congress – GovTrak.us

1. News From Us
2. Legislative Recap

Back in Business

Sept. 5, 2025 · by Amy West

Ongoing Business

Rep. Massie’s (R-KY4) discharge petition to force a vote on releasing all of the Department of Justice’s files on Jeffrey Epstein now has 215 co-sponsors. It needs 218. Only three other Republicans have signed on and they can always remove their names if they think it’s in their interest. There’s no time limit on gathering co-sponsors for a discharge petition, so now it’s just a question of whether Republican voters remain interested enough in the topic to force any of their representatives to sign on or whether the Administration succeeds in preventing any more Republicans from signing on.

Senate Votes

There were two procedural votes on the Senate’s version of the S. 2296: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 (aka NDAA). Because we were asked about “the filibuster” for our August Mailbag and we elided some detail, this is a good and short opportunity to show the detail in action.

This bill is nowhere near becoming law. The actual bill has yet to be voted on in the Senate and there’s a competing version in the House (also not yet voted on). These votes were just moving along the process to get to the vote on the bill.

• Vote 1 on Sept. 2: “Motion to Invoke Cloture: Motion to Proceed to S. 2296”. Because this was a cloture vote, it required 60 votes in support to pass, which it got easily with 84-14. A yes vote meant “yes, I would like to end debate on whether we will move to the motion to proceed”. Successful cloture votes have a practical effect of a two business day wait for the next vote in the process. You can read much more about it from the Congressional Research Service.
• Vote 2 on Sept. 4: “Motion to Proceed on S. 2296: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026”. This vote required only a simple majority, which it exceeded significantly: 83-13. A yes vote in this case meant “yes, I would like to proceed to debate”.

Of these two, Vote 1 was a filibuster vote because it required a 3/5ths majority or 60 votes to pass.

What’s next for the Senate’s FY26 NDAA? Very probably a cloture vote on the bill itself, so another round of 60 votes required, at least a two day wait and then a vote on the bill itself which will need only a simple majority. There may well be lots more interim procedural votes too. It depends on how much negotiation is needed to get to a final product the chamber is willing to vote on. But they will likely follow the same pattern: a higher passage threshold to get going on {X} and a lower passage threshold to pass {X}.

House Votes

These bills are not near passage. Having passed the House, they would need to pass the Senate in identical form. The ones repealing Biden Administration regulations may get through the Senate fairly soon based on the Senate’s actions on previous similar bills, but there’s no timeline for the rest.

• H.R. 747: Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act of 2025, which would place sanctions on Chinese producers of fentanyl and , passed 407-4
• H.R. 4216: Made-in-America Defense Act, which would, according to Quiver Quantitative, streamline and enhance the process for selling defense articles and services to foreign entities, passed 395-20
• H.R. 4553: Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026 passed 214-213
• H.J.Res. 105 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “North Dakota Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan”’ passed 215-211
• H.J.Res. 106 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Central Yukon Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan”” passed 215-210
• H.J.Res. 104 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Miles City Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment”” passed 211-208

Notable Failure

Normally we don’t cover bills/resolutions that don’t pass. However, as the use of censure has become much more frequent in the last few years, we were surprised to see that the attempt to censure Rep. McIver (D-NJ10) failed this week thanks to support for a motion to table (aka kill) the censure resolution from a small number of Republicans.

Rep. McIver has been charged with assaulting law enforcement when ICE officers attempted to arrest the Mayor of Newark after three members of Congress had inspected an ICE facility in Newark and the members of Congress attempted to prevent ICE from doing so. The mayor was briefly detained and then released. The other Congress members were neither detained nor charged. Only McIver was charged. Her case has yet to be resolved.

Then, Rep. Higgins (R-LA3) introduced a resolution censuring McIver for being charged with assault and thus “not reflecting creditably on the House“. According to Axios, Republicans voting for the motion to table included members of the Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee, as is required whenever a member is indicted, has an open investigation into the incident.

Continue/Read Original Article: https://www.govtrack.us/posts/536/2025-09-05_back-in-business

#2025 #America #Congress #DonaldTrump #Education #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #LegislativeUpdate #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Science #Trump #TrumpAdministration #USCongress #UnitedStates

Back in Business – U.S. Congress – GovTrak.us

1. News From Us
2. Legislative Recap

Back in Business

Sept. 5, 2025 · by Amy West

Ongoing Business

Rep. Massie’s (R-KY4) discharge petition to force a vote on releasing all of the Department of Justice’s files on Jeffrey Epstein now has 215 co-sponsors. It needs 218. Only three other Republicans have signed on and they can always remove their names if they think it’s in their interest. There’s no time limit on gathering co-sponsors for a discharge petition, so now it’s just a question of whether Republican voters remain interested enough in the topic to force any of their representatives to sign on or whether the Administration succeeds in preventing any more Republicans from signing on.

Senate Votes

There were two procedural votes on the Senate’s version of the S. 2296: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 (aka NDAA). Because we were asked about “the filibuster” for our August Mailbag and we elided some detail, this is a good and short opportunity to show the detail in action.

This bill is nowhere near becoming law. The actual bill has yet to be voted on in the Senate and there’s a competing version in the House (also not yet voted on). These votes were just moving along the process to get to the vote on the bill.

• Vote 1 on Sept. 2: “Motion to Invoke Cloture: Motion to Proceed to S. 2296”. Because this was a cloture vote, it required 60 votes in support to pass, which it got easily with 84-14. A yes vote meant “yes, I would like to end debate on whether we will move to the motion to proceed”. Successful cloture votes have a practical effect of a two business day wait for the next vote in the process. You can read much more about it from the Congressional Research Service.
• Vote 2 on Sept. 4: “Motion to Proceed on S. 2296: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026”. This vote required only a simple majority, which it exceeded significantly: 83-13. A yes vote in this case meant “yes, I would like to proceed to debate”.

Of these two, Vote 1 was a filibuster vote because it required a 3/5ths majority or 60 votes to pass.

What’s next for the Senate’s FY26 NDAA? Very probably a cloture vote on the bill itself, so another round of 60 votes required, at least a two day wait and then a vote on the bill itself which will need only a simple majority. There may well be lots more interim procedural votes too. It depends on how much negotiation is needed to get to a final product the chamber is willing to vote on. But they will likely follow the same pattern: a higher passage threshold to get going on {X} and a lower passage threshold to pass {X}.

House Votes

These bills are not near passage. Having passed the House, they would need to pass the Senate in identical form. The ones repealing Biden Administration regulations may get through the Senate fairly soon based on the Senate’s actions on previous similar bills, but there’s no timeline for the rest.

• H.R. 747: Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act of 2025, which would place sanctions on Chinese producers of fentanyl and , passed 407-4
• H.R. 4216: Made-in-America Defense Act, which would, according to Quiver Quantitative, streamline and enhance the process for selling defense articles and services to foreign entities, passed 395-20
• H.R. 4553: Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026 passed 214-213
• H.J.Res. 105 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “North Dakota Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan”’ passed 215-211
• H.J.Res. 106 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Central Yukon Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan”” passed 215-210
• H.J.Res. 104 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Miles City Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment”” passed 211-208

Notable Failure

Normally we don’t cover bills/resolutions that don’t pass. However, as the use of censure has become much more frequent in the last few years, we were surprised to see that the attempt to censure Rep. McIver (D-NJ10) failed this week thanks to support for a motion to table (aka kill) the censure resolution from a small number of Republicans.

Rep. McIver has been charged with assaulting law enforcement when ICE officers attempted to arrest the Mayor of Newark after three members of Congress had inspected an ICE facility in Newark and the members of Congress attempted to prevent ICE from doing so. The mayor was briefly detained and then released. The other Congress members were neither detained nor charged. Only McIver was charged. Her case has yet to be resolved.

Then, Rep. Higgins (R-LA3) introduced a resolution censuring McIver for being charged with assault and thus “not reflecting creditably on the House“. According to Axios, Republicans voting for the motion to table included members of the Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee, as is required whenever a member is indicted, has an open investigation into the incident.

Continue/Read Original Article: https://www.govtrack.us/posts/536/2025-09-05_back-in-business

#2025 #America #Congress #DonaldTrump #Education #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #LegislativeUpdate #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Science #Trump #TrumpAdministration #USCongress #UnitedStates

Try and Stop Me – GovTrack.us

1. News From Us
2. Legislative Preview

Try and Stop Me

Sept. 3, 2025 · by Amy West

House and Senate Return

The House has 12 committee meetings scheduled. On Tuesday, there will be a Rules Committee meeting to set debate rules for three resolutions canceling Biden Administration regulations and for the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2026. House Appropriations will have markup hearings on the Fiscal Year 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Bill and the Financial Services and General Government Bill (also for fiscal year 2026). The House has 16 bills on its schedule this week on a wide range of topics.

The Senate returned late Tuesday to, per Craig Caplan on X, “vote at 5:30pm on whether to advance the 2026 defense programs and policy bill. This first floor action on the NDAA needs 60 Yes votes to advance it.” (The National Defense Authorization Act, aka the NDAA, advanced 84-14 on Tuesday evening.) There are nine committee hearings, none on appropriations, five on pending nominations.

Meanwhile

Epstein Files Transparency Act

Rep. Massie (R-KY4) has a resolution demanding the release of all Epstein files. He is filing it as a discharge petition which will need 218 co-sponsors. Currently, he has 134 with three Republicans besides himself.

A discharge petition is a tool for House members not in leadership to force votes on topics that leadership doesn’t want to vote on. The first hurdle is to get 218 co-sponsors. Once the petition has 218 co-sponsors, the member may introduce it which will require that the House vote on it within two legislative days.

Massie’s effort might have been doomed except that releasing the Epstein files is popular with the Republican base. Releasing them is not popular with the President though. Exploiting this intra-Republican conflict appeals to Democrats and so about 130 of them have signed on so far. It will take all of the Democrats signing on as well as a few more Republicans to get to 218. We’ll let you know how far Massie gets.

Government Shutdown?

Even with the appropriations work listed above, Congress will almost certainly not get all 12 regular appropriations bills passed through both chambers by September 30, the last day of the fiscal year. After that, government agencies cannot spend funds and will shut down. (See our post Learn how Congress directs government spending for more details).

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Try and Stop Me – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #Congress #DonaldTrump #Education #FallTerm #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #ReturnForCongress #Science #Trump #TrumpAdministration #USCongress #UnitedStates

Try and Stop Me – GovTrack.us

1. News From Us
2. Legislative Preview

Try and Stop Me

Sept. 3, 2025 · by Amy West

House and Senate Return

The House has 12 committee meetings scheduled. On Tuesday, there will be a Rules Committee meeting to set debate rules for three resolutions canceling Biden Administration regulations and for the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2026. House Appropriations will have markup hearings on the Fiscal Year 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Bill and the Financial Services and General Government Bill (also for fiscal year 2026). The House has 16 bills on its schedule this week on a wide range of topics.

The Senate returned late Tuesday to, per Craig Caplan on X, “vote at 5:30pm on whether to advance the 2026 defense programs and policy bill. This first floor action on the NDAA needs 60 Yes votes to advance it.” (The National Defense Authorization Act, aka the NDAA, advanced 84-14 on Tuesday evening.) There are nine committee hearings, none on appropriations, five on pending nominations.

Meanwhile

Epstein Files Transparency Act

Rep. Massie (R-KY4) has a resolution demanding the release of all Epstein files. He is filing it as a discharge petition which will need 218 co-sponsors. Currently, he has 134 with three Republicans besides himself.

A discharge petition is a tool for House members not in leadership to force votes on topics that leadership doesn’t want to vote on. The first hurdle is to get 218 co-sponsors. Once the petition has 218 co-sponsors, the member may introduce it which will require that the House vote on it within two legislative days.

Massie’s effort might have been doomed except that releasing the Epstein files is popular with the Republican base. Releasing them is not popular with the President though. Exploiting this intra-Republican conflict appeals to Democrats and so about 130 of them have signed on so far. It will take all of the Democrats signing on as well as a few more Republicans to get to 218. We’ll let you know how far Massie gets.

Government Shutdown?

Even with the appropriations work listed above, Congress will almost certainly not get all 12 regular appropriations bills passed through both chambers by September 30, the last day of the fiscal year. After that, government agencies cannot spend funds and will shut down. (See our post Learn how Congress directs government spending for more details).

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Try and Stop Me – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #Congress #DonaldTrump #Education #FallTerm #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #ReturnForCongress #Science #Trump #TrumpAdministration #USCongress #UnitedStates

Try and Stop Me – GovTrack.us

1. News From Us
2. Legislative Preview

Try and Stop Me

Sept. 3, 2025 · by Amy West

House and Senate Return

The House has 12 committee meetings scheduled. On Tuesday, there will be a Rules Committee meeting to set debate rules for three resolutions canceling Biden Administration regulations and for the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2026. House Appropriations will have markup hearings on the Fiscal Year 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Bill and the Financial Services and General Government Bill (also for fiscal year 2026). The House has 16 bills on its schedule this week on a wide range of topics.

The Senate returned late Tuesday to, per Craig Caplan on X, “vote at 5:30pm on whether to advance the 2026 defense programs and policy bill. This first floor action on the NDAA needs 60 Yes votes to advance it.” (The National Defense Authorization Act, aka the NDAA, advanced 84-14 on Tuesday evening.) There are nine committee hearings, none on appropriations, five on pending nominations.

Meanwhile

Epstein Files Transparency Act

Rep. Massie (R-KY4) has a resolution demanding the release of all Epstein files. He is filing it as a discharge petition which will need 218 co-sponsors. Currently, he has 134 with three Republicans besides himself.

A discharge petition is a tool for House members not in leadership to force votes on topics that leadership doesn’t want to vote on. The first hurdle is to get 218 co-sponsors. Once the petition has 218 co-sponsors, the member may introduce it which will require that the House vote on it within two legislative days.

Massie’s effort might have been doomed except that releasing the Epstein files is popular with the Republican base. Releasing them is not popular with the President though. Exploiting this intra-Republican conflict appeals to Democrats and so about 130 of them have signed on so far. It will take all of the Democrats signing on as well as a few more Republicans to get to 218. We’ll let you know how far Massie gets.

Government Shutdown?

Even with the appropriations work listed above, Congress will almost certainly not get all 12 regular appropriations bills passed through both chambers by September 30, the last day of the fiscal year. After that, government agencies cannot spend funds and will shut down. (See our post Learn how Congress directs government spending for more details).

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Try and Stop Me – GovTrack.us

#2025 #America #Congress #DonaldTrump #Education #FallTerm #GovTrack #GovTrackUs #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #ReturnForCongress #Science #Trump #TrumpAdministration #USCongress #UnitedStates

Try and Stop Me – GovTrack.us

1. News From Us
2. Legislative Preview

Try and Stop Me

Sept. 3, 2025 · by Amy West

House and Senate Return

The House has 12 committee meetings scheduled. On Tuesday, there will be a Rules Committee meeting to set debate rules for three resolutions canceling Biden Administration regulations and for the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2026. House Appropriations will have markup hearings on the Fiscal Year 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Bill and the Financial Services and General Government Bill (also for fiscal year 2026). The House has 16 bills on its schedule this week on a wide range of topics.

The Senate returned late Tuesday to, per Craig Caplan on X, “vote at 5:30pm on whether to advance the 2026 defense programs and policy bill. This first floor action on the NDAA needs 60 Yes votes to advance it.” (The National Defense Authorization Act, aka the NDAA, advanced 84-14 on Tuesday evening.) There are nine committee hearings, none on appropriations, five on pending nominations.

Meanwhile

Epstein Files Transparency Act

Rep. Massie (R-KY4) has a resolution demanding the release of all Epstein files. He is filing it as a discharge petition which will need 218 co-sponsors. Currently, he has 134 with three Republicans besides himself.

A discharge petition is a tool for House members not in leadership to force votes on topics that leadership doesn’t want to vote on. The first hurdle is to get 218 co-sponsors. Once the petition has 218 co-sponsors, the member may introduce it which will require that the House vote on it within two legislative days.

Massie’s effort might have been doomed except that releasing the Epstein files is popular with the Republican base. Releasing them is not popular with the President though. Exploiting this intra-Republican conflict appeals to Democrats and so about 130 of them have signed on so far. It will take all of the Democrats signing on as well as a few more Republicans to get to 218. We’ll let you know how far Massie gets.

Government Shutdown?

Even with the appropriations work listed above, Congress will almost certainly not get all 12 regular appropriations bills passed through both chambers by September 30, the last day of the fiscal year. After that, government agencies cannot spend funds and will shut down. (See our post Learn how Congress directs government spending for more details).

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Try and Stop Me – GovTrack.us

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Try and Stop Me – GovTrack.us

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Try and Stop Me

Sept. 3, 2025 · by Amy West

House and Senate Return

The House has 12 committee meetings scheduled. On Tuesday, there will be a Rules Committee meeting to set debate rules for three resolutions canceling Biden Administration regulations and for the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2026. House Appropriations will have markup hearings on the Fiscal Year 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Bill and the Financial Services and General Government Bill (also for fiscal year 2026). The House has 16 bills on its schedule this week on a wide range of topics.

The Senate returned late Tuesday to, per Craig Caplan on X, “vote at 5:30pm on whether to advance the 2026 defense programs and policy bill. This first floor action on the NDAA needs 60 Yes votes to advance it.” (The National Defense Authorization Act, aka the NDAA, advanced 84-14 on Tuesday evening.) There are nine committee hearings, none on appropriations, five on pending nominations.

Meanwhile

Epstein Files Transparency Act

Rep. Massie (R-KY4) has a resolution demanding the release of all Epstein files. He is filing it as a discharge petition which will need 218 co-sponsors. Currently, he has 134 with three Republicans besides himself.

A discharge petition is a tool for House members not in leadership to force votes on topics that leadership doesn’t want to vote on. The first hurdle is to get 218 co-sponsors. Once the petition has 218 co-sponsors, the member may introduce it which will require that the House vote on it within two legislative days.

Massie’s effort might have been doomed except that releasing the Epstein files is popular with the Republican base. Releasing them is not popular with the President though. Exploiting this intra-Republican conflict appeals to Democrats and so about 130 of them have signed on so far. It will take all of the Democrats signing on as well as a few more Republicans to get to 218. We’ll let you know how far Massie gets.

Government Shutdown?

Even with the appropriations work listed above, Congress will almost certainly not get all 12 regular appropriations bills passed through both chambers by September 30, the last day of the fiscal year. After that, government agencies cannot spend funds and will shut down. (See our post Learn how Congress directs government spending for more details).

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Learn how Congress directs government spending – GovTrack.us

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Learn how Congress directs government spending

Sept. 1, 2025 · by Joshua Tauberer and Amy West

Continuing our mailbag, this week we have a question that is perfectly timed for the potential government shutdown looming at the end of this month:  Russ, Jack, and bear6 asked us to explain how the government spending bills that we’ve talked about this year all relate to each other.

To explain it, we have to start a few steps back. Every dollar that the federal government spends is authorized by a law that starts as a bill in Congress — the Constitution requires that. There are two broad ways that Congress writes those bills:

The first are laws that direct payments to individuals or entities based on a benefit formula, such as entitlements like Social Security and Medicare and the federal portion of Medicaid, TANF, SSI, unemployment insurance, and SNAP. This is called, in jargon, “mandatory spending.” Mandatory spending makes up about 60% of federal spending, and these laws typically remain in effect until they are repealed. The Republican signature bill formally named the One Big Beautiful Bill, projected to add $4.1 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, affected this type of spending (and taxes).

The federal government also runs on fiscal years from October 1 to September 30, and about 30% of federal spending is tied to fiscal years. Since this type of funding lapses at the end of a fiscal year, or sometimes sooner, Congress must re-enact the funding or agencies funded this way must stop operating, which is informally called a shutdown. The recent bill that defunded foreign aid (USAID) and public broadcasting (CPB) was a “rescissions bill” which affected this so-called “discretionary” spending.

Let’s go deeper.

Discretionary Spending (Appropriations & Authorizations Bills)

In any given year, you may be hearing about the appropriations and authorizations bills that direct “discretionary” spending for the next fiscal year. It’s currently September 2025, so Congress is now working on fiscal year 2026, abbreviated FY26, which starts on October 1.

“Appropriations” are part of how Congress directs discretionary spending. For example, Congress might “appropriate” $50 million to a hypothetical Department of Cats and Dogs’s Cuddling Program for FY26.

Appropriations are provisions in law passed by Congress and signed by the President (or, very rarely, by overriding the President’s veto) that direct federal dollars to be spent by an agency for a broad purpose. Appropriations are written by the powerful House and Senate Appropriations Committees based on their spending priorities for the whole of the government.

If there are no appropriations bills for a fiscal year, that’s when a government shutdown occurs because it is also unlawful for agencies to spend money that they have not been appropriated.

The most recent appropriations law is H.R. 1968: Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025, signed by President Trump on March 15. This one bill consolidated the discretionary spending for the whole federal government, but often Congress divides the agencies up among 12 separate bills.

An appropriation is not enough for an agency to spend the funds. Funds can only be spent with both an appropriation and an authorization. An authorization is also a provision in law that looks a lot like an appropriation. The difference is that authorizations are made in bills that come out of the committees that have oversight jurisdiction over the parts of the government spending the funds. This ensures that the legislators most familiar with the government programs have a separate say in how those programs are funded.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Learn how Congress directs government spending – GovTrack.us

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