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

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 Lindsey Graham (R-SC), said he was objecting to this plan unless a repealed-in-the-House provision was reinstated.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 »

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

Venezuela and Congress – GovTrack.us

Venezuela and Congress

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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

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 »

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.

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

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

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The Shutdown is Over – GovTrack.us

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

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

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

Shutdown Update; Senate Votes – GovTrack.us

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

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