First Things First

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The Supreme Court handed criminal justice reform advocates a pair of setbacks on Thursday, ruling in two cases that limit how federal prisoners can seek sentence reductions under the bipartisan First Step Act and prompting a sharp rebuke from Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), one of the law’s chief architects.

In an 8-1 decision in Fernandez v. United States, the Court held that federal inmates cannot use the First Step Act’s compassionate-release provision to challenge the validity of their convictions. The majority concluded that such claims must instead proceed through the traditional habeas corpus process.

The Court also ruled 6-3 in Rutherford v. United States that prisoners serving so-called “stacked” sentences imposed before the First Step Act’s enactment cannot automatically seek sentence reductions based solely on Congress’s later decision to change the law.

The tandem rulings narrowed the pathways available to incarcerated people seeking relief under one of the most consequential criminal justice reform laws enacted in decades, a bipartisan measure that expanded compassionate release, reduced some mandatory minimum penalties and made portions of the Fair Sentencing Act retroactive.

“The Supreme Court just significantly weakened a landmark, bipartisan criminal justice reform law in defiance of Congressional intent,” Durbin said in a statement, adding that lawmakers would explore legislative options to preserve what he described as the law’s original purpose.

The decisions mark a notable victory for a more restrictive reading of the statute. But Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who dissented in both cases, argued the majority interpreted the law too narrowly and failed to give full effect to Congress’s effort to expand judicial discretion when considering requests for relief.

The First Step Act, signed into law by former President Donald Trump in 2018 after years of bipartisan negotiations led by Durbin, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), has become a centerpiece of the federal government’s “smart on crime” reform efforts. Supporters point to thousands of sentence reductions and compassionate-release grants, as well as recidivism rates among participants that are significantly lower than the federal prison system as a whole.

Durbin’s pledge to pursue legislative fixes suggests the Court’s rulings may reopen a debate many lawmakers thought Congress had settled eight years ago about how much authority federal judges should have to revisit lengthy prison sentences after they have been imposed.

Programming note: Today’s edition is the final Congress Nerd Sunrise before the newsletter goes on hiatus for the summer beginning in June.

Once Upon a Hill isn’t slowing down. Paid subscribers will continue receiving five editions each week: Congress Nerd Sunday, a new weekly look-ahead at the biggest legislative and political storylines shaping Washington for the upcoming week, plus Congress Nerd Daily on Monday through Thursday evenings with the reporting, analysis and Capitol Hill intelligence they’ve come to expect from Sunset.

If you’re on the free list, you’ll receive Monday and Wednesday editions of Congress Nerd Daily.

The shift will allow me to spend more time on deeply sourced enterprise reporting, ambitious features outside the daily news cycle and expanded coverage of the summer campaign season as Congress barrels toward another high-stakes stretch on appropriations, reconciliation, surveillance powers and the 2026 midterms.

Sunrise has been a meaningful part of Once Upon a Hill’s growth and evolution over the past year, and I’m grateful to everyone who made it part of their morning routine. My goal with this next chapter is simple: fewer production demands, more reporting muscle and an even stronger Congress Nerd for the months ahead.

As always, thank you for reading and supporting independent congressional journalism.

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What Paid Subscribers are Reading

In last evening’s Congress Nerd Sunset, I reported on a federal judge’s decision not to immediately block President Trump’s executive order targeting voting by mail and citizenship verification, and why Democrats see the ruling as part of a broader battle over election rules ahead of the midterms. The story also explores growing frustration among some Democratic strategists who worry the party is treating voting-rights fights as legal disputes rather than political ones, even as leaders like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) ramp up election-protection efforts. Still on the free plan? Upgrade your subscription for full access to this report and all future editions of Sunset.

Happenings

The House will meet at 12 p.m. in a pro forma session.

The Senate is out.

President Trump will receive his intelligence briefing at 11 a.m. and participate in a policy meeting at 1:3o p.m. He will sign executive orders at 3:30 p.m. before another policy meeting at 4:30 p.m.

In the Know

— Inflation accelerated again in April, with the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge rising 3.8% from a year earlier while core inflation climbed 3.3%, complicating hopes for near-term interest-rate cuts. The report also showed consumers are increasingly relying on savings to sustain spending, with the personal saving rate falling to 2.6%, its lowest level in roughly four years.

— House Democrats escalated their criticism of the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files after the Justice Department confirmed that former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s transcribed interview before the House Oversight Committee later this morning will not be videotaped. Democrats argue the decision shields Bondi from public scrutiny over what they describe as the administration’s mishandling of the files, while Republicans have shown little appetite for extending an investigation that has become a political headache for the White House.

— Senate Democrats urged the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to produce its own estimate of the cost of President Trump’s war in Iran, arguing that Pentagon figures have been inconsistent and may significantly understate the conflict’s true price tag. Led by Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Chuck Schumer, the lawmakers say an independent analysis is needed as the administration reportedly prepares to seek up to $200 billion in additional war funding on top of its proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget.

— More than 150 congressional Democrats joined a legal effort to block President Trump’s planned White House ballroom, arguing in a newly filed amicus brief that the administration cannot move forward with demolishing and rebuilding the East Wing without congressional approval. The filing comes after Senate Democrats successfully challenged a proposed $1 billion reconciliation provision tied to security upgrades for Trump’s planned White House ballroom, though broader questions about future federal funding for the project remain unresolved.

First Things First

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Hours after Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) on Wednesday morning unveiled the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act, lawmakers in both parties raised concerns that the framework either does too little to shield schools from mounting legal exposure or too much to restore NCAA control over athletes.

The early reaction to the legislation underscores the difficult political balancing act facing senators trying to stabilize college athletics without alienating either schools or athletes.

House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and House Education and Workforce Chair Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) warned the legislation leaves unresolved what many House Republicans increasingly view as the central question hanging over college sports: whether student-athletes will ultimately be treated as employees.

The Republican chairmen argued that without resolving employment status, schools could remain exposed to costly litigation and financial pressures that threaten smaller athletic departments, women’s sports and Olympic programs.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) criticized the proposal from the opposite direction, arguing the framework appears designed primarily to protect the NCAA and wealthy athletic departments rather than athletes themselves.

Murphy said the legislation would limit athlete compensation while granting the NCAA antitrust protections unavailable to most industries, even as coaches, athletic directors and conference executives continue collecting massive salaries.

Notably absent were immediate public responses from several House Democrats who helped derail the SCORE Act last week, including Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) and senior House Democratic leaders who had become increasingly vocal critics of the NCAA and major conferences during the House debate.

Conference leaders, meanwhile, cautiously welcomed the Senate effort while stopping short of fully endorsing the legislation.

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said the conference appreciated Cruz and Cantwell’s efforts to “seek solutions for college sports” but stressed the league would continue reviewing the bill before drawing conclusions about its merits.

Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti thanked the senators for working to restore “stability” to college athletics, while Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark praised the legislation’s attempt to “help build a sustainable future for college sports.” ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips similarly framed the proposal as part of a broader effort to preserve opportunities for future student-athletes.

The bipartisan legislation would create a national NIL standard overriding state laws, preserve the House settlement’s roughly $20.5 million annual revenue-sharing framework and give the NCAA and conferences limited antitrust protections to enforce recruiting, transfer and compensation rules.

The bill would also crack down on booster-backed “sham NIL deals,” limit athletes to one unrestricted transfer before future moves could trigger sit-out penalties and prohibit professional athletes from returning to college competition after signing pro contracts.

A Republican Senate Commerce aide described the proposal as an attempt to restore practical amateurism for the modern era by bringing order to a college sports landscape increasingly defined by NIL bidding wars, transfer portal chaos, conference consolidation and litigation.

But the mixed reaction suggested the legislation may face the same political squeeze that has doomed previous congressional attempts to regulate college athletics: Republicans worried the bill does not go far enough to protect schools from labor exposure and lawsuits, while Democrats and athlete advocates remain skeptical it gives too much power back to the NCAA and the richest conferences.

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What Paid Subscribers are Reading

In last evening’s Congress Nerd Sunset, I broke down the bipartisan Cruz-Cantwell proposal to regulate college athletics and how Senate negotiators are attempting to strike a delicate balance between athlete compensation and restoring order to the NIL and transfer portal chaos reshaping the sport—while confronting growing backlash from athletes, Democrats and civil-rights groups who fear the framework gives too much power back to the NCAA and the richest conferences. Still on the free plan? Upgrade your subscription for full access to this report and all future editions of Sunset.

Happenings

The House is out.

The Senate will meet at 3:30 p.m. for a pro forma session.

President Trump will participate in a pre-tape interview at 10 a.m., signing time at 2 p.m. and a policy meeting at 3:30 p.m.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will hold a White House press briefing at 2 p.m.

In the Know

— Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) publicly rebuked former Rep. Colin Allred on Wednesday after his runoff victory over Rep. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), exposing fresh tensions inside the Democratic coalition over representation following the Texas primary runoffs the night before.

In a statement issued by the Congressional Equality Caucus’s political arm, Takano and Torres praised Johnson’s campaign while warning her defeat could leave Texas—and potentially the broader South—without openly LGBTQ+ representation in Congress.

“Many in our community remain deeply hurt by Colin Allred’s decision to challenge one of our own,” they said. “As he moves forward, he bears a responsibility to help heal those divisions and rebuild trust with the communities impacted by this race.”

The statement marked one of the sharpest public responses from Democratic lawmakers following Tuesday’s runoff elections and underscored the difficult tradeoffs national Democrats navigated throughout the Texas cycle between identity-based representation and perceived general-election strength.

Allred defeated Johnson in a closely watched North Texas runoff that became a proxy battle over the party’s future, generational leadership and coalition politics. National Democrats viewed Allred as one of the party’s strongest statewide communicators after his 2024 Senate campaign against Sen. Cruz, while Johnson’s allies argued Democrats should not push aside one of the South’s few openly LGBTQ+ members of Congress in pursuit of electoral pragmatism.

Equality PAC stopped short of opposing Allred going forward, but the group’s unusually candid statement suggested some frustration inside LGBTQ+ Democratic circles may outlast the runoff itself.

— Republicans and Democrats in the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus launched a new working group aimed at curbing partisan gerrymandering, injecting a small but notable cross-aisle collaborative effort into the year-long redistricting wars that exploded after President Trump pushed Texas Republicans last summer to aggressively redraw the state’s congressional map ahead of the midterms.

The new task force, announced by Problem Solvers Caucus co-chairs Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Rep. a (D-N.Y.), will explore reforms to what members described as a system in which “politicians often choose their voters instead of voters choosing their representatives.” The working group comes as both parties remain locked in escalating legal and political battles over congressional maps following the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which, as you know by now, narrowed the practical reach of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and accelerated partisan remapping fights across the South.

The bipartisan panel will be co-chaired by Reps. Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.), Ed Case (D-Hawaii), Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and includes a politically diverse mix of battleground-district lawmakers from both parties.

The effort is unlikely to produce immediate legislative breakthroughs in a divided Congress, particularly because the Constitution gives states broad authority over redistricting. But the announcement underscores how the fallout from the Texas wars has reverberated far beyond Austin. Trump’s pressure campaign on Texas Republicans last year triggered a broader national arms race over House maps, with Democrats openly debating whether to pursue more aggressive counter-gerrymanders in blue states while voting-rights groups challenged GOP-drawn maps in federal court.

Members involved in the effort argued that increasingly safe districts have fueled polarization and weakened incentives for compromise, a dynamic that has become more pronounced as competitive House seats continue to disappear nationwide. The working group’s creation also reflects growing anxiety among some centrist lawmakers that perpetual map warfare could further erode public trust in democratic institutions at a moment when election legitimacy and voting rights remain central political flashpoints heading into November.

First Things First

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Texas Republicans on Tuesday night nominated a political flamethrower for the Senate while Texas Democrats spent the night settling a series of generational and ideological fights inside their own coalition.

Attorney General Ken Paxton decisively ended Sen. John Cornyn’s four-term Senate career after defeating the incumbent in a bruising GOP runoff that doubled as the latest loyalty test inside President Donald Trump’s Republican Party.

Cornyn quickly pledged to support the Republican ticket in November, but his defeat instantly transforms him into one of several outgoing or politically untethered GOP senators no longer fully constrained by Trump-world pressures, alongside figures like Thom Tillis (N.C.), Bill Cassidy (La.), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and retiring former GOP leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) in a bloc could complicate Trump’s legislative ambitions at key moments over the next several months. The result also leaves national Republicans in an awkward position after months of warning primary voters that Paxton’s legal baggage and impeachment history could cost the GOP a Senate seat Democrats have not won since 1988.

Paxton wasted little time pivoting toward Democratic nominee James Talarico, casting him as culturally out of step with Texas voters, while Talarico struck a more conciliatory tone by praising Cornyn’s decades of service and openly courting disaffected Cornyn supporters into his coalition.

National Democratic operatives I texted with after the race was called for Paxton cautioned that Talarico remains a clear underdog in a state Democrats have not won at the presidential or Senate level in decades.

But they also argued Paxton’s nomination could force Republicans to spend millions of dollars defending a seat that otherwise may have allowed the GOP to focus more heavily on protecting vulnerable incumbents in states like Ohio, Alaska, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina and Nebraska while targeting Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia.

Those same operatives expect Republicans to aggressively define Talarico early, although some privately wondered whether Talarico’s political instincts would allow him to effectively counterpunch himself or whether that role would fall primarily to outside allies and surrogates.

The Democratic side of the ballot revealed a parallel appetite for change.

Rep. Christian Menefee defeated longtime Rep. Al Green in the redrawn TX-18 after a campaign that was centered heavily on generational turnover and the future direction of Houston-area Democratic politics. The race marked Menefee’s fourth campaign in just seven months and forced Green into a politically painful runoff against a fellow Democrat after last year’s redistricting scramble reshaped the district.

Former Rep. Colin Allred moved one step closer to returning to Congress after defeating Rep. Julie Johnson in TX-33, giving the Congressional Black Caucus an opportunity to offset Green’s departure as Republican legislatures in the Deep South work to gerrymander members of the powerful 62-person coalition out of power. And in TX-35, Democratic leaders got their preferred candidate when Johnny Garcia defeated controversial candidate Maureen Galindo after weeks of pressure from Democratic officials and allied groups alarmed by Galindo’s antisemitic comments during the campaign.

The night’s other major casualty was Rep. Chip Roy, who gave up a safe House seat only to lose the Republican attorney general runoff to state Sen. Mayes Middleton. Roy’s defeat is likely to reverberate beyond Texas, given his prominence inside the conservative movement and House GOP conference.

What Paid Subscribers are Reading

In last evening’s Congress Nerd Sunset, I wrote about how the Congressional Black Caucus is escalating its post-Callais pressure campaign by urging corporate America to speak out against what members and civil-rights leaders describe as efforts to dilute Black political representation across the South, reviving a civil-rights-era strategy built around economic pressure and institutional accountability. Still on the free plan? Upgrade your subscription for full access to this report and all future editions of Sunset.

Happenings

The House and Senate are out.

President Trump will hold a cabinet meeting at 11 a.m., followed by policy meetings at 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.

In the Know

— Two top House Democrats demanded answers on Tuesday in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio after reports that Trump administration officials used U.S. embassies in Asia to pressure foreign companies into making million-dollar donations tied to a Trump-aligned fundraising operation that offered access to President Trump during America 250 celebrations. The letter from House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) and House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) escalated Democratic scrutiny of what they described as a potential “pay-to-play” scheme that blurred the line between official diplomacy, political fundraising and foreign influence ahead of the nation’s semiquincentennial celebration this summer.

— House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) on Tuesday named Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-Calif.) to lead the caucus’s new task force focused on civil rights and government accountability, as Democrats continue to sharpen their oversight strategy against President Trump’s second-term agenda despite being in the minority. The move signals Democrats plan to use the panel as another messaging and investigative hub on issues ranging from voting rights and immigration to disinformation and discrimination ahead of the 2026 midterms.

— A bipartisan group of House lawmakers led by Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.) urged Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to tighten rules at the National Institutes of Health governing animal suppliers for federally funded research after a Wisconsin beagle breeding facility accused of extensive animal welfare violations remained eligible under current policy. The effort reflects growing bipartisan pressure in Congress to strengthen oversight of animal testing and federal research ethics as the Trump administration simultaneously pursued a broader push to phase down mandatory animal testing requirements across the government.

First Things First

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Texas voters head to the polls today for a slate of runoff elections that could reshape the ideological makeup of both parties’ congressional delegations heading into the 2026 midterms, with battles testing the strength of President Trump’s grip on the GOP, Democrats’ generational tensions and the limits of the party’s tolerance for inflammatory rhetoric.

The marquee contest remains the Republican Senate runoff between four-term incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, which became an even bigger proxy fight over the future of the GOP after Trump endorsed Paxton last week over the objections of Senate Republican leadership. Cornyn allies have warned Paxton could jeopardize a seat Republicans have long taken for granted, while Paxton has cast the race as a final blow against the Texas GOP establishment.

Down ballot, Republicans are also watching the attorney general runoff between Rep. Chip Roy and state Sen. Mayes Middleton to replace Paxton, while Democrats are closely tracking a bitter North Texas clash between Rep. Julie Johnson and former Rep. Colin Allred for the open seat being vacated by Rep. Marc Veasey.

Meanwhile, the Democratic runoff in Texas’s 35th Congressional District has spiraled into a national embarrassment for the party after candidate Maureen Galindo drew widespread condemnation from Democrats last week over antisemitic remarks. House Democratic leaders and outside groups have rallied behind Bexar County Sheriff’s Deputy Johnny Garcia, while party officials also raised alarms over a mysterious six-figure outside spending campaign boosting Galindo’s candidacy.

Another closely watched Democratic race pits Rep. Al Green against Rep. Christian Menefee in a contest that has become a broader test of the party’s generational divide. Menefee spent the final stretch of the race campaigning across Houston-area churches and polling locations while arguing his three months in office have proven he’s the long-term leader for his district, which has had three representatives in two years (two of whom have died in office), while Green has leaned on his decades-long standing inside the district and national profile as one of Trump’s fiercest critics.

What Paid Subscribers are Reading

In last evening’s Congress Nerd Sunset, I wrote about how Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) said Minnesota communities are still reeling from the fallout of President Trump’s Operation Metro Surge months after the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, while previewing how Democrats planned to turn the Senate GOP’s stalled Senate reconciliation bill into a broader argument about immigration enforcement, accountability and affordability during the debate and vote-a-rama that never happened. Still on the free plan? Upgrade your subscription for full access to this report and all future editions of Sunset.

Happenings

The Senate will meet at 8 a.m. and the House will meet at 11 a.m. for pro forma sessions.

President Trump will visit Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to greet service members and staff before undergoing a physical exam. Once back at the White House, Trump will participate in a series of policy meetings before hosting a dinner in the Rose Garden.

Hill leaders grapple over latest round of Iran talks: House Democrats left Washington last week enraged that Republican leaders postponed an Iran War Powers Resolution vote the GOP was on track to lose due to Republican absences and a weeks-long Democratic whip effort that unified the caucus behind limiting President Donald Trump’s military authority in the Middle East without congressional approval.

Republicans are hoping the political and military landscape looks dramatically different by the time Congress returns next week. The Trump administration and Iranian officials appear to be inching closer to a potential diplomatic off-ramp after nearly three months of war, even as the U.S. launched new “self-defense” strikes inside Iran amid what officials described as a fragile and uneven ceasefire.

Trump said on Monday that any agreement would need to be “great and meaningful,” while administration officials privately projected cautious optimism about the direction of the talks. A senior administration official told CBS News the two sides have reached a “broad commitment” on the core principles of a deal, including reopening the Strait of Hormuz, reducing regional military tensions and restarting formal nuclear negotiations.

He also dramatically expanded the public scope of the negotiations this week, stipulating that any agreement with Tehran should be paired with a sweeping expansion of the Abraham Accords to include additional Arab and Muslim-majority nations—and potentially even Iran itself—in what Trump cast as a historic regional realignment effort.

But the toughest questions are still on the table. The administration is pushing for a sanctions-for-verification arrangement that would require Iran to dispose of its highly enriched uranium stockpile before receiving meaningful sanctions relief. Some reports suggested Iranian leadership had agreed in principle to major uranium concessions, although Iranian officials publicly pushed back on that characterization and denied a final agreement was imminent.

The negotiations have increasingly become a regional effort, with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan all playing behind-the-scenes roles as intermediaries or pressure points amid fears the conflict could further destabilize global energy markets and send oil prices even higher.

At the same time, the administration is maintaining its pressure campaign. The Treasury Department imposed fresh sanctions on Iranian financial networks and oil transport vessels earlier this month, underscoring Trump’s effort to negotiate from a position of maximum leverage rather than offering early concessions.

The emerging diplomacy has also exposed familiar political fault lines in Washington. Iran hawks inside the Republican Party and parts of the pro-Israel movement have warned against giving Tehran too much breathing room, while anti-war lawmakers in both parties continue pressing the administration to pursue a durable settlement and avoid a prolonged regional conflict with mounting economic and political costs back home.

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Once Upon a Hill will be off for Memorial Day weekend, which means there will be no Sunset on Sunday evening or Sunrise on Monday morning. The former will return for paid subscribers on Monday evening, followed by the latter for all readers on Tuesday morning. Safe travels to everyone spending the holiday away from home. And on Memorial Day, may the lives of the servicemembers who died defending our freedoms be a blessing to all who loved them.

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First Things First

President Donald Trump spent months steering congressional Republicans toward a reconciliation showdown designed to showcase unified GOP strength on immigration enforcement and border security.

Instead, Senate Republicans left Washington on Thursday for Memorial Day recess without even beginning debate on the package after internal backlash to Trump-backed provisions exposed growing frustration with a White House many senators increasingly view as politically demanding, strategically undisciplined and uninterested in the institutional realities of governing Capitol Hill.

The collapse marked more than just a procedural setback for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). It hardened an emerging tension within the Republican conference over how much political risk lawmakers are willing to absorb for a president who continues to ask Congress to move aggressively on his agenda while simultaneously complicating Republicans’ political standing back home.

Several Senate Republicans privately blamed Trump for turning what they believed should have been a politically advantageous reconciliation bill into a messaging nightmare after the White House pushed for a $1 billion ballroom-security funding provision and a $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, which alarmed both institutionalists and vulnerable incumbents.

The irony frustrated many Republicans: reconciliation itself became necessary largely because Trump’s governing philosophy treats bipartisan compromise as political weakness, particularly on immigration enforcement and federal law enforcement policy. Rather than pursuing bipartisan talks on changes to immigration enforcement practices or federal investigative powers after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in January, Republicans moved to use reconciliation to fund a massive expansion of ICE and Customs and Border Protection operations through the remainder of Trump’s term.

But once reconciliation became the primary governing vehicle, it also became vulnerable to Trump’s broader political instincts: score-settling, loyalty tests and legacy-building projects that many Republicans viewed as unnecessary political baggage attached to an otherwise unifying border-security package.

Senators spent much of Thursday openly signaling discomfort with the anti-weaponization fund after Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche met privately with Senate Republicans to defend the proposal. The lengthy meeting appeared to deepen concerns rather than resolve them.

“Our members have very legitimate questions about it,” Thune told reporters earlier in the day.

The White House also appeared caught off guard by the extent to which the ballroom funding and anti-weaponization provisions had become political liabilities inside the conference, particularly as Republicans already face worsening political headwinds tied to inflation, rising gas prices and growing voter unease over the administration’s handling of the conflict with Iran.

That frustration has become more personal for some Senate Republicans in recent days after Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) lost to a Trump-endorsed House rank-and-file member and the president backed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over John Cornyn (R-Texas) in an upcoming GOP runoff election for a seat Democrats now see as winnable due to Paxton’s myriad general-election liabilities.

Trump endorsed primary challengers against Sen. Bill Cassidy and Sen. John Cornyn, two well-liked members inside the conference who nevertheless found themselves targeted by the president and the MAGA movement.

For many Republicans, many of whom personally and politically respect Cassidy and Cornyn, the episodes reflect a deeper concern that Trump increasingly views Congress less as a separate governing branch and more as a vehicle to execute his political agenda with minimal resistance, while MAGA activists increasingly treat lawmakers who assert institutional independence as disloyal or insufficiently conservative.

Even so, few Republicans expect the broader reconciliation effort to collapse permanently. Trump still retains an overwhelming influence over the Republican base, and many lawmakers ultimately support the underlying goal of securing long-term funding for his immigration agenda.

But the failed push before Memorial Day recess handed Democrats a potent political opening heading into the summer by reinforcing their argument that unified Republican government has become consumed by internal dysfunction, political self-interest and ideological spectacle rather than affordability concerns facing voters.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) quickly seized on the moment Thursday afternoon, declaring that Republicans were “in complete disarray” after abandoning plans to move the package before recess.

For now, Republicans will return home without the bill Trump demanded by June 1 and with growing evidence that even a fully Republican Washington may not be enough to overcome the political and institutional tensions shaping Trump’s second term.

What Paid Subscribers are Reading

In last evening’s Congress Nerd Sunset, I wrote about how Democrats appeared to test a new “fighting for you” midterm message on Thursday built around affordability, corruption and the argument that President Trump and Republicans are prioritizing wealthy allies and special interests over everyday Americans. The messaging experiment reflects a broader work inside the party to craft a clear and compelling closing argument to voters ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Still on the free plan? Upgrade your subscription for full access to these reports and all future editions of Sunset.

Happenings

The Senate will meet at 8:30 a.m. and the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for pro forma sessions.

President Trump will participate in a swearing-in ceremony for Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh in the East Room at 11 a.m. before traveling to Rockland County, New York, to campaign with Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), one of the three House Republicans who represent a district that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. Trump will then travel from New York to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, for the remainder of the weekend.

In the Know

Dems slam GOP for Iran war powers delay: House Republican leadership abruptly pulled a planned floor vote Thursday on a Democratic-led War Powers Resolution to force President Trump to seek congressional approval for future military action against Iran, retreating after Democrats concluded the measure likely had enough bipartisan support to pass due to GOP absences.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), who sponsored the resolution, accused Republicans of ducking the vote because “they knew they were going to lose it,” while Jeffries, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) blasted the GOP for behaving like a “wholly-owned subsidiary” of the Trump administration.

As I reported in Thursday morning’s Sunrise, the move came one week after a separate Iran War Powers Resolution failed by a single vote and days after the Senate advanced Sen. Tim Kaine’s version with support from four Republicans, underscoring growing bipartisan unease over the increasingly costly and open-ended conflict.

Dems block GOP women’s museum proposal: The House rejected legislation on Thursday that would have advanced plans for the long-discussed Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum after Democrats abandoned the previously bipartisan effort over late Republican changes tied to transgender inclusion and presidential authority. The bill failed 216-204, with Democrats leading the opposition and a handful of Republicans defecting.

The original museum proposal had broad bipartisan support for years, but Republicans added language limiting exhibits to “biological women,” barring transgender inclusion and giving Trump final authority over the museum’s location on the National Mall. Democrats accused Republicans of turning a consensus project into a culture-war vehicle aimed at pleasing the president.

The bill would also have decoupled the women’s museum from the long-linked National Museum of the American Latino, leading to frustration among Hispanic Democrats after both Smithsonian projects were originally authorized together in 2020.

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Martin releases DNC autopsy: Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin on Thursday released the party’s long-delayed and deeply disputed autopsy of the 2024 election, publishing the 192-page report alongside a striking disclaimer that the DNC could not independently verify many of its claims, data points or sourcing.

The release comes months after Martin shelved the report over concerns it would distract from the midterms, a reversal that triggered backlash from Democratic activists, strategists and some elected officials who accused the DNC of abandoning transparency. The report itself argues Democrats became overly reliant on anti-Trump messaging, underinvested in state parties and organizing and struggled badly with male, rural and non-college voters, while repeatedly faulting the Biden White House and the truncated Harris campaign for failing to define then-Vice President Harris on favorable terms.

Reaction to the rollout was almost as brutal as the reaction to the findings. Critics across the party blasted the document as incomplete, error-ridden and internally contradictory, with missing sections and repeated editor’s notes disputing unsupported claims. Some Democrats privately questioned Martin’s leadership after he spent months defending the decision not to release the report, only to abruptly publish it anyway amid mounting pressure.

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First things first: President Donald Trump’s increasingly costly and open-ended war in Iran is colliding head-on with growing bipartisan anxiety on Capitol Hill, where Democrats are escalating a coordinated War Powers offensive they believe is suddenly within striking distance of success in both chambers.

House Republican leadership abruptly postponed a planned vote on House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Greg Meeks’s (D-N.Y.) resolution to block future military action against Iran without congressional approval after concluding absences inside the GOP conference could allow the measure to pass.

“Because they knew we were going to win,” Meeks told me when I asked why Republicans pulled the vote.

Democratic members and aides privately agreed that the decision marked the clearest sign yet that the politics around the conflict are becoming more volatile for Republicans as gas prices climb, Democrats sharpen their economic attacks and a small but meaningful bloc of GOP lawmakers grows increasingly uneasy with the prospect of a prolonged conflict.

The postponed House vote came less than a week after a separate War Powers Resolution led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer failed by a single vote. Democrats now believe they’ve flipped Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), the lone Democratic holdout last time around. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Tom Barrett (R-Mich.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) previously joined every Democrat except Golden in backing the effort.

The pressure campaign is also intensifying across the Capitol after Senate Democrats finally broke through on Tuesday with Sen. Tim Kaine’s (D-Va.) Iran War Powers Resolution following seven failed attempts. The Senate advanced the measure 50-47 after Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) joined Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) in siding with Democrats. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was the lone Democrat to oppose the procedural push.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) downplayed the significance of the defections but acknowledged Republicans are increasingly grappling with questions about the administration’s long-term strategy.

“The president has signaled that he is reserving the right to sort of reengage in some sort of kinetic warfare, but hoping that the diplomatic process yields a solution,” Thune told reporters. “I think our members are, and rightly so, asking the right questions and trying to figure out what the strategy is going forward.”

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is aggressively trying to fuse the Iran conflict to the broader cost-of-living frustrations already dogging Republicans ahead of the midterms, arguing the war is driving up prices on everything from gas to groceries just as Americans head into Memorial Day weekend.

“With gas selling for over four and a half dollars a gallon, many Americans are canceling their Memorial Day plans because they simply can’t afford the drive,” he said in a floor speech on Wednesday morning.

Schumer also previewed an aggressive Democratic messaging strategy during the Senate’s looming reconciliation vote-a-rama, promising amendment votes tying Republicans to “Trump’s ballroom, Trump’s slush fund, and the rising costs of Trump’s war” as Democrats try to force politically painful votes onto the floor one after another.

The emerging dynamic presents a potentially dangerous split-screen for Republicans with a costly foreign conflict abroad, rising economic anxiety at home and visible fractures inside the GOP coalition over how long the administration’s Iran posture should continue.

What paid subscribers are reading: In last evening’s Congress Nerd Sunset, I wrote about how California Gov. Gavin Newsom spent part of the week making the rounds on Capitol Hill, including meetings with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and members of the Congressional Black Caucus, as Democrats increasingly view the escalating redistricting and voting-rights fights as a political litmus test for the party’s next generation of national leaders.

I also reported on Senate Republicans stripping the controversial $1 billion security package tied in part to President Trump’s planned White House ballroom project from their immigration-heavy reconciliation bill after the provision ran into trouble with both the Senate parliamentarian and uneasy GOP senators, adding fresh uncertainty to the already-slow-moving Byrd Bath process and timing for vote-a-rama.

Still on the free plan? Upgrade your subscription for full access to these reports and all future editions of Sunset.

House sends housing bill back to Senate in resounding fashion: The House overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan housing package yesterday in a 396-13 vote, giving Congress one of its clearest signs yet that lawmakers in both parties feel mounting political pressure to respond to the country’s worsening affordability crisis ahead of the midterms.

But despite the lopsided margin, the legislation’s path forward remains complicated after House Republicans opted to amend the Senate-passed version that cleared the chamber in March on an 89-10 vote rather than simply sending that bipartisan compromise directly to President Trump’s desk, a move Senate leaders had quietly pushed for in recent weeks.

The House bill preserved much of the broader 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act framework aimed at increasing housing supply, curbing some institutional investor activity in the single-family housing market and easing construction barriers, but stripped out a controversial Senate provision requiring certain build-to-rent investors to sell homes within seven years.

Leader Thune and other senators had argued that the fastest route to enactment was for the House to pass the Senate version unchanged, especially with the White House increasingly eager to show progress on housing affordability, as high home prices and mortgage costs continue to squeeze voters nationwide.

The legislation now heads back to the Senate, where lawmakers will have to decide whether to accept the House changes, negotiate a compromise or risk letting one of Congress’s rare bipartisan policy achievements stall amid election-year politics.

Elsewhere on the Hill: Schumer and Jeffries will appear together on the Capitol steps this morning alongside Senate and House Democrats for a bicameral show of force against Republicans’ reconciliation bill, which Democrats are increasingly trying to define as a Trump-first agenda that pairs billions in new federal immigration- and border-enforcement spending with policies they argue would leave working families worse off.

The joint event comes as Senate Republicans continue grinding through the Byrd Bath on the package ahead of an expected vote-a-rama later today and as Democrats sharpen their attacks on the GOP’s push for provisions tied to Trump’s broader second-term agenda. The leaders are expected to use the appearance to project unity across both chambers while arguing Republicans are prioritizing Trump’s political and immigration priorities over lowering costs and protecting social safety-net programs.

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ICYMI: Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) used a marquee appearance at the Center for American Progress Ideas Conference on Wednesday to lay out an expansive democracy and voting-rights agenda that he argued Democrats should prioritize the next time they control Congress, including Supreme Court reform, D.C. statehood and carving out the filibuster for voting-rights legislation.

Warnock framed the recent Supreme Court rollback of voting-rights protections as part of a broader crisis facing American democracy, arguing Democrats can no longer afford to treat voting rights as a secondary issue once back in power.

“No arcane Senate procedure should block people’s right to have their voices heard,” Warnock said during a conversation with Symone Sanders-Townsend of the 60-vote threshold for most major legislation in the upper chamber.

The Georgia Democrat also renewed his support for the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and called for creating democratic pathways for U.S. territories to pursue statehood, casting the broader fight over voting access and representation as central to Democrats’ post-2024 identity and governing strategy.

It’s worth noting that many of the ideas Warnock highlighted aren’t new and some previously passed the Democratic-controlled House last Congress. They continue to face steep political and procedural obstacles in the Senate, where Democrats failed during the Biden era to secure enough support to weaken the filibuster for voting-rights legislation despite intense pressure from activists and members of their own caucus.

But many Democrats argue the Supreme Court’s Callais decision and the GOP’s aggressive post-ruling redistricting push across the Deep South require a far more confrontational response on voting rights and democratic reform. Warnock—a Southern Democrat with deep credibility on the issue—is seen as an increasingly prominent voice in that debate.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll see many of you at Sunset. I hope today is everything for you.

📬 Send tips, scoops or just say hi: michael@onceuponahill.com.

👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Thank you for waking up with Congress Nerd Sunrise.

First things first: What a comeback by the New York Knicks last night. Both Conference Finals Game 1s have kept me up past my bedtime on back-to-back nights, but they’ve also been instant classics, so I’ll accept the exhaustion tax that comes with staying up to watch them.

Hoops aside, last night’s primaries offered an early snapshot of the political coalitions, grievances and ideological fights likely to shape the midterms, from President Donald Trump’s continued domination of the GOP to the staying power of progressive energy in deep-blue Democratic districts. A few highlights:

• Trump got his political revenge in Kentucky, where MAGA-backed Navy SEAL veteran Ed Gallrein defeated Rep. Thomas Massie in one of the cycle’s nastiest and most expensive GOP primaries after months of attacks over Massie’s opposition to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, criticism of the Iran war and push to release the Epstein files. But each successful act of payback makes it harder for Republicans to maintain the governing coalition needed to advance Trump’s agenda. That tension may become one of the defining stories of the midterms.

• Georgia Republicans are headed for a high-stakes Senate runoff between Rep. Mike Collins and former football coach Derek Dooley, setting up a monthlong electability fight in a battleground race that Democrats believe Sen. Jon Ossoff is well-positioned to win thanks to his massive fundraising edge and unified Democratic support.

• Pennsylvania progressives scored one of their biggest victories of the cycle after state Rep. Chris Rabb won the Democratic primary in the deep-blue Philadelphia-based 3rd District, overcoming better-funded establishment-aligned rivals and potentially adding another unapologetic left-wing voice to the House Democratic Caucus.

• Georgia state Rep. Jasmine Clark emerged from the crowded Democratic primary in Georgia’s 13th District as the likely successor to the late Rep. David Scott, capping a race that quickly became a generational and geographic battle over the future of one of metro Atlanta’s safest blue seats.

What paid subscribers are reading: In last evening’s Congress Nerd Sunset, I wrote about how Democrats and civil-rights groups escalated their opposition to the SCORE Act after House GOP leaders pulled the bill from the floor again, with the NAACP launching a boycott campaign targeting major athletic programs as Senate negotiators quietly continued talks on a federal college sports framework. Still on the free plan? Upgrade your subscription for full access to this report and all future editions of Sunset.

Byrd baths and ballrooms: Senate Republicans continue their race against the clock to conform their party-line immigration package to the chamber’s strict budget reconciliation rules. Leadership hopes senators can begin the vote-a-rama tonight ahead of final passage tomorrow. But as of publication time, the bill is still undergoing its Byrd Bath, leaving the timeline contingent on when that process wraps up.

The $1 billion provision for security enhancements tied to Trump’s ballroom project remains a political flashpoint for Republicans. Many privately hope the provision gets Byrded out so they do not have to take a public vote on an item they oppose behind closed doors.

The House returns today after leadership canceled votes Monday and Tuesday while adding a Friday voting session so Republicans can immediately take up the Senate bill if and when it arrives from across the Capitol. Member attendance—it is Memorial Day weekend, after all—and the substance of the bill itself will likely determine its fate.

Remember: all this hustle and bustle is in service of the arbitrary June 1 deadline Trump set several weeks ago.

In the meantime, the House will vote on a rule allowing floor consideration of legislation that would loosen federal gun background check requirements for veterans, expand several veterans’ benefits by increasing disability and survivor compensation and allow the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum to be built on the National Mall while requiring the museum to define women based on sex assigned at birth.

Also on the suspension calendar: the House version of a sprawling bipartisan housing bill and legislation directing the Treasury Department to mint commemorative gold and silver coins marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, with proceeds supporting the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City.

Elsewhere on the Hill today: House Republicans and Democrats will hold their weekly conference and caucus meetings this morning ahead of votes.

The Democratic Women’s Caucus will join survivors and advocates this afternoon for the launch of “Reckoning Action,” a new organization formed by the coalition that pushed for the resignations of former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) amid allegations of sexual misconduct and accountability failures in Congress.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Color Of Change, Congressional Black Caucus members and civil-rights advocates will host an event warning about rising Black unemployment and affordability pressures they say have worsened under President Trump’s economic agenda.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) will unveil legislation to ban super PAC spending in federal elections, continuing Democrats’ broader post-Citizens United push to curb the growing influence of billionaire, crypto and AIPAC-aligned outside money in politics. I wrote about the bill last year.

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ICYMI: Senate Democrats finally broke through on Sen. Tim Kaine’s Iran War Powers Resolution after seven failed tries, advancing the measure in a 50-47 procedural vote that forced another uncomfortable split inside the GOP conference over the still-unresolved conflict and its economic fallout back home. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), no longer facing voters after his primary loss last weekend, joined Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) in siding with Democrats, while Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was the lone Democrat to oppose the effort as the party increasingly ties the prolonged conflict to rising gas prices and broader cost-of-living concerns.

President Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in next week’s GOP Senate runoff, delivering a potentially fatal blow to Sen. John Cornyn’s comeback hopes and further testing whether traditional institutional Republicanism still has any real footing inside today’s Trump-dominated GOP.

Senate Democrats held the floor late Tuesday to sound the alarm over the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais ruling, with Senate Rules Committee Ranking Member Alex Padilla (Calif.) warning the decision could supercharge Republican-led efforts to dismantle minority-opportunity districts ahead of the midterms. Padilla was joined by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and several top Judiciary and Rules Committee Democrats as the party tries to keep public attention focused on the broader implications of the court’s 6-3 decision authored by Justice Samuel Alito.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) escalated Democrats’ scrutiny of Trump Mobile on Tuesday, accusing the company of potentially misleading consumers about its pricing, sourcing and security practices in a sharply worded letter to CEO Patrick O’Brien. Warner, who co-founded Nextel before entering politics, questioned whether Trump Mobile’s $499 T1 smartphone is actually manufactured in China despite claims of made-in-America branding and raised concerns about hidden plan restrictions, biometric data protections and broader supply-chain vulnerabilities.

The DWC hosted a hearing on Tuesday led by Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Andrea Salinas (D-Ore.) that examined what Democrats described as the disproportionate harms women have faced under President Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda, including allegations of medical neglect, mistreatment of pregnant women and abuse inside ICE detention facilities. Storytellers, attorneys and advocates detailed cases they said reflected the human cost of the administration’s mass deportation policies and expanded ICE and CBP operations, while House Democrats argued Congress must strengthen protections and accountability standards for women in federal custody.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll see many of you at Sunset. I hope today is everything for you.

📬 Send tips, scoops or just say hi: michael@onceuponahill.com.

👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Welcome back to Congress Nerd Sunrise. I hope your morning is off to a wonderful start.

In this morning’s edition:

• Inside the most expensive House primary in U.S. history

• House GOP leaders pull SCORE Act

• Pelosi endorses Chan as successor

• Blumenthal demands Patel probe

• DWC opposes gop women’s museum bill

📬 Send me tips, scoops or just say hi: michael@onceuponahill.com

First Things First

The next stop on Donald Trump’s revenge tour runs through northeastern Kentucky, where the president is trying to take out Rep. Thomas Massie, the eight-term incumbent who’s drawn MAGA’s wrath for opposing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, pushing to release the full Epstein files and breaking with the administration over the war in Iran.

Massie is facing retired Navy SEAL and businessman Ed Gallrein, who was effectively recruited and elevated by Trump-aligned forces as a credible conservative challenger willing to run against Massie as an anti-establishment apostate rather than from his ideological right.

Trump endorsed Gallrein early, and MAGA-aligned super PACs and donors have since poured millions into the race, transforming what would normally be a sleepy, safe-red primary into a national proxy battle over whether there’s still room in the Republican Party for members willing to openly defy Trump.

The race is expected to end as the most expensive House primary in U.S. history, with outside groups and campaigns combining to spend north of $30 million. The previous benchmark was the 2024 Democratic primary in New York between former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and then-Westchester County Executive George Latimer, where spending topped roughly $25 million.

Public polling suggests a genuinely tight race, which helps explain why Republicans and outside groups have continued pouring money into it.

A Quantus Insights survey released last week showed Gallrein leading Massie, though exact toplines varied across reporting on the poll.

But a separate Big Data Poll tracking survey released days later showed Massie narrowly ahead, 50.6% to 49.4%, suggesting the race may effectively be within the margin of error heading into Election Day.

There are also revealing crosscurrents beneath the toplines. The Big Data tracking poll found Massie performing better with early voters, while Gallrein led among Election Day voters, a potentially important signal in a race increasingly nationalized by Trump and MAGA media.

Trump has enjoyed recent success in his retribution campaign.

In Louisiana, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) failed to make the runoff this weekend after Trump backed Rep. Julia Letlow (R-La.) and targeted Cassidy over his vote to convict Trump following Jan. 6. Letlow and Louisiana State Treasurer and former Trump administration official John Fleming advanced, while Cassidy became the first sitting senator to lose a primary since 2012.

Trump has also gone further down the ballot in Indiana, endorsing challengers against Republican state senators who refused to redraw the state’s congressional map to help the GOP pad its House majority. Seven Republicans who voted against the map faced Trump-backed challengers, and almost all of them lost.

HOUSE GOP LEADERS PULL SCORE ACT: House Republican leadership has pulled the SCORE Act from this week’s floor schedule following unified opposition from the Congressional Black Caucus in a significant victory for the caucus and college athlete advocates, while dealing another setback to the Trump administration and the Power Four conferences pushing for a federal framework governing college sports.

The decision came just hours after CBC members announced they would unanimously oppose the legislation, due in part to what they view as silence from major college athletics institutions and governing bodies, as Republican-led states redraw congressional maps in ways Democrats say weaken Black political representation after the Supreme Court’s Callais decision. The caucus said that silence made support for the SCORE Act politically and morally untenable.

CBC Chair Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and CBC members announced a press conference this afternoon with NAACP President Derrick Johnson before the bill was pulled from the schedule.

Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), who has emerged as one of the House’s leading Democratic antagonists to the SCORE Act and arguably the central congressional voice pushing an alternative vision for college sports reform, also has a press call scheduled for later this morning with current and former college athletes who are opposed to the bill.

PELOSI ENDORSES CHAN AS SUCCESSOR: Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi officially endorsed Connie Chan as her preferred successor in California’s 11th Congressional District, a major intervention in the crowded race to replace the longtime Democratic leader after months of staying publicly neutral. Pelosi said Chan would continue San Francisco’s progressive legacy in Washington and praised her ties to labor and immigrant communities.

The endorsement gives Chan a potentially critical boost in California’s top-two primary as she competes with California state Sen. Scott Wiener and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s former chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, for a spot in the general election. Recent polling has shown Wiener ahead, with Chan and Chakrabarti battling for second place.

BLUMENTHAL DEMANDS PATEL PROBE: Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called on the Justice Department inspector general to investigate FBI Director Kash Patel over allegations that Patel’s excessive drinking, unexplained absences and broader inattentiveness have compromised the bureau’s readiness and public safety mission. Blumenthal also urged DOJ watchdogs to examine recent reports that Patel manipulated FBI arrest statistics and the bureau’s Most Wanted list to inflate the appearance of enforcement successes under his tenure.

The Connecticut Democrat cited reporting from The Atlantic, MS NOW and The New York Times alleging Patel’s security detail at times struggled to wake him because of apparent intoxication and that the FBI changed internal arrest-cataloging practices in ways that artificially boosted arrest numbers. Blumenthal argued the allegations raise serious concerns about Patel’s fitness to lead the nation’s top federal law enforcement agency, writing that the FBI director “must be on call and ready to perform at all hours.”

DWC OPPOSES GOP WOMEN’S MUSEUM BILL: The Democratic Women’s Caucus formally announced opposition to the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum Act, after Republicans amended the previously bipartisan bill ahead of an expected House floor vote this week.

Democrats’ core objection centers on a GOP amendment adopted during a March House Administration Committee markup led by Mary Miller. The amendment added “scope of mission” language specifying the museum would focus on the experiences of “biological women” and prohibiting the museum from depicting transgender women as women.

DWC argues the language could also affect depictions of intersex women and create what they describe as a politically driven standard for determining who qualifies for inclusion in the museum.

Democrats are also criticizing the amendment for removing the National Museum of the American Latino from the broader legislative package. The women’s history museum and Latino museum initiatives have historically advanced in tandem since Congress authorized both institutions in the FY2021 omnibus spending law.

DWC leaders are now urging Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to restore the bill to its earlier bipartisan form and reincorporate the Latino museum legislation before bringing it to the floor.

What Paid Subscribers are Reading

Last night’s Congress Nerd Sunset took a look into the increasingly tense House-Senate standoff over the bipartisan housing package moving through Congress, including fresh comments from Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) signaling growing frustration that the House is advancing yet another rewrite instead of simply passing the Senate’s bill that passed by an 89-10 margin in March. I also broke down the key provisions the House restored, the Senate priorities lawmakers stripped out and why Republicans worry the political and legislative window for a bipartisan affordability deal may be closing faster than either chamber expected. Still on the free plan? Upgrade your subscription for full access to this report and all future editions of Congress Nerd Sunset.

On the Floor

The Senate will meet at 10 a.m. and vote at 11:45 a.m. to limit debate on the nomination Sheria Akins Clarke to be U.S. District Judge for the District of South Carolina. The Senate will recess until 2 p.m. for weekly policy lunches and vote at 2:15 p.m. to confirm Clark and limit debate on the nomination of Evan Rikhye to be Judge for the District Court of the Virgin Islands. Additional votes are expected during today’s session.

The House will meet at noon. No votes are expected during today’s session.

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ICYMI

— The Senate confirmed on a 46-43 party-line vote a package of 49 Trump nominees, including U.S. attorneys and marshals, ambassadors, and assistant and undersecretaries. Among those confirmed are nominees for judicial districts in Maine, North Carolina and Arkansas; diplomatic posts in Vietnam, Sri Lanka and the Philippines; and leadership roles across the Departments of Defense, State, Commerce and Transportation. While the package does little to address the cost-of-living concerns facing many Americans, it does install dozens of Trump’s executive-branch and federal-judiciary picks across the government, further entrenching his agenda.

— Democrats lead Republicans 50%–39% on the generic congressional ballot among registered voters, including leaners, according to the latest New York Times/Siena poll. That’s up from a 48%–43% Democratic edge in January and a near-tie last fall. Paired with President Donald Trump’s poor marks on the economy, cost of living and the war in Iran, plus a broader sense of national pessimism, the numbers are a fresh reminder of the headwinds Republicans face ahead of the November midterms despite recent redistricting wins across the South following the Supreme Court’s Callais decision.

— Senate Majority PAC—the primary Democratic-aligned super PAC focused exclusively on winning and protecting Democratic seats in the U.S. Senate—reserved $30 million in fall television advertising across Georgia and New Hampshire as Democrats move to shore up Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) in two of the cycle’s most competitive Senate races. The reservations, paired with significant digital spending and coming days after a separate $13.4 million Iowa buy, underscore Democrats’ early effort to counter an increasingly aggressive GOP Senate map offensive.

— House Democrats’ Litigation Task Force filed an amicus brief urging a federal judge to block President Donald Trump’s proposed settlement with the IRS, arguing the case is an unconstitutional “collusive lawsuit” because Trump effectively controls both sides of the litigation through the executive branch. The filing from 93 House Democrats led by House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (Md.), House Assistant Minority Leader Joe Neguse (Colo.), House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Richard Neal (Mass.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) came hours after DOJ announced plans for a new $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” tied to the settlement agreement.

👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Welcome back to Congress Nerd Sunrise. I hope you had a wonderful weekend.

In this morning’s edition:

• Steve Cohen reflects on Trump, impeachment and retirement from Congress

• Why Melanie Stansbury attended the Alabama voting rights protests with her CBC colleagues

• Schumer, Senate Dems cheer parliamentarian ruling against GOP $1B ballroom funding

• Graves, Larsen unveil sweeping surface transportation bill

📬 Send me tips, scoops or just say hi: michael@onceuponahill.com

What paid subscribers are reading

In last night’s Sunset, I took readers inside the massive voting-rights demonstrations in Selma and Montgomery, where congressional Democrats and civil-rights leaders signaled they want the “All Roads Lead to the South” mobilization to become the foundation for a broader organizing push across the South ahead of the midterms. I spoke with Reps. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), Shomari Figures (D-Ala.), Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) about the effort to build a modern-day “Freedom Summer” amid escalating redistricting battles and renewed fights over Black political representation. Still on the free plan? Upgrade your subscription for full access to this report and all future editions of Congress Nerd Sunset.

On the Floor

The House is out.

The Senate will meet at 3 p.m. and vote at 5:30 p.m. on a package of 49 Trump nominees, including U.S. attorneys and marshals, ambassadors, and assistant and undersecretaries.

The Moment

Stansbury: Expanding voting rights “is our generation’s battle”

One of the more notable dynamics from this weekend’s voting-rights demonstrations in Alabama was the number of non-Black Democrats from safe blue states who traveled to Selma and Montgomery in solidarity with Congressional Black Caucus members facing renewed Republican-led redistricting fights.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), whose state recently expanded voting protections, told me the demonstrations were about more than partisan politics or individual House seats.

“This fight is not about red or blue, it’s about the future of democracy and representation in America. The Supreme Court’s decision two weeks ago, I believe will ultimately be remembered as one of this country’s greatest mistakes and efforts to take this country backwards,” she said. “Which is why, myself and thousands from all over the country went to Montgomery and Selma yesterday to say: We are not going back!”

Stansbury described the prayer service at Selma’s historic Tabernacle Baptist Church as one of the most memorable moments of the day.

“One of the pastors said we can ‘feel the weariness of our battles’ and we may be ‘knocked down, but we are not knocked out,’” she recalled. “He noted that some would ‘rather destroy democracy itself than share it’ but that voter suppression and their efforts ‘will not have the final word.’”

By the afternoon, more than 80 organizations had gathered outside the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, in what organizers hope will become the beginning of a modern-day “Freedom Summer” organizing campaign centered on voting rights.

“The use of voting rights suppression as a tactic in their efforts to hold power shows just how far they’re willing to go,” Stansbury said. “I went to Selma and Montgomery, because the work never stopped, but I believe this is our generation’s battle.”

The Leadership Table

Schumer, Senate Dems cheer parliamentarian ruling against GOP $1B ballroom funding

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and top Senate Democrats took a victory lap on Saturday evening after the Senate parliamentarian struck down Republicans’ first attempt to steer $1 billion toward security and infrastructure tied to President Donald Trump’s planned East Wing ballroom project.

The provision, included in the Judiciary Committee’s section of the GOP megabill, was ruled subject to the Byrd Rule because the project extended beyond the committee’s jurisdiction and would involve multiple federal agencies.

Schumer quickly seized on the ruling as evidence that Democrats can still inflict procedural pain on Republicans despite being in the minority, with ranking members and leadership aides aggressively scrutinizing the reconciliation package line by line during the ongoing Byrd Bath process.

The ballroom funding has become an especially potent messaging target for Democrats because of its optics, allowing them to contrast Republican efforts to fund Trump’s long-discussed White House expansion plans against broader economic anxieties facing voters.

Republicans are expected to rewrite the provision and try again. Democrats say they’re preparing for another fight if and when it returns.

Committee Watch

Graves, Larsen unveil sweeping surface transportation bill

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.) and Ranking Member Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) released on Sunday the text of a bipartisan $580 billion, five-year surface transportation reauthorization bill that would steer federal funding toward highways, bridges, transit, rail and freight programs through 2031 while reshaping several Biden-era infrastructure initiatives.

The BUILD America 250 Act includes what the committee leaders describe as the largest-ever federal investment in bridges, creates the first federal framework for autonomous commercial motor vehicles and imposes new annual registration fees on electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles to shore up the Highway Trust Fund. The legislation would also repeal the Carbon Reduction Program and eliminate the formula component of the PROTECT resilience program, as part of a GOP push to refocus federal transportation policy on “core” infrastructure projects.

The Transportation Committee is expected to mark up the bill on Thursday as lawmakers race to enact a long-term reauthorization package before the current authorization expires on Sept. 30.

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The Morning Bulletin

Steve Cohen on retirement, Trump and the breakup of Memphis

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) became the first House Democrat effectively pushed aside by the new wave of Southern redistricting when he announced on Friday morning he would retire after Republicans carved up his district in Tennessee’s aggressive post-Callais gerrymander.

Cohen’s current district was split among three Republican-held or Republican-favored seats represented or sought by Reps. Andy Ogles, David Kustoff and state Sen. Brent Taylor.

Asked what message he would give the trio of Republicans who could inherit many of his constituents, Cohen responded through the lens of what he sees as the erosion of Black political representation in Memphis.

“David knows the Republicans and the business interests in Memphis, but he has no knowledge of the African-American community and the inner city,” Cohen told me. “I don’t think I can tell him anything.”

Cohen reserved his warmest comments for Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder, the Democrat challenging Ogles in TN-05, whose own district was fractured under the new map.

“He’s a good candidate, he’s bright, he’s hard-working, and he may win the district,” Cohen said. “He’s told me he’ll make Memphis a priority.”

The congressman was far more caustic toward Ogles, dismissing the Tennessee Republican as someone “living his life till he gets convicted, and then he’ll get pardoned from Trump.”

Cohen said he only finalized his retirement decision in recent days, even after privately considering stepping aside earlier in the cycle.

“I had more people in Memphis come to me and urge me to run because they know how I’ve delivered community projects and the bridge,” he said, referring in part to his work securing federal infrastructure funding and constituent projects for the city.

Cohen initially planned to continue fighting in court after the legislature approved the new map.

“I responded because it was important for my city when all this came up,” he said. “I support the lawsuit, and I will run [if it succeeds], but I think my decision not to run was just in the last few days.”

The retirement closes the congressional career of one of the House Democratic Caucus’s earliest and loudest Trump antagonists, a role Cohen said he views as his defining contribution to public life.

“In the Congress, I think my constant vigilance over Donald Trump is what’s been most important,” Cohen said.

Cohen noted he introduced some of the first comprehensive articles of impeachment against Trump after the president’s response to the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.

“When I was watching Charlottesville, and I saw Trump say there were fine people on both sides, that was it,” Cohen said.

One of the moments Cohen still recalls most vividly involved the late civil rights icon and former Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) signing on to the impeachment effort during the final year of Lewis’ life.

“It was the only bill John Lewis got on his last year,” Cohen said. “The last time I went to him on it, he said, ‘You just tell [chief of staff] Michael [Collins], put me on.’”

Even on his way out, Cohen said he remains deeply alarmed by what he sees as Trump’s expanding use of presidential power, pointing to pardons, crypto ventures and tariff actions he argued Congress has failed to meaningfully confront.

“He considers the office to be his personal business,” Cohen said. “So he’s bringing about authoritarian government when the legislature acquiesces.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) has been visibly annoyed lately.

He’s expressed frustration with House Republicans for failing to pass the Senate’s version of a sweeping housing bill aimed at increasing supply and lowering rents and mortgage costs.

He’s also complained that the current immigration-and-border-security reconciliation bill wasn’t expanded to address broader affordability and cost-of-living concerns.

But the folksy Louisianan scored a significant win this week when the Senate passed his bill by voice vote to withhold senators’ pay during a government shutdown by placing their salaries in escrow until funding is restored.

“I asked him to do it, and he did it,” Kennedy said of Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), who controls the Senate floor. “And I think he’s a fine American for doing it.”

Thune said Kennedy had been pushing for a vote on the measure for some time and that he committed to bringing it up during negotiations over the budget resolution for the GOP reconciliation bill now under consideration.

“The reason we were in the shutdown is because a lot of Democrat senators put us there, and the reason we’re having to use reconciliation is because they refuse to do certain appropriation bills,” Thune said. “And if this, passing this and applying it to senators, maybe we’ll provide an additional incentive to keep Senate Democrats in the future from shutting the government down again.” (FWIW, Democrats counter that the shutdown fight centered on demands for changes to federal immigration enforcement practices after two U.S. citizens were killed during federal operations in Minneapolis earlier this year.)

Kennedy’s measure seeks to address the politically toxic reality that lawmakers continue collecting paychecks while many federal workers go unpaid during funding lapses.

Still, the practical impact on many senators may be limited. Congress is filled with wealthy lawmakers who can absorb delayed paychecks far more easily than those typically hit hardest during shutdowns.

The bill applies only to the Senate. It remains unclear whether the House will pursue a similar measure for its members.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told me earlier this week he was unfamiliar with the bill but would review it and follow up. He later told reporters Thursday that the House should “absolutely” take a close look at withholding member pay during funding lapses.

The bill’s passage marks the second time in recent weeks the Senate has moved to police itself and set an example for the House.

Last month, senators voted unanimously to ban themselves and their staff from trading on prediction markets. Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) introduced legislation last week that would extend the Senate’s prediction-market ban to the House, adding momentum to a bipartisan push to prevent lawmakers and government officials from profiting off politically sensitive information.

As I reported at the time, a Jeffries spokesperson told me he broadly supports the bipartisan effort and is reviewing the Senate measure with House Administration Committee Ranking Member Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.). The White House declined to say whether President Donald Trump believes the ban should also apply to the executive branch.

👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Thank you for reading Congress Nerd Sunrise. Keep reading for news and notes on the day ahead and what you may have missed over the past 24 hours:

— On and around the Hill • The House is in this morning for a 9:45 a.m. vote on the FY27 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs funding bill.

The Senate is out.

President Trump is on his way back to America from his two-day summit in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

— What paid subscribers are reading • In Thursday evening’s Congress Nerd Sunset, I took readers inside House Democrats’ closed-door strategy session on the growing Republican-led redistricting onslaught across the South, where party leaders and rank-and-file members signaled they no longer see the current political moment as business as usual. The piece explains the party’s expanding election protection, litigation and anti-gerrymandering strategy ahead of the midterms, as well as its limitations heading into November. Upgrade your subscription to get access to this and all future evening editions.

— ICYMI • I joined this week’s episode of Punchbowl News’ “Fly Out Day” alongside co-founders Anna Palmer, Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan after Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) sat down with Jake and Anna to discuss the GOP-led redistricting fights reshaping the South ahead of the midterms. We talked through why Black Democrats see the post-Callais map wars as an existential threat to representation, the political implications for House control and what both parties are signaling about the next phase of the battle. Watch the episode on Punchbowl’s YouTube channel.

— Democrats celebrate AAPI political power • I stopped by Ceil Capitol Hill last night, where the AAPI Victory Fund celebrated a decade of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and uplifted the growing influence of AAPI voters and elected officials across the country.

The event drew a sizable contingent of Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Reps. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), Mark Takano (D-Calif.), Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Dave Min (D-Calif.), Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.), Derek Tran (D-Calif.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Calif.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.), Marilyn Strickland (D-Wash.), Ami Bera (D-Calif.) and Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.), alongside elected officials, labor leaders, advocacy groups, donors, media figures and political operatives.

The gathering highlighted how AAPI political organizing has evolved from a niche investment into a major force in competitive elections. Organizers pointed to fast-growing AAPI electorates in battleground districts and states, including Arizona, Michigan, California, New Jersey, Texas and Alaska, as evidence that campaigns can no longer afford to treat those voters as an afterthought.

AAPI Victory Fund officials also emphasized the group’s continued focus on in-language outreach, voter contact and long-term organizing infrastructure ahead of the midterms.

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— GOP immigration package hits Byrd Rule snags • Senate Democrats claimed an early procedural victory on Thursday night after the Senate parliamentarian advised that several provisions in Republicans’ immigration-and-border package would likely be subject to the Senate’s 60-vote threshold under the Byrd Rule.

The disputed provisions are part of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s title of the reconciliation bill, which would provide nearly $70 billion in additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

The rulings emerged from the Senate’s ongoing “Byrd Bath” process, during which the parliamentarian reviews whether reconciliation provisions comply with the chamber’s strict budget rules. Under federal budget law, provisions deemed primarily policy-related rather than budgetary can be stripped from the bill unless 60 senators vote to keep them.

According to Democrats, the parliamentarian raised concerns that portions of the package extended beyond the committee’s jurisdiction, attempted to use reconciliation funding to replace traditional appropriations and included immigration-processing provisions tied to longstanding protections for migrant children.

The rulings do not kill the broader ICE and border funding package outright, but Republicans will likely need to rewrite or narrow the affected sections to preserve the bill’s simple-majority pathway.

Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) both cited the rulings as evidence Democrats can still slow or reshape portions of the GOP package despite being in the minority.

The Byrd Bath for the Judiciary Committee’s title of the reconciliation bill is expected to begin today. It includes the controversial $1 billion proposal for security enhancements tied to President Trump’s East Wing ballroom project.

— SCOTUS preserves access to abortion pill • The Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily preserved nationwide access to mifepristone through mail delivery and pharmacy dispensing, blocking a lower-court ruling that would have immediately reinstated in-person dispensing requirements for the abortion pill.

The unsigned order stays a May 1 decision from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals while litigation continues, handing abortion-rights advocates and drug manufacturers a short-term victory in one of the most closely watched post-DOB legal fights.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.

In a lengthy dissent, Alito accused the court of enabling efforts to undermine states that restrict abortion and argued Louisiana was justified in challenging Food and Drug Administration rules allowing mifepristone to be dispensed without an in-person visit.

Thomas separately argued that federal law, including the Comstock Act, bars the mailing of abortion drugs and said manufacturers should not receive emergency relief to protect profits tied to what he described as unlawful activity.

The case centers on a Louisiana-led challenge to FDA changes made in 2021 and 2023 that expanded access to medication abortion by mail after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

📬 Send me tips, scoops or just say hi: michael@onceuponahill.com. I hope you enjoy your weekend.

👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Thank you for starting your workday with Congress Nerd Sunrise.

🌅 In this morning’s edition: The current state of play in China, where President Donald Trump is currently attending a state banquet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

💡First in Congress Nerd Sunset: Paid Once Upon a Hill subscribers got my deep dive last night into how the Senate’s four Black Democrats—Cory Booker (N.J.), Raphael Warnock (Ga.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (Del.), and Angela Alsobrooks (Md.) are rallying behind their Congressional Black Caucus colleagues as Republican-led redistricting fights across the South intensify after the Supreme Court’s Callais ruling.

The piece explores the striking split-screen unfolding on Capitol Hill: Black representation in the Senate is reaching historic highs even as many Black lawmakers fear Black representation in the House is entering one of its most precarious periods in decades. Upgrade your subscription to read it now.

📺 Tune in! I’ll be on this week’s episode of “Fly Out Day,” Punchbowl News’ weekly YouTube show. Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) will join hosts Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer to discuss Republican-led redistricting efforts, why Black Democrats say representation is under threat across the South and what’s at stake heading into the midterms. Then the legendary John Bresnahan and I will break it all down during a panel conversation. Subscribe to Punchbowl’s channel so you don’t miss it.

Here’s what’s happening on the Hill today:

— The House is in at 10 a.m. with votes slated for 4 p.m. on three Republican-led public safety measures in observance of police week. Members will also consider an Iran War Powers Resolution by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.).

— The Senate is in at 10 a.m. and will vote on a measure sponsored by Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) to prevent senators from being paid during a government shutdown. The Senate will also vote at 12 p.m. to advance a package of 49 presidential nominations, spanning federal legal and administrative roles.

— House Democrats will hold a caucus-wide briefing at 11 a.m. with House Administration Committee Ranking Member Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) to discuss what House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries described earlier this week as a sweeping voter-protection and anti-gerrymandering strategy aimed at countering Republican efforts to redraw the political map ahead of the midterms.

— The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration will hold a hearing on sanctuary policies.

— The House Oversight Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement will hold a hearing on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ relationship with the Tiahrt Amendment, a two-decade-plus-old provision in Department of Justice appropriations bills that restricts the ATF from publicly releasing data on gun traces.

— The House Education and Workforce Committee will hold a hearing on the policies and priorities of the Education Department.

— Congressional Bipartisan HBCU Caucus Co-Chairs Alma Adams (D-N.C.) and French Hill (R-Ark.) will hold a press conference at 11:15 a.m. on the IGNITE HBCU Excellence Act, a bill that establishes a grant program to support long-term improvements of historically Black colleges and universities and graduate programs at HBCUs.

— Rep. George Whitesides (D-Calif.) will hold a press conference at 3 p.m. on National Scam Survivor Day and scam prevention.

Now, on to this morning’s report:

As President Donald Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing alongside a delegation packed with tech executives, Cabinet officials and family members, congressional Democrats have expressed deep skepticism that the trip would produce meaningful economic relief for ordinary Americans.

Instead, Democrats argued the optics of the trip reinforced longstanding concerns about Trump’s governing style, pointing to the presence of billionaire CEOs and Trump allies on Air Force One while inflation, oil prices and broader economic uncertainty remain top concerns for voters back home.

“The president went to China on bended knee, and he’s not going to be able to accomplish anything that makes a difference in the lives of everyday Americans, which is why he just brought his friends and family members over there who are probably just going to continue to try to cut deals to benefit them financially,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).

Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio), a member of the House China Competition Committee, was no more optimistic.

“Let me just tell you, I don’t have a whole lot of high hopes for this trip just by virtue of the fact that who he’s taking with him tells you where his priorities are—all these CEOs. He’s a bad negotiator to start,” she said. “We see that with what’s happened with the Middle East. We see that and what’s happened in past deals. Even in his personal business dealings, he just does not demonstrate the ability to negotiate a deal that is beneficial for anyone other than himself.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said he hopes the trip results in progress on trade, particularly by reopening agricultural markets strained by tensions between Washington and Beijing.

“I think the president obviously has a lot of leverage. We’re the two biggest economies in the world, and hopefully they can arrive at some understanding that allows for a more open bilateral economic trade relationship,” he said. “But we’ll see. Time will tell.”

Thune added that any talks between the two countries would likely extend well beyond trade, citing ongoing tensions over artificial intelligence, intellectual property theft and Taiwan, among other geopolitical and national security issues.

“So I assume it’ll be a full blown and far ranging discussion and conversation, but I hope a productive one, because I think it’s important for the world’s two largest economies to figure out a way to get along.”

Trump’s visit is his administration’s attempt to cool tensions with Beijing after years of tariff fights, export-control battles, AI competition and mounting security concerns around Taiwan, while also seeking Chinese cooperation on Iran, energy markets and broader economic stability.

The president brought a small galaxy of CEOs and tech leaders because the administration wants tangible economic wins and because many of America’s biggest companies remain deeply tied to the Chinese market despite the political rhetoric of decoupling. Executives traveling with Trump reportedly include Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg and leaders from companies like Meta, Cisco, Citi and Mastercard.

Trump arrived in Beijing on Wednesday and was greeted with a formal welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People before holding bilateral talks with President Xi. The early meetings focused on trade tensions, AI, Taiwan and the wars in Iran and Ukraine. The most striking moment of the opening talks came when Xi warned Trump that mishandling relations with Taiwan could push the two countries toward conflict.

The summit also included a major state banquet and a carefully choreographed display of diplomatic hospitality from Beijing. China appears eager to project itself as stable, disciplined and globally indispensable while the U.S. grapples with wars abroad and economic uncertainty at home.

So far today, the talks have continued with a sharper focus on concrete issues, such as trade and tariff stabilization, AI and semiconductor restrictions, China’s posture toward Taiwan, the war in Iran and energy markets, and broader military and geopolitical tensions in the Pacific.

Chinese officials also signaled they may widen access for foreign businesses and reportedly renewed licenses for hundreds of U.S. beef exporters during the summit.

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And here’s what you might have missed yesterday:

— The Deep South redistricting fight is now moving on two tracks: immediate 2026 battlefield redraws in some states and longer-term positioning for 2028 in others. Here’s the latest state-by-state:

• Louisiana: Republican lawmakers advanced a proposed 5R-1D congressional map that would effectively eliminate the second majority-Black district created after the 2020 census. The proposal keeps Rep. Troy Carter’s New Orleans-based district intact while dismantling the Baton Rouge-to-Shreveport district currently represented by Rep. Cleo Fields. Gov. Jeff Landry delayed the state’s House primaries to give lawmakers time to redraw the map, and the Senate could move quickly on final passage.

• Alabama: Republicans are moving aggressively after the Supreme Court vacated lower-court rulings that forced the state to maintain two Black-opportunity districts. Gov. Kay Ivey already called a special session, and GOP officials are openly discussing restoring a map that would likely return Alabama to a 6R-1D delegation. Freshman Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures is viewed as the most vulnerable target, though Democrats warn that the broader effect could weaken Black representation statewide by eliminating Rep. Terri Sewell’s district as well.

• Georgia: The situation escalated dramatically this week. Gov. Brian Kemp officially called a June 17 special session to redraw congressional, legislative and state Senate maps. Importantly, Kemp said any new maps would take effect in the 2028 cycle rather than 2026 because the current election calendar is already underway. Republicans are widely expected to target Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop’s southwest Georgia district, which is one of the few remaining Democratic-held seats outside metro Atlanta.

• South Carolina: The legislature failed earlier this week to extend the regular session to allow immediate redistricting after some Republican state senators balked. But Gov. Henry McMaster is now expected to call lawmakers back for a special session after adjournment, reviving the possibility of changes targeting Rep. Jim Clyburn’s district. Unlike Alabama and Louisiana, though, South Carolina Republicans still appear less internally unified about how aggressive to be.

• Mississippi: Gov. Tate Reeves backed away from an immediate redraw and indicated the state is now looking more toward redistricting tied to the 2028 cycle rather than the 2026 midterms, reducing the immediate threat to Rep. Bennie Thompson’s district, though not eliminating it. Republicans still appear interested in revisiting the map once the electoral calendar gives them more room to maneuver. Mississippi is now more of a strategic delay than retreat.

— The Senate confirmed former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh to serve as Fed chair in a 54-45 vote, giving President Trump’s pick the narrowest confirmation margin for the position in modern history. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was the lone Democrat to cross party lines in support of Warsh, while no Republicans opposed the nomination.

— Related: Wholesale inflation surged in April, with the Producer Price Index jumping 1.4% from the previous month and 6.0% year over year, both well above expectations and marking the hottest annual reading since late 2022. The report, driven largely by soaring energy costs tied to the war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, added to concerns that the Federal Reserve could keep interest rates higher for longer.

— The Senate narrowly rejected Sen. Jeff Merkley’s (D-Ore.) Iran War Powers Resolution in a 50-49 vote, marking the seventh failed attempt by Democrats to force congressional approval of U.S. military involvement in the conflict with Iran. Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine) and Rand Paul (Ky.) crossed party lines to support the measure, while Fetterman was the lone Democrat to oppose it.

— The House passed legislation to allow the nationwide year-round sale of E15 gasoline in a 218-203 vote, handing a long-sought victory to ethanol producers and farm groups amid rising fuel prices tied to the war and the closed Strait. The measure drew bipartisan support, alongside opposition from lawmakers concerned about higher compliance costs and the bill’s projected $2.3 billion deficit impact over the next decade.

— A bipartisan discharge petition to force a House vote on new Ukraine aid and sanctions on Russia reached the required 218 signatures, the sixth of this Congress. The petition was backed by 215 Democrats, Republican Reps. Don Bacon (Neb.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), and independent Rep. Kevin Kiley, whose signature pushed the effort over the threshold.

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Louisiana Republicans’ effort to redraw the state’s congressional map after the Supreme Court’s Callais decision has raised the possibility that the Congressional Black Caucus’s next potential chair may not be around to lead the group after the November midterms.

Rep. Troy Carter (D-La.), the current first vice chair who is next in line to succeed Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) next Congress under the caucus’s traditional leadership ladder, is facing growing uncertainty as Louisiana Republicans explore new congressional maps that could dismantle one of the state’s two majority-Black districts in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent voting-rights ruling. Several CBC members told me they would support Carter for the chairmanship if he remains in Congress.

Carter argued the fight over Louisiana’s congressional map is also a fight over the kind of leadership emerging inside the CBC and the broader House Democratic caucus.

“It’s clear that they’ve identified people who are not going to fall for the okie doke and they’ve recognized that our brand of leadership is a strong one and that we come prepared,” he told me in an interview on Tuesday evening. “So maybe we are too strong for their liking, maybe we are too outspoken for their liking, maybe we are too polished for their liking, maybe we have demonstrated a level of no-quit, you-can’t-bullshit-us kind of quality, and that’s threatening to them.”

Still, Carter said the CBC’s leadership bench extends beyond any one member or election cycle.

“But I will tell you this: Rather it me, [House Minority Leader Hakeem [Jeffries (D-N.Y.)] or anybody else, we’re training up new members to do just the same,” he said. “You can knock any of us down, the next one is going to come just as strong.”

Carter arrived in Congress in 2021 after winning the special election to replace former Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), who left Capitol Hill to join former President Joe Biden’s White House. Before coming to Washington, Carter spent years in the Louisiana legislature and on the New Orleans City Council, building deep ties across the state’s Black political establishment now mobilizing against the GOP’s redistricting push.

After the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, Louisiana Republicans moved almost immediately to revisit the state’s congressional map.

Gov. Jeff Landry delayed Louisiana’s congressional primaries to give lawmakers time to redraw the maps after the Supreme Court ruling, a move Democrats and voting-rights groups argue has injected chaos into the election calendar and intensified accusations that the process is being rushed to capitalize on the Court’s decision before legal challenges can catch up.

The current proposals being floated in Baton Rouge could eliminate one or both of Louisiana’s majority-Black congressional districts, including Carter’s New Orleans-based seat and the Baton Rouge-to-Shreveport district held by Rep. Cleo Fields (D-La.).

Under the current map, Carter’s district is majority-Black and heavily Democratic. Republicans now appear to be exploring maps that would either crack up New Orleans and merge parts of Carter’s district into white Republican seats or preserve Carter while dismantling Fields’ district, depending on which configuration produces the safest overall GOP advantage.

There’s also growing speculation that Republicans may decide it’s politically cleaner to target Fields rather than Carter because New Orleans’ Black political infrastructure is harder to split cleanly without generating significant backlash and litigation risk. Fields publicly said this week he would not run against Carter regardless of which new maps emerge to avoid a member-vs-member Democratic primary if Republicans collapse the state back toward a 5R-1D map.

Over the weekend and into this week, Carter convened a large voting-rights town hall at Dillard University in New Orleans alongside local elected officials, clergy and civil-rights advocates.

Before these events, he made an appeal to the better angels of the state lawmakers with whom he had previously served.

“And as I said, they got a tough job to do, tough decisions to make, but not because of right or wrong, but because of the forces of evil that’s pushing [the new maps],” he told me. “So my position was very clear: ‘Listen, man, step out of this and do what’s right. Do what’s right because I’ve seen you do it before.”

OVERSIGHT

New Jersey Dems introduce ICE oversight bill one year after Delaney Hall visit

Reps. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) and Rob Menendez (D-N.J.) introduced legislation Tuesday that would guarantee members of Congress immediate access to immigration detention facilities without advance notice as part of their oversight responsibilities while holding private contractors liable for noncompliance.

The measure would codify Congress’s authority to conduct oversight of ICE and DHS facilities, a power lawmakers argue already exists through Congress’s constitutional oversight role and a 2019 appropriations rider.

As I reported in Tuesday evening’s Sunset, it comes as Republicans are racing to keep President Trump’s immigration-and-border reconciliation package on track for floor consideration before the Memorial Day recess ahead of Trump’s self-imposed June 1 deadline.

Menendez argued Republicans should have to account for how the Department of Homeland Security has spent taxpayer dollars before Congress approves additional immigration enforcement funding through reconciliation, particularly after Democrats spent months demanding policy changes during the record-long DHS shutdown.

He accused Republicans of applying a double standard by citing waste, fraud and abuse to justify roughly $1 trillion in proposed health care cuts in their first reconciliation bill last summer while resisting comparable scrutiny of DHS ICE spending under former Secretary Kristi Noem. He said lawmakers should conduct a full audit of the department’s spending and enforcement activities before approving more funding outside the normal appropriations process.

“That should be the conversations Republicans should want to have, instead of just adding $70 billion to the slush fund that’s literally killing Americans,” he told me. “But you know, Republicans just will not hold this administration accountable or even do what’s right by their own communities and what’s right by the taxpayers.”

Menendez also said Democrats’ demands during the DHS funding fight centered on what he described as basic guardrails that had previously limited immigration enforcement activities at sensitive locations such as schools, hospitals and places of worship before the Trump administration rolled them back. He pointed to recent incidents in his district, including two constituents who he said were detained outside a church in Jersey City, as evidence of why Democrats pushed for the restrictions to be restored.

“So the reforms are things that would bring us to a place that is in a better place than we’ve seen previously,” he said.

The trio’s new bill comes one year after their visit to Delaney Hall, which later prompted the Trump administration to charge McIver with allegedly “forcibly impeding and interfering with federal officers.” She faces up to 17 years in prison if convicted.

First Things First • In the span of a few hours on Monday, President Donald Trump once again demonstrated how quickly he can reorder the priorities of a Republican-controlled Congress around his own political instincts and legislative demands.

First came Trump’s endorsement of a federal gas-tax holiday amid mounting economic anxiety tied to the war in Iran, immediately prompting congressional Republicans like Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.) to announce forthcoming companion legislation.

Then, Trump publicly pressured the House to pass the Senate-backed 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act despite bipartisan negotiations already underway in the lower chamber to revise several contested Senate provisions that had stalled the bill for weeks.

Whether Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) ultimately moves the Senate bill unchanged or allows the House to continue working through its own version, the episode offered another vivid illustration of how Trump approaches a GOP-led Congress as a governing instrument expected to adapt in real time to his political priorities and timetable.

Ironically, congressional Democrats in March proposed suspending the 18.4-cent federal gas tax through the end of September, with legislation from Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) in the Senate and Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) in the House.

“I’ve supported it for months. It should have been done months ago. I think we all need to come together in favor of suspending the gas tax. Everyone who supports it deserves credit for it. The president’s a little bit late to the party, but better late than never.”

When asked whether Democrats risk handing Republicans a political opening by opposing the proposal as Trump and congressional Republicans rally around a gas-tax holiday, Blumenthal defended his support for the legislation as a straightforward attempt to lower energy costs for consumers.

“I think Democrats have been very clear that we’re supporting reductions in energy prices using every means available. And I can’t speak for Democrats who may have objections to this bill. I’ve been supporting it because I think it’s the right thing to do.”

But as I reported in last night’s Sunset, a driver filling up a 15-gallon tank would save roughly $2.75 per trip if Congress fully suspended the tax and oil companies and retailers passed the entire savings through to consumers. So while a gas tax holiday would provide Americans with some relief, it probably wouldn’t be the kind of dramatic, wallet-changing relief politicians would market during a war-driven energy crunch. Democrats could also argue that the relief is too small to offset war-driven price spikes meaningfully and would benefit oil companies if savings are not fully passed through to consumers.

Not to mention, the federal gas tax helps fund the Highway Trust Fund, which finances roads, bridges and transit infrastructure. Suspending it without replacing the revenue would increase pressure on transportation funding at a moment when deficits are already ballooning due to the GOP megabill and wartime spending demands.

“I think right now, the best thing that can happen for gas prices is for the Strait [or Hormuz] to get opened up again, the shipping lines get opened up again. That’ll normalize gas prices as much as anything,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.). “Obviously, any time that you suspend the gas tax, that leaves a big hole in the Highway Trust Fund, which also has implications down the road. No pun intended.”

Democrats backing the proposal, meanwhile, have pushed back on concerns that a temporary suspension would cripple federal transportation funding.

“I’ve heard that objection,” Blumenthal said. “But there are other sources to provide money for the Highway Trust Fund, and there’s no immediate need for this source of revenue for it.”

Meanwhile, few lawmakers are as grateful as Thune for Trump’s backing of his chamber’s housing bill, which remains one of Congress’s last chances to meaningfully address the cost-of-living concerns that will be top of mind when voters head to the polls in six months.

“I think one thing we can do quickly is the House could pick up and pass the housing bill, which is designed to make housing more affordable,” Thune told reporters hours before Trump nudged the House to follow suit. “And I think that strikes at the very heart of the broader affordability issue.”

Kiggans under fire to resign • Social media erupted on Monday afternoon after a Virginia radio host told Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) should keep his “cotton-picking hands” out of Virginia politics, a phrase widely viewed as a racist slur with roots in slavery-era language.

“That’s right. Ditto. Yes. Yes to that,” Kiggans responded before later saying she was agreeing only with the broader point about Jeffries staying out of Virginia politics and did not condone the language itself.

But by then, the backlash was in full force.

“Jen Kiggans heard a vile racist slur and agreed out loud—that’s who she is,” Chris Taylor, a spokesperson for the Congressional Black Caucus’s political arm, said in a statement. “We’re going to make sure her constituents know she condones this racist crap.”

CBC Chair Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), whose district neighbors Jeffries, and his two top lieutenants were among the Democrats who called on Kiggans to step down.

“First they gutted the Voting Rights Act. Now they are using brazenly racist language to attack Black leaders,” House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) said. “[Jen Kiggans] should immediately apologize and resign.”

House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) called Kiggans’ agreement with the racist comments disqualifying for a member of Congress.

“Republicans are taking us backwards in every single way,” the number-three House Democrat said. “Rep. Kiggans must apologize then get the hell out of the House.”

Kiggans’ district, which encompasses the low-lying plains of southeastern Virginia with Black voters comprising nearly 25% of the population, is firmly on the CBCPAC’s House battlefield. Former Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), who narrowly lost to Kiggans in 2022 after serving two terms in the House, is seeking the Democratic nomination in 2026.

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SCOTUS clears way for AL to erase majority-Black districts • The Supreme Court on Monday overturned lower court rulings that required the state to maintain two majority-Black districts and ordered the case reconsidered under the Court’s new Louisiana v. Callais standard, handing Alabama Republicans another opening to redraw the state’s congressional map ahead of the midterms. Reps. Terri Sewell and Shomari Figures are the delegation’s only Black and Democratic members.

The move marks the latest escalation in the post-Callais redistricting wars reshaping the House battlefield across the South. But as I reported in last night’s Sunset, Jeffries told his members in a letter Monday afternoon that they would still take control of the House in November because Republicans are defending one of the narrowest majorities in modern history in a political environment shaped by rising costs, backlash to the GOP’s agenda and what he described as growing public frustration with President Trump.

Related: Virginia Democrats asked the Supreme Court to reverse last week’s ruling from the Virginia Supreme Court invalidating the voter-approved congressional map adopted through last month’s referendum.

The Supreme Court also extended until late Thursday afternoon its administrative stay of a lower-court ruling that would have immediately reinstated in-person dispensing requirements for the abortion pill. The stay was set to expire today. The extension preserves nationwide access to mifepristone through mail delivery and pharmacy dispensing. Read more about the case in Monday morning’s Sunrise.

○ ● ●

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Congress is back: Police Week, spending fights and Trump abroad

Congress returns from a weeklong recess this week, with the Senate back this evening and the House returning Tuesday night for a two-week sprint before the Memorial Day break.

It’s National Police Week and House Republicans are reviving their tough-on-crime playbook with a slate of so-called law-and-order bills designed to elevate law enforcement, target progressive criminal justice policies like cashless bail and sanctuary jurisdictions and force Democrats into politically uncomfortable votes on crime and public safety.

The House will also take up Republicans’ first fiscal year 2027 appropriations bill as lawmakers try to avoid a repeat of the chaotic 2026 funding cycle, which was plagued by multiple record-long government shutdowns and spending bills that weren’t enacted until seven months into the fiscal year.

Across the Capitol, the Senate will begin the process of confirming Kevin Warsh to serve as the next chair of the Federal Reserve before current Chair Jerome Powell’s term expires Friday. Paid subscribers to Once Upon a Hill got the full rundown on this week’s agenda in Sunday evening’s edition of Congress Nerd Sunset, plus a look at how two court rulings over the last 10 days scrambled Democrats’ path back to the House majority.

Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled Tuesday morning to mark up its portion of the GOP’s $72 billion immigration funding package, although Democrats are expected to delay a committee vote until next week. Republicans are also likely to face questions over the bill’s $1 billion allocation for President Donald Trump’s planned East Wing ballroom after Trump and allies previously insisted private donations would cover the project.

Lawmakers also have just 32 days left to reach a long-term agreement on reauthorizing the federal government’s foreign surveillance powers. Privacy hawks continue pushing for warrant requirements before intelligence agencies can surveil Americans communicating with foreign targets, while conservatives are demanding a ban on a central bank digital currency.

Trump is set to travel to China this week for a high-stakes meeting with President Xi Jinping on trade and economic relations. Trump also dismissed Iran’s latest response to a U.S. peace proposal as “totally unacceptable” as negotiators remain far apart on a deal aimed at ending the war, reopening the Strait of Hormuz and curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

● ○ ●

THE COURTS

Supreme Court prepares to rule on medication abortion restrictions

The Supreme Court is expected to decide today whether to preserve nationwide access to mifepristone through mail delivery and pharmacy dispensing after Justice Samuel Alito last week temporarily blocked a lower-court ruling that would have immediately reinstated in-person dispensing requirements for the abortion pill.

At issue is a recent 5th Circuit decision siding with Louisiana and ordering the Food and Drug Administration to roll back rules that expanded access to mifepristone by mail. If allowed to take effect, the ruling would effectively end non-in-person dispensing nationwide, including in states where abortion remains legal.

Abortion-rights advocates view the case as the latest escalation in the anti-abortion movement’s post-Dobbs strategy to restrict abortion access nationally through the courts after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

“Since then, anti-abortion politicians have tried to pick up the baton and continue these nationwide attacks on medication abortion access,” Julia Kaye, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union Reproductive Freedom Project, told me. “The idea that Louisiana’s anti-abortion attorney general should get to decide what access to medication abortion looks like in the dozens of states with legal protections for abortion is outrageous, yet the 5th Circuit rubber-stamped that request.”

The case has drawn unusually broad opposition from medical, pharmaceutical and public-health groups. Organizations ranging from the American Medical Association to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America filed amicus briefs urging the justices to block the lower-court ruling.

Congressional Democrats also weighed in last week. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and more than 250 Democratic lawmakers argued in a separate filing that mifepristone is a safe and effective medication used in nearly two-thirds of abortions as well as miscarriage care.

The Trump administration did not respond by the court’s Thursday deadline.

“The administration’s silence speaks volumes and is a permission slip to the Supreme Court to restrict access to medication abortion nationwide, betraying decades of science and President Trump’s campaign promises not to impose new federal restrictions on abortion,” Deirdre Schifeling, the ACLU’s chief political and advocacy officer, said in a statement. “The outcome of this case could damage access to abortion and miscarriage care in every state in this country, including those that protect abortion rights.”

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● ● ○

HANTAVIRUS

Schumer links cruise ship outbreak to Trump public health cuts

Chuck Schumer accused the Trump administration on Sunday of weakening the nation’s public health defenses as officials respond to a deadly hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship carrying American passengers.

In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Schumer argued that cuts to federal health programs, staffing reductions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the administration’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization have undermined the government’s ability to manage infectious disease threats involving Americans abroad.

“The U.S. is at a disadvantage to protect the public from the dangers of hantavirus,” Schumer wrote, urging the administration to restore staffing and funding for public health programs and rejoin the WHO.

The letter comes as three people have died and several others have fallen ill from hantavirus aboard the ship, which carried 17 American passengers. Schumer noted reports indicating the outbreak involves the Andes strain of hantavirus, the only known variant capable of person-to-person transmission.

Schumer specifically criticized the administration’s decision last year to fire full-time employees within the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program as part of broader DOGE-directed workforce reductions, arguing the cuts weakened the federal government’s ability to identify and respond to threats aboard cruise ships. He also pointed to staffing shortages at CDC Port Health Stations, which monitor infectious diseases entering the country through ports and transit hubs.

The New York Democrat additionally accused the administration of providing delayed and insufficient public communication about the outbreak and questioned whether turmoil at the CDC—including the absence of a Senate-confirmed director—has slowed the response.

The letter requests detailed information by May 17 on CDC staffing levels tied to the outbreak response, coordination with the WHO, plans for screening and monitoring returning passengers and communication with state and local health departments handling possible quarantine and contact-tracing efforts.

○ ●

FIRST THINGS FIRST

CBC ramps up organizing after voting rights ruling

Within 24 hours of the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, the Congressional Black Caucus’s political arm and Let It Resound—a 501(c)(4) group closely aligned with the caucus—committed an initial low six-figure investment to a rapid-response effort aimed at turning outrage over the ruling into organizing infrastructure and voter outreach.

A source close to the CBC described the effort as a coordinated social media push designed to reach Black voters, organizers, and community leaders in real time with information they can act on. The broader initiative is expected to grow into a seven-figure investment and will include tools and resources intended to help Americans respond to what caucus allies view as escalating attacks on voting rights and democratic participation.

The effort is also designed to shape the broader public narrative around the ruling while moving supporters toward real-world political engagement and organizing actions tailored to individual states, according to the source.

At the same time, CBC members have remained in close communication with local civic and elected leaders in affected states, convening strategy sessions and coordinating on-the-ground mobilization efforts.

The CBC’s response comes as Republican-led states across the South have aggressively moved to redraw congressional maps ahead of the midterms in ways Democrats argue could further erode Black political representation and eliminate Democratic seats.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed a new congressional map Thursday aimed at unseating Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), the lone Democrat in the state’s congressional delegation.

South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi could also revisit their maps in ways that threaten Democratic-held seats represented by CBC members.

Louisiana lawmakers previously weighed redrawing their map to flip one or two Democratic districts before pausing the effort, while Florida’s newly redrawn map recently took effect in a move Republicans hope could net the party up to four additional seats.

Georgia appears more likely to wait until the next redistricting cycle in 2028, though Democrats privately acknowledge little is off the table anymore.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) insists Democrats will still win back the majority this fall.

The Court’s conservative majority held in Callais that the state crossed a constitutional line by relying too heavily on race to draw Rep. Cleo Fields’s district, arguing the Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create a second majority-Black seat. Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion further narrowed how Section 2 can be used, while Justice Elena Kagan warned in dissent that the Court was weakening one of the country’s central protections for minority voters. In practical terms, the ruling makes it harder to force states to create majority-minority districts and easier for legislatures to defend contested maps in court.

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DEMOCRACY

Hinson pushes House GOP to ban prediction market betting

Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) introduced legislation Thursday that would extend the Senate’s ban on participating in prediction markets to the House, adding momentum to a bipartisan push to curb lawmakers and government officials from profiting off politically sensitive information.

The proposal would update House rules to bar members of Congress, congressional staff and House officers from entering into agreements tied to the outcome of specific events.

“Members of Congress shouldn’t be able to use insider knowledge to make a profit. We should take immediate action to ensure DC politicians can’t make money off of policies they are influencing,” Hinson, who is running to succeed retiring Sen. Joni Ernst, said in a statement. “I am calling on our House Republican leadership to bring this to the floor immediately. It should receive unanimous support.”

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) did not respond to a request for comment.

The Senate ban was proposed by Senate Rules Committee Ranking Member Alex Padilla and passed by unanimous consent before senators left Washington last week for recess.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) last Sunday urged the House and White House to follow the Senate’s lead and prohibit government officials from wagering on prediction markets. Schumer described the Senate action as the first step toward a broader federal ban that would extend across the executive and judicial branches.

A spokesperson for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told me this week that Jeffries broadly supports the bipartisan effort and is reviewing the Senate measure with House Administration Committee Ranking Member Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.). As I reported in Tuesday morning’s Sunrise, the White House declined to say whether President Donald Trump believes the ban should apply to the executive branch.

The bipartisan push comes as public trust in Congress remains near historic lows. Just 17% of Americans say they trust the federal government to do what is right, while roughly eight in 10 voters believe lawmakers fail to separate their personal financial interests from their official duties, reinforcing perceptions that Washington is self-interested, inefficient and disconnected from ordinary Americans.

○ ● ●

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Republicans race to entrench power across the South

In the week since the Callais ruling weakened a key Voting Rights Act protection, Republican officials across several Southern states have accelerated efforts to revisit congressional maps in ways that could strengthen the GOP’s grip on power while diluting Black voting strength.

With primaries already underway in some states and the midterms rapidly approaching, the post-Callais push underscores how redistricting is evolving from a once-a-decade process into an ongoing power struggle, with Republican legislatures seeking ways to maximize their House advantage through state-controlled maps.

“This is insane,” Rep. Steve Cohen, the lone Democrat in Tennessee’s congressional delegation, said of the state’s new proposed map that would crack Memphis across multiple districts. “It’s a blatant, corrupt power grab that would destroy the Black community’s and our entire city’s voice.”

The new map Tennessee unveiled on Wednesday would create a 9–0 delegation, with each district comprising a seat that President Trump won by at least 20 points in 2024.

Below is a roundup of the current state of play across the rest of the South:

• Louisiana: Gov. Jeff Landry has suspended the state’s congressional primaries this month to give Republican lawmakers time to redraw the map, with the expectation that the state could move from a 4R-2D delegation to a 5R-1D map by eliminating the second majority-Black district created under prior Voting Rights Act standards.

• Alabama: Republicans hope to use the Supreme Court’s recent Voting Rights Act ruling to overturn or replace the court-ordered map that created a second Black-opportunity district, though there’s conflicting messaging inside the state GOP about whether a redraw will happen immediately.

• South Carolina: Republican lawmakers are laying the groundwork for a possible special session to redraw the state’s congressional map, with Democrats warning the effort could target Rep. Jim Clyburn’s neighboring Democratic district and further lock in GOP control.

• Mississippi: Republicans are under growing pressure from Trump allies to redraw the map in a way that could weaken or eliminate Rep. Bennie Thompson’s district, though logistical and legal hurdles have slowed any formal congressional redraw so far.

• Georgia: The Peach State’s congressional map remains under litigation tied to Voting Rights Act claims, but Republicans view Callais as a potential opening to protect or expand their current advantage without creating additional Black-opportunity districts.

• Florida: Gov. Ron DeSantis just signed a new congressional map expected to net Republicans up to four additional GOP-friendly seats, immediately triggering lawsuits alleging violations of the state’s Fair Districts anti-gerrymandering protections.

Meanwhile, Democrats are already challenging the new GOP maps in court while pushing to remove remaining redistricting guardrails in blue states ahead of the 2028 cycle.

● ○ ●

2026 MIDTERMS

Democrats hold edge in new Marist poll despite enthusiasm gap

President Trump’s numbers are softening almost everywhere outside the core Republican coalition, while Democrats are showing signs of a favorable midterm environment without fully resolving their own enthusiasm gaps, according to a new Marist Poll.

Democrats lead the generic congressional ballot 52%-42%, a notable edge in a political environment where control of the House is likely to hinge on a small number of competitive districts. (Democrats posted similar advantages in several Marist polls during the 2018 cycle before retaking the House.)

But Republican voters are actually slightly more enthusiastic about voting this November than Democrats, 82% to 79%—a sign that while Democrats currently hold the broader political advantage, the GOP still retains the intensity edge. That’s a warning light for Democrats who assume anti-Trump sentiment alone will drive turnout.

“The +10 is anti-Trump and pro-checks-and-balances,” a Democratic operative told me. “The lack of enthusiasm is a lack of clarity on what Democrats stand for and what they will do with their majority.”

While the two largest ideological caucuses have rolled out agendas outlining policies Democrats could pursue if they flip the House in November, some members and aides have privately expressed anxiety about making explicit promises when their ability to deliver would depend heavily on the size and makeup of a potential majority, as well as the political realities of the moment.

“Politics is like football. Don’t play if you’re scared because you’re going to get yourself hurt,” the operative said. “Democrats have to be clear on what they stand for. Republicans are going to attack you either way.”

Trump’s overall job approval sits at 37% approve and 59% disapprove, including a 51% “strongly disapprove” number. The erosion is especially pronounced among independents (63%-32%), voters under 45 (63%-31%), women (63%-32%) and college graduates (65%-33%). Older, rural, white voters without college degrees remain his strongest base of support.

The economy numbers are particularly striking because that has traditionally been Trump’s strongest issue. Yet voters disapprove of his handling of the economy by a 61%-35% margin.

The foreign policy findings tell a similar story. Voters say Trump has weakened America’s role on the world stage by a 62%-38% margin. And on Iran, he’s underwater 60% to 33%, with more respondents saying U.S. military action in Iran has done “more harm than good” than the reverse (61%-38%).

Taken together, the poll paints a country uneasy with Trump’s governing style, skeptical of his handling of the economy and foreign affairs, and increasingly open to Democrats serving as a check on unified Republican power.

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● ● ○

ECONOMY

Democrats question how BNPL loans affect credit scores

Senate Democrats are pressing the nation’s biggest credit reporting agencies on how they plan to navigate the rapid rise of Buy Now, Pay Later loans in a system with few consistent rules, little transparency and uneven consumer protections that could affect millions of Americans’ credit scores in ways borrowers may not fully understand.

At the center of the concern is a growing disconnect between the explosive growth of BNPL products and the credit reporting industry's outdated infrastructure. Some BNPL lenders report loans to credit bureaus while others don’t. Some credit bureaus incorporate the data, while others may treat it differently. Consumers, meanwhile, often have little visibility into how any of it affects their credit profiles.

“Until all relevant parts of this industry align on the use of BNPL data, consumers are left in limbo where BNPL data from a subset of lenders is provided to a subset of credit reporting companies with varying impacts for consumers,” Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) wrote this week to Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. “Given the exceptional growth in the BNPL industry in recent years, BNPL loans are becoming a larger part of consumer’s credit pictures at the same time that Americans are under historic financial pressures.”

The scrutiny comes as more Americans turn to services like Klarna, Affirm and Afterpay to cover groceries, utilities and other basic expenses amid persistent financial strain. LendingTree reported that 54% of BNPL users this year said they relied on the loans to cover essentials, while 47% said they missed at least one payment in the past year.

The latest push builds on Congress Nerd’s reporting last December on growing Democratic scrutiny of the lightly regulated BNPL industry as consumers increasingly use multiple installment-payment apps at once to manage cash flow and stretch monthly budgets.

○ ● ●

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Dems see medication abortion fight reshaping the midterms

National Democrats view a recent wave of conservative legal attacks on medication abortion as a sign the issue could once again become a defining fight ahead of the November midterms.

The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade transformed abortion into a galvanizing issue during the 2022 cycle that helped Democrats outperform expectations by energizing women, younger voters and abortion-rights supporters—while blunting an anticipated Republican red wave.

Now, with the high court weighing emergency appeals that could restrict mail-order access to mifepristone, Democrats see an opening to campaign on preserving and expanding abortion access as the issue returns to the center of the national political debate.

“If it doesn’t [become a midterms issue], then we’re not doing our jobs,” a Democratic lawmaker told me Tuesday evening.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week to effectively reinstate a requirement that patients obtain the drug in person from a medical provider.

The judges sided with Louisiana’s argument that mail-order access conflicts with the state’s abortion restrictions and policies regarding fetal personhood. Although Louisiana brought the case, the ruling applied nationwide and could have affected millions of women in states where abortion remains legal.

The Supreme Court issued an administrative stay three days later, temporarily pausing the ruling and restoring full access to the drug while the justices review the case.

Anti-abortion groups have long challenged the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone, as well as policy changes in 2016 and 2021 that expanded access through telemedicine prescriptions and mail delivery. The latest case follows a 2024 Supreme Court ruling dismissing a similar challenge over lack of standing, with Louisiana’s lawsuit attempting to clear that legal hurdle by bringing the case through the state itself.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Hakeem Jeffries and more than 250 congressional Democrats filed an amicus brief earlier this week urging the Court to overturn 5th Circuit’s ruling that members argue could restrict access to mifepristone and disrupt the FDA’s drug approval authority.

● ○ ●

HEALTHCARE

Democrats spotlight nursing workforce strains during Nurses Week

House Democratic leadership is urging members to hold healthcare events in their districts to coincide with National Nurses Week, according to a person familiar with the guidance.

The push comes as Democrats spotlight rising healthcare costs heading into the midterms, while nurses face mounting pressure from heavier workloads, fewer supports and a more precarious labor market.

“This National Nurses Week, we celebrate the valuable contributions of our nursing workforce and call attention to the obstacles and challenges nurses face every day,” Congressional Nursing Caucus Co-Chair Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) said in a statement. “Nurses provide essential, dedicated care across the country, and we must support their work while helping more people enter the field.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who is married to a nurse and co-chairs the Senate Nursing Caucus, said he has seen firsthand how demanding the job can be.

“In every corner of Oregon, nurses offer vital care, support, and advocacy to patients and their families during challenging times,” he said. “Let’s pause this week to express gratitude for and honor the nurses in our communities for their unwavering skill, commitment, and compassion. We must remain dedicated to providing them with the support necessary to continue their life-saving work.”

More broadly, nurses are navigating a mix of workforce strain, policy pullbacks and economic pressure under President Trump’s second-term agenda and congressional Republican priorities.

On the care-delivery side, the administration rescinded the Biden-era federal minimum staffing rules for nursing homes, which would have required 24/7 coverage by registered nurses. Republicans have also moved to delay or roll back similar standards in legislation, steps critics say could deepen chronic understaffing and stretch nurses even further in already high-pressure settings.

At the same time, shifts toward deregulation and gig-style staffing models are putting downward pressure on wages, job stability and labor protections. Budget pressures and proposed healthcare cuts have compounded that strain, with nurses warning of shrinking resources, unsafe patient ratios and burnout conditions that have already fueled labor unrest, including the large 2026 New York City nurses strike.

Merkley and Congressional Nursing Caucus Co-Chair Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) also raised concerns last week after the Education Department finalized a rule excluding post-baccalaureate nursing programs from qualifying as professional degrees.

Critics say the change would lower federal borrowing limits for nursing students, potentially discouraging new entrants, worsening workforce shortages and creating additional barriers to entering the profession, particularly for lower-income students.

National Nurses Week runs from May 6 through May 12.

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● ● ○

HEALTHCARE

Top Dems demand PEPFAR data from Rubio

House Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) earlier this week pressed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to release last year’s missing data for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), warning that withholding three-quarters of reporting undermines transparency, oversight, and the program’s bipartisan support.

They also pointed to troubling signs in the limited data available—including declines in testing, diagnoses, and treatment starts—and caution that without full transparency, the U.S. risks derailing progress toward ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic by the end of the decade.

“After decades of U.S investment, PEPFAR, was on track to eradicate HIV/AIDS by 2030. That remarkable goal is only within reach because we gained a detailed understanding of the HIV epidemic through the collection, analysis and dissemination of data, which in turn allows programs to reach the right people in the right place at the right time,” Shaheen and Meeks wrote in a letter to Rubio. “Without this understanding, we risk squandering the U.S.’s legacy of leading the worldwide charge to eradicate HIV/AIDS and save lives.”

PEPFAR has become a flashpoint in the broader Trump 2.0 fight over foreign aid, global health, and America’s role abroad. The program, launched under President George W. Bush in 2003 and long viewed as one of the most successful bipartisan foreign-aid initiatives in modern history, is now operating inside a dramatically reshaped “America First” agenda under Rubio.

While the administration says HIV prevention efforts for millions of people has largely been maintained, outside researchers and advocates say the broader HIV infrastructure has weakened sharply under funding freezes, staffing cuts, and reporting disruptions. Recent data showed declines in HIV testing, diagnoses, treatment initiations, and preventative care programs like PrEP.

Even with pressure from Trump allies to slash foreign aid spending, bipartisan coalitions in the Senate preserved billions of dollars in PEPFAR funding last year, underscoring the program’s unusually durable support on Capitol Hill.

The core tension now is whether PEPFAR remains primarily a public-health and humanitarian initiative or evolves into a narrower instrument of strategic statecraft tied to Trump-era priorities about trade, migration, and great-power competition.

Critics warn the transition risks reversing decades of progress against HIV/AIDS, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, while the administration argues it is modernizing the program and pushing partner nations toward greater self-sufficiency. Shaheen and Meeks would like to maintain Congress’s oversight responsibilities to determine if it has been successful thus far in that mission.

○ ● ●

FIRST THINGS FIRST

White House stops short of backing full prediction market ban

The White House said President Donald Trump believes government officials shouldn’t misuse nonpublic information for personal gain—including on prediction markets—but declined to say whether he supports extending the Senate’s new ban to the executive branch.

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said that while the executive branch does not have a blanket prohibition on federal employees participating in prediction markets if done lawfully, existing ethics rules and criminal laws bar the use of nonpublic information for financial benefit. He added that White House staff were recently reminded that those restrictions apply to prediction markets.

“No government official should be misusing nonpublic information for their personal financial benefit—this includes misusing nonpublic information to place bets on prediction markets,” Ingle said.

The response echoes Senate Democrats’ concerns about insider trading risks but stops short of endorsing a government-wide prohibition pushed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), leaving unclear whether the administration would back legislation or take executive action.

Prediction markets allow users to wager real money on the likelihood of future events—elections, interest rate decisions, wars, and legislation—effectively turning forecasts into tradable contracts, with prices reflecting the market’s implied probability of an outcome.

Platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi have surged in popularity, drawing increased scrutiny from lawmakers over potential misuse of insider information.

The Senate’s unanimous ban took effect immediately after adoption of a rules change led by Senate Rules Committee Ranking Member Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) to close potential loopholes.

A spokesperson for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told me he was broadly supportive of the bipartisan push and would be looking at the Senate-passed bill in conjunction with Morelle.

Update: This item has been updated to include comment from a spokesperson for Hakeem Jeffries.

● ○ ●

IMMIGRATION

Senate GOP eyes $40B ICE boost in party-line package

Senate Republicans have proposed a roughly $40 billion surge in federal immigration enforcement and border operations, including more than $30 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, billions more for border personnel and surveillance technology, and $1 billion for President Donald Trump’s East Wing ballroom—despite the administration previously saying the project would be funded by private donations, not taxpayers.

The funding details—part of a second reconciliation package Republicans want to pass by the end of the month—were outlined in portions of the bill released Monday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

The proposals would lock in funding for ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection through the end of Trump’s second term using a process that bypasses a Democratic filibuster. The committees are expected to mark up its portion of the bill next week when Congress returns from recess.

“Republicans won’t allow our country to be dragged backwards by Democrats’ radical, anti-law enforcement agenda,” Grassley said in a statement. “The Senate Judiciary Committee is taking action to help provide certainty for federal law enforcement and safer streets for American families.”

Ryan was equally critical of his colleagues across the aisle.

“Senate Democrats refuse to vote for a single dollar to secure our borders or enforce our immigration laws, even against the most violent illegal aliens,” he said. “To make sure those vital functions are funded, my committee will vote later this month to give the funding needed.”

The proposed ICE funding would scale the entire enforcement chain—from arrest to detention to removal—while embedding the agency more deeply in local policing.

The package also includes nearly $3.5 billion for CBP to hire and train agents and support equipment, operations, and maintenance tied to immigration enforcement, along with a $2.5 billion supplemental fund for the Department of Homeland Security secretary to deploy across related programs.

The proposal comes days after the House passed a Senate DHS funding compromise—excluding ICE and CBP—following a record-long 76-day shutdown that disrupted agencies including TSA, FEMA, the Secret Service, and the Coast Guard, as Democrats pushed unsuccessfully for immigration reforms after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota during enforcement operations earlier this year.

Hill Republicans already provided roughly $75 billion directly to ICE for enforcement, detention, and operations last summer through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, part of a broader $170 billion immigration enforcement package across DHS, including CBP and related programs. It was the largest ICE funding infusion ever enacted, turning the agency into the best-funded federal law enforcement operation in the country.

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● ● ○

ELECTIONS

Jeffries taps Morelle to lead New York redistricting response

Hakeem Jeffries is putting a fellow New Yorker to work.

The Brooklyn Democrat has tasked House Administration Committee Ranking Member Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) with sitting down with New York elected officials today to figure out a coordinated response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais.

The outreach is part of a broader push by Jeffries to work with allies across the country to map out lawful ways to protect voters and keep representation tied to communities and suggests his role in Democrats’ national response to the redistricting fights will stretch well past the 2026 midterms.

“While far-right extremists on the Supreme Court have twice recklessly cleared the path for partisan gerrymandering, Democrats refuse to unilaterally disarm,” Jeffries said. “This is just the beginning. Across the nation, we will sue, we will redraw and we will win.”

Morelle is set to huddle with Gov. Kathy Hochul, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris to get on the same page about a state response.

What he’s putting on the table starts with a comprehensive legal review of New York’s strongest voting-rights tools, including a potential 2027 constitutional amendment.

From there, it’s about strengthening state guardrails against voter suppression and discriminatory rules, tightening protections for election workers and infrastructure, and taking a more aggressive approach to public education and rapid response to misinformation and intimidation.

Jeffries and Morelle are also pushing for closer coordination with national democracy, civil rights and legal groups on additional safeguards.

“The Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act ruling is the latest civil rights and democratic disaster,” Morelle said. “We will not allow these efforts to silence communities or undermine fair representation.”

○ ● ●

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Republicans limp into recess after deadline scramble

Congress starts a 10-day recess today after a chaotic sprint to the finish this week, with Republicans checking off a stack of time-sensitive priorities before leaving town.

The House finally moved to reopen most of the Department of Homeland Security, ending a record-long shutdown that had started to show up in real life, including those long TSA lines and airport delays across the country.

Both chambers also kicked the can on Section 702, extending the government’s foreign surveillance powers into mid-June just hours before the deadline to buy time for a broader fight over reforms, including limits on warrantless surveillance of Americans.

On top of that, the House pushed through a partisan farm bill—with help from 14 Democrats—after a messy two-day Rules Committee meltdown and an overnight floor slog.

And Republicans adopted the Senate’s budget framework, clearing the way to fund ICE and CBP through President Donald Trump’s term.

Democrats, not surprisingly, aren’t impressed. They see a governing majority lurching from deadline to deadline, passing fixes they’d already proposed weeks earlier.

“Since February, we’ve been saying this was the solution, to fund DHS and to hold harmless FEMA and TSA and Coast Guard. [House] Republicans refused and said that it wasn’t possible,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said. “Clearly, they were wrong and they caved. And it just shows how chaotic this place is under Speaker [Mike] Johnson [(R-La.)].”

Aguilar said Democrats will press the argument this recess that Republicans aren’t delivering on the issues voters actually care about.

“We’re going to keep hammering that this group isn’t doing anything to make people’s lives better,” Aguilar said.

Johnson took a victory lap after getting through the week. But he took some bruises. The House cleared the DHS bill on a voice vote, the same tactic House Republicans blasted when the Senate used it weeks earlier, before Johnson ultimately accepted the outcome he’d delayed.

This week also exposed some early strain between Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.)—a partnership that’s undoubtedly about to be tested again.

Margins are tight in both chambers and House conservatives are clamoring to expand the reconciliation bill beyond ICE and CBP funding to include additional policy priorities in a dynamic that could complicate the path forward for Mike Johnson and John Thune as they race to meet Donald Trump’s June 1 deadline. Meanwhile, any serious 702 overhaul could run headfirst into an administration that prefers a clean extension. And the Senate will likely write its own farm bill, which GOP hardliners hate too.

Enjoy the breather. I promise you it won’t last.

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2026 ELECTION

VOTING RIGHTS

Warnock defers filibuster talk as Dems plot voting rights push

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) sidestepped fresh concerns about the Senate filibuster blocking future voting rights legislation to blunt the impact of this week’s Louisiana v. Callais Supreme Court decision, arguing the focus should be on Democrats reclaiming power first.

House Democrats reiterated this week—after the Court’s conservative supermajority narrowed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—that passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore and strengthen the landmark 1965 law banning racial discrimination in voting, would be a top priority if they retake the majority—a push Warnock has long championed as a lead sponsor.

The bill would almost certainly fall short of the 60 votes needed to advance in the Senate though, leaving Democrats without a clear legislative response to the court’s decision.

“I’m focused on winning the midterms so we can have the benefit of that kind of argument,” Raphael Warnock told me Thursday.

But after the Court ruled a congressional map could likely stand if a state shows it was drawn for partisan gain rather than racial discrimination, Warnock added that ending partisan gerrymandering should be part of the debate.

Warnock has introduced an amendment to the SAVE America Act to do just that. The provision is also included in the Freedom to Vote Act, another bill he leads that would set national standards for voting access, including early voting and mail-in ballots.

“There’s no question that our democracy is in crisis,” he said. “The Supreme Court poured fuel on that fire.”

The tenuous path forward for voting rights legislation reflects a familiar dynamic from 2021, when sweeping House-passed bills died in the Senate amid unified GOP opposition and resistance from then-Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) to exempting the measures from the upper chamber’s 60-vote threshold.

Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress during this push, which had the backing of former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris. Regardless of what happens in November, a Republican will still be president—an obstacle that left some members I spoke to wondering if the conversation was even worth having at this point.

There’s a layer of irony here. President Trump has urged Republicans to scrap the filibuster and pass the SAVE America Act, a position that would render this debate largely moot.

But GOP senators, despite their usual deference to Trump, have shown no appetite to follow through, underscoring how firmly they would be expected to defend the 60-vote threshold if they return to the minority.

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ELECTIONS

Menefee moves to end House vacancy delays

Rep. Christian Menefee (D-Texas) took action on Thursday to close what he calls a loophole governors can exploit to delay filling vacant House seats.

The Houston-area lawmaker rolled out his first original bill to impose a national timeline for special elections that was shaped by his own experience.

Menefee said the bill is personal after his district went nearly a year without representation before he was sworn in February to complete the term of the late Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Texas), who passed away the previous March. Menefee argued the vacancy left constituents without a voice during votes on major legislation, government funding and even a prolonged shutdown, with no member in Washington to advocate on their behalf.

“So for my community, that was a heartbreaking period,” he told me. “And it was important for me to kick it off with making sure that that doesn’t happen to any other community again.”

Menefee argues the Constitution requires special elections but sets no deadline, creating a patchwork system where some states have no firm timeline and others rely on vague standards like “as soon as practicable.”

His bill—entitled the Special Elections Timeliness (SET) Act—would require states to complete special elections within 180 days of a vacancy. (If a regularly scheduled general election falls in that window, it counts.) The attorney general could sue to force compliance and “aggrieved” parties—including House leadership—could bring civil action.

“This bill is intended to be simple and straightforward. I don’t care if you’re Republican, Independent, Democratic, we should all be able to get behind the idea that taxing people without giving them representation is disenfranchising and straightforward,” Menefee told me. “Every community should be able to send a member to Congress. I don’t care how they vote. Once they get to Congress, they should be able to be in the room to represent your communities. And I hope that my colleagues get behind the effort.”

ICYMI: Read last night’s edition of Congress Nerd Sunset

○ ● ●

2026 ELECTION

After Callais, Jeffries bets on candidate quality for the midterms

Moments after news of the Callais decision broke, Hakeem Jeffries stuck with his prediction that House Democrats will reclaim the majority in November—a confidence I later learned is rooted in the caliber of candidates his political operation believes it has recruited this cycle.

Jeffries told me that the effort started early. Party leaders began building their bench in 2025, targeting candidates they believe can compete in tough districts, raise money quickly and connect with voters on everyday costs.

“We began recruiting in 2025 in the early part of the year to make sure that we had the strongest possible candidates in order to run in districts that we knew would be challenging all across the country, and to fight through the Republican efforts to rig the midterm election,” Jeffries said.

He also pointed to the math. Democrats needed to flip 24 seats to win the majority in 2018 and ended up gaining 40. This time, he argued, the path is narrower—just three seats—with roughly 40 to 45 districts in play nationwide.

“We are on track to take back the majority. We know it. Donald Trump knows it,” Jeffries added. “And the reality is we’re just going to stay the course, continue to fight back, work through the obstacles and then we’re going to come out in the majority on the other side.”

A notable share of the slate includes repeat candidates who came close in 2024—people like Christina Bohannan in Iowa—who are now running again with stronger infrastructure behind them. The focus is on fewer unknowns and more candidates who have already shown they can raise money, run a district-wide campaign and hold up in a tough cycle.

You’re also seeing candidates whose résumés lean more toward community leadership than ideological branding—military veterans, local elected officials, tribal leaders, ministers—and who can talk about doing the job, not just debate it online. That’s by design in swing districts and even in some red-leaning territory.

And even as those backgrounds vary, the message has remained zeroed in on lower costs, accessible healthcare and economic stability for everyday Americans. That’s the throughline Jeffries is betting can translate across very different districts. The open question now is whether that theory holds with voters six months from now.

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2026 ELECTION

Callais decision sharpens CBC ground strategy

Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) told me the caucus plans to lean on its on-the-ground infrastructure—grassroots groups, clergy networks and local partners—to reach voters in a fragmented media environment and connect with people who aren’t tuned into traditional political channels.

Midterms almost always bring lower turnout than presidential years, so Democrats are focused on shaping who shows up in November and where.

“We’ve got to turn voters out,” Clarke said. “We understand the assignment. Our partners and allies understand the assignment—we’re ready to go, and we’re mobilized.”

Beyond Black voters, Democrats know young people, suburban moderates and Trump-weary independents will also be key to a winning coalition. The challenge is reaching those groups consistently, credibly and at scale in an environment that’s splintered in every direction.

And in the aftermath of Callais, Democrats can’t lean as much on map design to secure representation, which puts more pressure on campaigns to build winning coalitions through turnout and persuasion.

But Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), who serves as the CBC’s whip, argued the caucus has already shown it can win beyond majority-Black districts.

“Let’s not have a binary conversation about only Black people can represent Black seats because when we do represent a district, the entirety of the district rises,” she said. “This is a larger issue about snatching democracy from the hands of voters across this country and continuing to demoralize and marginalize the Black vote. So this is a call to action. If you are Black, if you love anything that is Black, you need to be working to get everybody registered to vote, because your vote’s on the line next.”

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2026 ELECTION

Schumer forms task force to counter election threats

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and several Senate Democrats launched a new task force to identify threats and safeguard elections ahead of the midterms, in response to what they see as continued efforts by President Donald Trump and national Republicans to undermine American democracy.

Schumer and a group of senators met with former Attorney General Eric Holder, elections attorney Marc Elias, and other top election experts on Wednesday afternoon as they began mapping out their election protection strategy for the fall.

“We’re looking at what we do before Election Day, what we do on Election Day, what we do after Election Day, and today, we’re ramping up our efforts,” Schumer said. “We see the need for it just today, in today’s Supreme Court decision, which was a despicable decision.”

The Democratic fear isn’t just that Trump might contest the results after Election Day. Party insiders warn that his administration and allies are trying to shape the electorate, control the rules, pressure election officials and pre-seed fraud claims before Election Day arrives.

Trump signed a March 2025 order seeking more federal control over election rules, and a March 2026 order aimed at citizenship verification and a national list of verified eligible voters. The White House casts this as a matter of election integrity, while critics call it an unconstitutional attempt to override state-run election systems.

The Trump administration has also pushed states to turn over voter-roll data, including nonpublic information, as part of its “election integrity” effort. The courts have rebuffed some of those demands, while voting-rights groups argue the data push could lay the groundwork for improper purges before November.

Administration officials have also tried to gain influence over elections in at least eight states through investigations, raids and demands for access to balloting systems and voter ID information. That’s the kind of federal pressure that national Democrats and state election officials warn could disrupt normal election administration.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department’s Voting Rights Section has been hollowed out and redirected toward voter-roll litigation and fraud claims. Democrats see that as especially alarming because the DOJ can shape both pre-election rules and post-election challenges.

Don’t forget about the SAVE America Act, which includes Trump’s proposal for federal proof-of-citizenship voting restrictions. 23 mostly Republican-led states have adopted pieces of that agenda, even if the federal bill stalls. Democrats argue that those rules risk blocking eligible voters who lack immediate access to documents such as passports or birth certificates.

And as I mentioned above, the Supreme Court’s Callais decision makes it harder to use Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to challenge maps that dilute minority voting power, and GOP-led states are already moving quickly. Florida, for example, approved a new congressional map designed to boost Republicans after the ruling.

I’m told the task force will focus on quickly identifying problematic state actions, coordinating lawsuits, filing injunctions before rules take effect, and preparing for post-election challenges. But it can’t directly stop a state from passing a restrictive rule or redrawing a map. And with Republicans in control of Congress, the odds of passing new federal protections in time for 2026 are low. So structurally, there’s a limit to how much they can change the playing field.

ICYMI: Read last night’s edition of Congress Nerd Sunset