👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Welcome back to Congress Nerd Sunday. I hope your weekend was everything for you.
Shout out to the USA Basketball Women’s National Team, who won its sixth straight gold medal against France in the World Cup final in Berlin this afternoon. Combined with a thrilling US Open—highlighted by Elena Rybakina’s historic women’s singles title run and Ben Shelton reaching his first major final—plus two major upsets in Oklahoma and Texas in college football and the first full weekend of NFL games (go Cowboys!), these past few days have been a sports fan’s dream.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
Congress returns to Washington tomorrow, with artificial intelligence executives suddenly asking lawmakers to help pump the brakes on their own industry, a multibillion-dollar college-sports business demanding federal protection, and President Donald Trump spending heavily to preserve Republican control of Capitol Hill.
And that’s before lawmakers get to the actual legislating.
The House will be in on Monday afternoon for its final week of voting before the midterm elections. The Senate will reconvene for the first time in 37 days for a three-week sprint before senators head home to campaign themselves. The Senate is also scheduled to convene Monday afternoon.
There’s no government shutdown hanging over either chamber: Congress already extended federal funding through Dec. 11. Instead, the final pre-election stretch will offer lawmakers a last opportunity to move unfinished priorities—or make their closing arguments to voters about why they should retain or regain power next year.
Here’s what Congress Nerd is watching.
AI’s Washington moment: The politics surrounding artificial intelligence changed considerably while lawmakers were away.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Saturday called for the industry to deliberately slow the development of increasingly powerful AI systems, warning that technological capabilities were advancing faster than safeguards. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman subsequently backed the central premise, while Elon Musk and other prominent industry figures expressed support for greater caution.
The extraordinary public intervention from the people building these systems puts the issue directly on Congress’s doorstep as lawmakers return.
Bipartisan proposals already require independent safety audits, national-laboratory testing, and mechanisms capable of slowing or shutting down dangerous AI systems. But President Trump and congressional Republicans have resisted regulations they argue could surrender the technological advantage to China.
The House will instead take a more immediate swing at one of AI’s physical consequences: data centers.
The Ratepayer Protection Act would require massive data centers consuming at least 100 megawatts to pay the full costs of the grid upgrades required to serve them instead of shifting those expenses onto ordinary electricity customers. The Affordable Innovation for the Grid Act would direct the Energy Department to examine how AI and high-performance computing could improve grid efficiency and reliability.
In other words, Congress may not settle the existential debate over artificial intelligence this week. But lawmakers are beginning to confront the decidedly non-theoretical questions about who pays to power it.
Further reading: “AI agents are thirsty for power” by Molly Taft: “Silicon Valley is shifting away from chatbot queries toward a future filled with resource-intensive agentic AI—and it’s driving the data center buildout.”
College sports enters the red zone: The Protect College Sports Act will get a full-court press as soon as senators return.
Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) will hold a press conference tomorrow afternoon with more than 30 student-athletes and coaches, including several prominent college basketball coaches, to argue that Congress urgently needs to send the bill to Trump. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) is expected to organize opponents—including labor leaders and college athletes—on the other side of the debate. A House Education and the Workforce subcommittee will examine the changing college-sports landscape at a hearing Wednesday.
Cruz also took his sales pitch to ESPN’s College GameDay in Austin on Saturday morning, where his extended interview was repeatedly drowned out by boos from the crowd and subsequently generated criticism over the network’s decision to provide the bill’s leading Senate advocate such a prominent platform without an opposing voice.
FCC Chair Brendan Carr said Cruz’s appearance on ESPN didn’t implicate the federal equal-time rule because ESPN is cable rather than broadcast television and Cruz is not a legally qualified candidate in the 2026 election. (The clarification follows the FCC’s warning to ABC over Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico’s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and the commission’s earlier decision to narrow the longstanding exemption for entertainment talk shows treated as bona fide news programming.)
Behind all the spectacle is a consequential fight over who governs college sports.
The legislation would provide the NCAA with a federal antitrust exemption to enforce national rules governing athlete eligibility, transfers and name, image and likeness deals. Supporters include hundreds of colleges, athletic conferences and major professional sports organizations. Opponents include the AFL-CIO, NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus and athlete-advocacy organizations, which argue the legislation would diminish athletes’ economic and labor rights.
And for all the lobbying, advertising and star power behind it, the fundamental problem remains the same: The votes still don’t appear to be there in the House—regardless of what happens in the Senate.
Crypto’s moment of truth: Another industry will find out Tuesday whether years of lobbying can finally produce a durable regulatory framework.
The Senate is scheduled to take a procedural vote on the CLARITY Act, a sweeping digital-asset market-structure package that establishes clearer boundaries between Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversight.
Senate Banking Subcommittee on Digital Assets Chair Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) released a new 630-page substitute last week following bipartisan negotiations over the August recess. The biggest changes expand the framework governing DeFi protocols that retain identifiable human control, clarify when those operations could face CFTC registration and Bank Secrecy Act obligations, narrow certain DeFi protections to cash and spot markets and revise the treatment of credit-union digital-asset activities.
But the first test isn’t really about crypto policy so much as arithmetic.
Republicans need Democrats or independents to reach the 60 votes required for cloture. Failure could effectively push the broader market-structure project into the next Congress. Success would show that a bipartisan coalition can still move one of Washington’s most heavily lobbied financial-policy initiatives.
Russia sanctions finally get their House vote: Across the Capitol, House Republicans are moving ahead with the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act after weeks of uncertainty about whether there would be enough floor time before the midterms.
The Senate passed the legislation 86–11 in August. The House will consider the Senate-amended bill under a rule. Supporters argue its sanctions and trade tools would squeeze Moscow’s wartime revenues and increase pressure on Russia to negotiate. Some Democrats and industry groups have raised concerns about the legislation’s broad tariff authorities and their potential economic consequences for Americans and U.S. allies.
The vote will therefore test something larger than support for sanctioning Russia: how much additional economic authority Congress is willing to hand the executive branch when tariffs have themselves become a major domestic political issue.
The midterms arrive on Capitol Hill: The legislative sprint is unfolding alongside an enormous infusion of Republican campaign money.
Trump’s political operation has finally begun deploying the war chest Republican candidates spent months waiting for. The Trump-aligned No Going Back PAC and allied groups are pouring tens of millions into competitive congressional races, while Musk’s America PAC is financing its own voter-contact operation.
House Democratic leaders insist they can absorb it.
DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene (Wash.) told me earlier this month that Democratic candidates in the swing districts likely to determine the majority already have the resources and local profiles necessary to compete.
“They are focused on the issues that matter, deeply connected to their community, out actually talking to members of their community, and are authentic and independent-minded,” DelBene said.
Trump’s late spending spree means those assumptions are about to get tested in real time.
And then there’s everything else: The House calendar is unusually robust for a chamber preparing to disappear from Washington until after Election Day.
Two Congressional Review Act resolutions would target EPA approvals allowing California to impose tougher pollution standards on ocean-going ships and smaller commercial harbor craft. Other legislation would establish a new DOJ fraud-enforcement division and expand federal access to state data during investigations of fraud involving programs including Medicaid, SNAP and unemployment insurance.
The suspensions calendar ranges from Indian Health Service leadership and federal whistleblower protections to fentanyl screening, grid planning and—yes—the future of the penny.
Another Iran war-powers resolution could also surface before lawmakers leave town. House Democrats have already successfully forced votes twice this Congress seeking to end U.S. involvement in the war, an accomplishment Jeffries highlighted before the recess.
One major item increasingly unlikely to appear: a third Republican reconciliation bill before the midterms.
CBC takes over Washington: Finally, Capitol Hill won’t be the only center of gravity in Washington this week.
The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 55th Annual Legislative Conference begins Wednesday at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center and runs through Sunday under the theme “Rooted, Ready & Rising.”
The conference will bring lawmakers, mayors, policy experts, advocates and business leaders together as the CBC simultaneously navigates fights over voting rights, economic policy, civil rights, education and the future of programs designed to address racial disparities.
It also arrives less than seven weeks before Election Day.
So while Congress will spend the week deciding which pieces of unfinished business can still make it through the shrinking legislative window, thousands of Black political and policy leaders will be gathering a few blocks away to think about what comes after it.
Welcome back to Washington.
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IN THE KNOW
— Houthis claim overnight strike on Saudi military base as another ship is hit near Hormuz: The Yemeni political and military group this morning said they launched drones and missiles at Saudi Arabia’s Sharurah military base, targeting weapons storage and command facilities. Separately, Iranian state media reported one person killed and three injured after a commercial vessel was struck near the Strait of Hormuz. Maritime authorities confirmed a projectile hit a vessel, but attribution remains unclear.
The attack follows the group’s seizure of strategically important territory around the Bab el-Mandeb, meaning instability is now affecting both major maritime chokepoints connecting Gulf energy exports to global markets. Trump said Saturday the Houthis had signaled they do not want to fight the United States.
— CBS poll points to Democratic House majority as voters sour on Trump’s economy: A new CBS News/YouGov poll estimates Democrats would win 228 House seats to Republicans’ 207 if the midterms were held now, although the model’s range still includes outcomes from a narrow GOP majority to a sizable Democratic one. Among likely voters, Democrats lead the generic House ballot 54–46. Trump’s overall approval is 39%, with 61% disapproving.
Affordability is the GOP’s glaring vulnerability: 87% of likely voters call the economy very important to their congressional vote, and 82% say the same about inflation. But just 34% approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, and 27% approve of inflation, compared with 66% and 73% who disapprove, respectively. Inflation is especially salient among Black voters (91% very important) and Hispanic voters (87%).
Also worth noting: Harris 2024 voters look more energized than Trump 2024 voters. Fifty-three percent of Harris voters say they are more motivated to vote for the Democratic congressional candidate than they were in 2024, versus 40% of Trump voters who say they are more motivated to vote Republican. Only 6% of Harris voters are less motivated, compared with 15% of Trump voters.
— Supreme Court now has the USPS mail-ballot fight fully briefed: After the First Circuit refused Thursday to lift the injunction against USPS’s new election-mail rules, the Supreme Court has now received the government’s reply plus opposition briefs from states, voting groups and amici. The stay application is ready for the justices, who could act at any time. The government says the rule helps prevent ballots from going to unauthorized voters and allows information to reach “relevant authorities,” while challengers say implementing it weeks before Election Day would impose major burdens on election offices and risk disenfranchisement.
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READ ALL ABOUT IT
“Trump’s secret points system for cabinet members” by Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer: “The White House held a summer contest to see who could appear in the most congressional districts and states with competitive midterm elections.”
“A gender war explodes in Utah over the courts, abortion and representation” by Kate Zernike: “When Republicans tried to repeal a law that voters passed banning gerrymandering, they found an opposition that flew in the face of Utah women’s ‘tradwives’ imagery.”
”How the world learned to embrace Tupac Shakur” by Mosi Reeves: “Three decades after his death, he remains a magnetic presence in absentia—perhaps more than ever.”