THE LINEUP
McIver’s legal fight enters its next phase
Clyburn backs Supreme Court expansion to 13 justices
Senate Republicans target mifepristone access
Talarico goes negative on Paxton for the first time
THE BIG STORY
👋🏾 HI, HEY, HELLO! Welcome back to Congress Nerd Sunday. I hope your weekend was everything for you.
Rep. LaMonica McIver is weighing how far to take her fight to stop the federal criminal case against her from reaching trial after an appeals court dealt the New Jersey Democrat a major setback last week.
Her options include asking the same three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision, seeking review from the full appeals court or petitioning the Supreme Court to intervene before a trial occurs.
The options aren’t mutually exclusive, McIver attorney Paul Fishman told reporters last week, and her legal team has not decided which path to pursue.
“We are not afraid to try this case,” Fishman said. But he argued the pretrial fight is about more than whether McIver is ultimately convicted. It is also about protecting members of Congress “who could be targeted by this administration for speaking out, for conducting oversight of the executive branch.”
McIver is making a similar argument to her colleagues.
She said she is grateful to House Democrats who have publicly defended her and helped raise money for her legal expenses. But she wants colleagues who have been quieter to recognize what she views as the broader institutional stakes of her prosecution.
“I hope that other colleagues who haven’t been as vocal or haven’t been as supportive, that they understand that this is about our collective as members of Congress all together,” McIver told Once Upon a Hill. “They should give a damn about what is happening to me. If it can happen to me, definitely it can happen to either one of them.”
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.), a fellow Congressional Black Caucus member close to McIver, said the congresswoman needs more support.
“I see her. CBC sees her. Her district sees her. Black women see her,” Kamlager-Dove told Once Upon a Hill. “It is obvious that this administration really sees her. And she needs more allies.”
McIver also views her prosecution within a broader pattern of Trump administration actions targeting Black Americans, particularly Black women.
“We have been literally on Trump’s number-one hit list,” she said. “I’m just one of the ones on his list and one of the first ones.”
McIver, 40, has represented New Jersey’s 10th District since September 2024, when she won a special election to succeed the late Rep. Donald Payne Jr. The Newark native is the first Black woman to represent the district and serves on the House Homeland Security Committee, which oversees the Department of Homeland Security and ICE.
The case stems from McIver’s May 2025 oversight inspection of Delaney Hall, an immigration detention facility in Newark that sits in her district. McIver was there with two other lawmakers when federal authorities moved to arrest Newark Mayor Ras Baraka outside the facility.
Prosecutors allege McIver made physical contact with federal officers during the ensuing altercation. She faces three counts of forcibly impeding or interfering with federal officers. The maximum penalty is 17 years if she’s convicted.
McIver sought to have the charges dismissed on several grounds, including that her conduct was protected by the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause. The Third Circuit upheld a lower court’s rejection of that argument for two counts but sent a broader third count back for the district court to determine whether it includes protected legislative activity.
The appeals court also declined to consider before trial McIver’s claims of selective and vindictive prosecution. Judge Thomas Ambro partially dissented, arguing in part that the court should have allowed further examination of whether the prosecution was retaliatory.
McIver’s lawyers ordinarily have 14 days to seek rehearing, Fishman said, although the deadline can be extended. The district court has scheduled a Sept. 15 status conference to address the remanded count and other issues.
For now, McIver says she has no intention of allowing the case to deter the oversight work that brought her to Delaney Hall in the first place.
“I’m not going to be intimidated out of doing my job,” she said.
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
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THE LOOKAHEAD
⇢ The House returns tomorrow for a week before another one off for Labor Day weekend. Both chambers return Sept. 14 for a pre-midterms legislative sprint. The major agenda item this week: Clearing a continuing resolution the Senate passed earlier this month to keep the government funded largely at current levels through Dec. 11.
This will give appropriators another 10 weeks beyond the Sept. 30 fiscal-year deadline to finish the FY27 spending bills. It also extends a collection of expiring programs and authorities and includes targeted funding adjustments for areas including WIC, disaster relief and national security.
Congress is effectively taking a pre-election shutdown off the table more than a month before the deadline. The Senate’s 90–6 vote is about as emphatic a bipartisan signal as you can get, and House Republican leadership has placed the Senate amendment on this week’s suspension calendar, meaning leaders expect the two-thirds support necessary to send it quickly to President Trump’s desk.
⇢ The House Rules Committee will meet Monday afternoon to prepare a series of bills for floor consideration at a simple majority, including a resolution putting members on record condemning socialism—including the Democratic Socialists of America—while linking that condemnation to election policy and calling for passage of the SAVE America Act.
The resolution specifically invokes the election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani last November and the subsequent growth of DSA-affiliated candidacies. It cites DSA positions including abolishing the Senate, ranked-choice voting and voting rights for noncitizens and incarcerated people before declaring socialism incompatible with American values and the Constitution. By my count, nearly half of the resolution’s findings concern election administration rather than socialism.
The House already held a broad anti-socialism vote less than a year ago. In November 2025, the House passed a resolution “denouncing the horrors of socialism” 285–98, with 86 Democrats joining every voting Republican in support. That makes this week’s measure look less like an effort to establish a new House position on socialism than an attempt to force Democrats into a fresh vote explicitly tied to DSA’s post-2025 electoral rise and the GOP’s election-integrity agenda.
Also on the GOP’s agenda:
A bill that would condition colleges’ participation in federal student-aid programs on not engaging in certain commercial boycotts of Israel, while requiring colleges receiving federal international-education funding to provide Israeli students, faculty and academic programs the same access they provide to those from other countries.
Legislation to permanently make mining and mineral-processing projects eligible for the federal government’s streamlined FAST-41 permitting process and block a Biden-era proposal that would have narrowed which mining projects qualify.
A measure to extend through 2035 a congressional pause that effectively shields the American lobster and Jonah crab fisheries from new federal regulations intended to reduce risks to the endangered North Atlantic right whale.
Three additional suspension bills to note:
Kayleigh’s Law Act: This legislation would require federal courts, at the request of a victim or the government with the victim’s consent, to issue a lifetime no-contact order against defendants convicted of certain federal violent or sexual offenses. Violating the order could be punished as contempt of court.
NDO Fairness Act: A bill to tighten the rules governing nondisclosure orders (NDOs) that prevent tech companies and other electronic-service providers from telling customers when the government has obtained their emails, records or other data during an investigation.
Prison Staff Safety Enhancement Act: A measure to require the Federal Bureau of Prisons to address sexual harassment and sexual assault of prison staff by incarcerated people, responding to a 2023 DOJ inspector general report that found the problem widespread and BOP’s data and mitigation efforts inadequate. The Senate passed it last April, so House passage would send it to the president.
⇢ This could be an unusually consequential week for the bipartisan House Ethics Committee, with as many as three House disciplinary and enforcement votes arising from its investigations—two involving outside witnesses who defied congressional subpoenas and one involving a sitting member accused of misconduct.
The panel is recommending that the House formally censure Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) after finding substantial reason to believe his sustained inappropriate conduct toward two young female staffers violated House standards governing sexual harassment, unwanted advances and conduct reflecting creditably on the House.
Edwards, who dropped his reelection bid two days after the Ethics recommendation, disputes the committee’s characterization. In a 22-page letter to House colleagues this week, he argues that his relationships with the staffers were affectionate but platonic, that he gave gifts to male employees as well and that friendship, compliments, gifts and socializing with staff aren’t themselves prohibited by House rules. He is personally lobbying members to vote against censure.
Ethics is also asking the House to hold North Miami Beach Mayor Michael Joseph and political consultant Hector Roos in contempt of Congress for refusing to provide documents and testimony subpoenaed during its investigation of former Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.), and to refer both men to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution.
⇢ Sixty-four days after the Supreme Court reaffirmed the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship in a 6–3 decision striking down an executive order that attempted to end it, a House Judiciary subcommittee will hold a second hearing on the Citizenship Clause Wednesday morning.
The other committee action I’ll be tracking:
House Foreign Affairs will hold a hearing on protecting U.S. interests and security in the Red Sea (Tuesday, 10 a.m.)
House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration will hold a hearing on sanctuary cities (Tuesday, 10 a.m.)
House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Work and Welfare will hold a hearing on welfare reform (Tuesday, 2 p.m.)
House Rules will hold a Member Day on proposed changes for the 120th Congress (Wednesday, 10 a.m.)
House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment will hold a hearing on legislation to strengthen drinking water systems and protect ratepayers (Thursday, 9 a.m.)
⇢ Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) will try to fend off Rep. Seth Moulton’s (D-Mass.) generational challenge in Tuesday’s marquee Democratic primary, while state Rep. Tram Nguyen is among six Democrats competing to succeed Moulton in his safely blue 6th District. Nguyen, the first Vietnamese American elected to the Massachusetts House and the field’s only current legislator, has consolidated support from prominent members of the state’s congressional delegation, including Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Lori Trahan.
THE POWERS THAT BE
Trump calls on FCC to punish Kristen Welker: Relatedly, President Trump called on FCC Chair Brendan Carr to take action against Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker after she described his record of Republican primary endorsements as producing “mixed results.” Trump disputed the characterization, claiming a 99% success rate and saying Welker “will be reported to the FCC for rebuke or punishment.” Minutes earlier, Trump declared “FCC TO THE RESCUE!” while complaining about unfavorable media polling. FWIW, the FCC licenses individual TV stations, not national networks or journalists. But as I reported earlier this month, Carr has previously threatened regulatory consequences against broadcasters over alleged news distortion.
Clyburn backs Supreme Court expansion to 13 justices: Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) called for expanding the Supreme Court from nine justices to 13, telling NBC’s Meet the Press he wants to see “a baker’s dozen” on the high court. The endorsement puts the former House majority whip behind one of the most aggressive proposals for overhauling the court as Democrats debate how to respond to its conservative majority. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) reiterated his call for “dramatic Supreme Court reform” as recently as this weekend but stopped short of endorsing court expansion or another specific proposal. The House, meanwhile, is scheduled to vote this week on a proposed constitutional amendment from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) that would permanently set the court at nine justices.
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THE POLICY DESK
Senate Republicans target mifepristone access: Senate HELP Committee Republicans released a report last Thursday pressing the FDA to tighten restrictions on mifepristone following a months-long investigation led by Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) into the drug’s three FDA-approved sponsors. The report challenges existing safety requirements and scrutinizes manufacturers’ oversight of prescribers and pharmacies, despite decades of evidence establishing mifepristone as safe and effective. The Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights research organization, accused Republicans of relying on “junk science and false claims” to build political pressure for new restrictions as the FDA conducts its own safety review of the medication.
THE TRAIL
El-Sayed to hit the road (and Rogers over Trump): Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed will join state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Detroit leaders Monday to knock Republican Mike Rogers as he campaigns with Vice President JD Vance, part of an effort to tie Rogers to President Trump’s economic and trade policies. The event comes as El-Sayed launches his “It Shouldn’t Be This Hard” tour, a series of town halls across Michigan beginning Thursday focused on affordability and health care while contrasting his accessibility to voters with what his campaign describes as Rogers’ avoidance of debates and interviews.
Talarico goes negative on Paxton for the first time: Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico launched his first negative ad of the general election on Saturday, attacking Republican Ken Paxton as “the most corrupt politician in Texas.” The 30-second spot targets Paxton’s personal wealth, real-estate holdings and 2023 impeachment while tying those attacks to the cost of housing, health care and overtime pay. The ad debuted during TCU’s season opener against North Carolina and will air statewide as part of Talarico’s eight-figure advertising campaign.
Vindman puts $250K behind Democratic Senate candidates: Alex Vindman announced on Friday a $250,000 investment in the DSCC and Democratic Senate candidates in nine states: Mary Peltola in Alaska, Josh Turek in Iowa, Troy Jackson in Maine, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, Dan Osborn in Nebraska, Chris Pappas in New Hampshire, Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Sherrod Brown in Ohio and Charles Booker in Kentucky. The spending comes after Vindman lost Florida’s Democratic Senate primary to state Rep. Angie Nixon earlier this month. He has since invested $400,000 in the Florida Democratic Party to support candidates up and down the ballot, including Nixon, and says additional investments are coming.