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FIRST THINGS FIRST
👋🏾 HI, HEY, HELLO! Welcome back to Congress Nerd Daily. I hope today was everything for you. The 2026 NFL season kicks off tonight with the New England Patriots taking the field against the defending champion Seattle Seahawks in a Super Bowl LX rematch. 2,174 miles to the southeast, national Republicans will be gathered at the American Airlines Center in Dallas for the GOP’s first-ever midterm convention. The two-day Trumpapalooza is designed to showcase the party’s economic pitch on tax cuts, health care and domestic manufacturing, along with its immigration, public-safety and election-integrity agenda, plus battleground candidates and a closing keynote from President Donald Trump. Which primetime programming will you be tuned into? 👀
— AI alarm: Jacob Coxon’s warning that leading AI companies are racing toward potentially uncontrollable superintelligence triggered an unusually urgent bipartisan response on Capitol Hill, with lawmakers calling for hearings and new safeguards. House Democratic Vice Chair Ted Lieu pushed his bipartisan “AI kill switch” bill, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) called for a special session of Congress, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced plans for legislation to pause development of superintelligence, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he is working with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune on legislation addressing catastrophic AI risks.
— The Big Interview: Noreen Farrell: Washington has for decades had a recognizable bucket of policies it calls the “women’s economic agenda”: equal pay, paid family and medical leave, affordable child care and protections for caregivers and workers.
Noreen Farrell thinks that old taxonomy is increasingly out of step with how Americans experience the economy.
Farrell is the president and executive director of Equal Rights Advocates, the gender-justice organization where she has helped lead campaigns on pay equity, paid leave and economic security for women and families. Its political arm, the Equal Rights Advocates Action Fund, recently commissioned a national poll of 1,000 likely 2026 voters that found deep economic anxiety alongside broad support for congressional action on many of the policies historically associated with the women’s economic agenda.
Fifty-eight percent of voters said the economy was not working well for them and their families. And while voters were most likely to identify the cost of basics, health care and housing when asked what mattered to them personally, 89% said it was important for Congress to address affordable family and elder care, 86% said the same about fair wages and 78% said so about both paid leave and equal pay.
That gap is what interested me.
Farrell argues that Washington’s affordability conversation has become too fixated on one side of the household ledger: what things cost. She says policies that protect or increase what workers earn can provide another form of economic relief by putting more money in people’s pockets and giving families greater power to decide where to spend it.
It is also why Farrell believes policies once categorized primarily as questions of women’s equality increasingly belong in the broader debate over Americans’ economic security. Equal Rights Advocates has spent years connecting wages, paid leave, caregiving and other workplace policies through that lens, including through state-level legislative campaigns.
I spoke with Farrell this afternoon about that argument, what she thinks Congress is missing and whether the politics have finally caught up with the economics.
Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Once Upon a Hill: I want to start with the poll’s premise. What changed that makes you believe policies Washington has traditionally treated as “women’s issues” should now be understood as part of the broader affordability agenda?
Farrell: The poll numbers are fairly staggering in confirming the point. Voters have been calling for what the women’s agenda calls for: equal pay, higher wages, paid leave, affordable child care, elder care. Those have been filed and dismissed as women’s issues.
But these numbers really support the finding that the whole electorate is calling it the winning agenda. Ninety-four percent of voters want lower costs on food, housing and health care. Eighty-nine percent want access to affordable family and elder care. Seventy-eight percent want equal pay for women in the workplace.
What is really compelling is that this is consistent across the demographics and party of the voter. Independents are deciding many elections, and they’re not on the fence here. They back affordable family and elder care at 92% and fair wages at 91%. That’s not a swing voter. That’s a settled voter.
We really think this confirms a new brand of populism. It’s turning on kitchen-table economics: fair wages, paid leave, health care, child care, elder care, equal pay. You can call it “popular feminism.” But I think it’s already shaping this election cycle, as we’ve seen in the primaries, and I think it will continue to shape our politics heading into 2028…
— Oil shock: Brent crude climbed above $100 a barrel for the first time since July as renewed U.S.-Iran attacks and Houthi strikes on Saudi energy infrastructure deepened fears of prolonged supply disruptions. The escalation is also bleeding into the broader U.S. outlook, with stock futures falling and Treasury yields rising as investors price in fresh inflation pressure ahead of new inflation data and the Fed’s Sept. 16 meeting.
— TPS cliff: Temporary Protected Status for roughly 232,000 Salvadorans reaches its scheduled expiration today with DHS’s next move still unclear. The designation will automatically extend for six months if the department does not make the required determination, preserving protections for beneficiaries who in many cases have lived in the United States for decades.
— Save the date: FBI Director Kash Patel will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next Tuesday. Patel’s appearance will give Senate Democrats one of their highest-profile opportunities this fall to publicly scrutinize his management of the FBI, including allegations of politicization and misuse of bureau resources, just weeks before the midterms.
📬 The best stories often start with a conversation. If you’ve got insight, context or something others are missing, my inbox is open. Send me tips, scoops or just say hi: michael@onceuponahill.com.
IN THE KNOW
House Democrats press ICE over conditions at Delaney Hall: Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Adriano Espaillat and Reps. Analilia Mejia (D-N.J.) and Rob Menendez (D-N.J.) conducted an oversight visit today at the Newark, N.J., immigration detention facility following repeated complaints about conditions inside. The Democrats said detainees described delayed or denied medical care, spoiled food and inadequate air conditioning and pledged additional oversight of DHS and GEO Group, including seeking answers about deaths of people held at the facility…
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