Category Archives: House of Representatives

Republican disquiet over hemp ban threatens passage of bill to end shutdown

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Kentucky trio oppose provision restricting hemp-derived products, with House to vote on Wednesday on funding bill

A last-minute provision in the federal spending bill heavily restricting hemp-derived products such as CBD and THC drinks could lead some Republicans to vote against the spending bill which, if passed, could end the government shutdown as early as Wednesday.

Kentucky is one of the largest producers of hemp in the country, and Republicans in the state have shown strong support for the hemp industry. Jonathan Miller, an advocate for the hemp industry and former Kentucky state treasurer, said that “Kentucky is really ground zero for the rebirth of hemp” – a niche industry until the 2018 farm bill allowed a much wider variety of legal products.

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US House to vote on bill that could end longest-ever government shutdown

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Democrats have vowed to vote against the proposal after a faction of Senators broke with party to pass a compromise

The House on Wednesday was poised to vote on legislation that would end the longest government shutdown in US history, as Democrats voice fury that the Senate-brokered compromise fails to extend expiring healthcare subsidies.

The House speaker, Mike Johnson, has instructed lawmakers to return to Washington after keeping the chamber out of session for more than 50 days.

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John F Kennedy’s grandson Jack Schlossberg announces run for US House seat

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Schlossberg has drummed up a large following on social media with frequent posts weighing in on national issues

John F Kennedy’s grandson Jack Schlossberg has said he will run for the US House next year, announcing Tuesday that he was seeking a key New York seat set to be vacated by longtime Democrat Jerry Nadler.

“This district should have a representative who can harness the creativity, energy and drive of this district and translate that into political power in Washington,” Schlossberg said in a campaign video posted on social media late Tuesday.

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Top House Democrats vow to oppose shutdown bill over healthcare funding

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Democrats are demanding an extension of tax credits for Affordable Care Act health plans set to expire at end of year

As House Republican leaders move to hold a vote on legislation to reopen the US government, top Democrats vowed on Tuesday to oppose the bill for not addressing their demand for more healthcare funding.

Democrats have for weeks demanded that any measure to fund the government include an extension of tax credits for Affordable Care Act health plans, which were created under Joe Biden and due to expire at the end of the year, sending premiums for enrollees higher.

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US Senate vote marks step towards ending federal shutdown

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Senators vote on advancing House-passed stopgap funding bill, suggesting end to historic 40-day shutdown in reach

The US Senate on Sunday took a key vote on a bill that would end the record-setting federal government shutdown without extending the healthcare subsidies that Democrats have demanded.

Senators began voting on Sunday night to advance House-passed stopgap funding legislation that Senate majority leader John Thune said would be amended to combine another short-term spending measure with a package of three full-year appropriations bills.

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Republican Indiana governor calls special session to redraw congressional maps

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GOP-led state is latest that Trump administration has put pressure on to undertake redistricting to favor Republicans

The Indiana governor, Mike Braun, announced on Monday that he is calling a special session to consider redrawing congressional districts in the state, the latest state to work on its maps ahead of 2026.

Indiana is one of several Republican-led states the Trump administration has pressured to undertake mid-decade redistricting to favor Republicans, which began with a push in Texas to redraw lines to add Republican seats.

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Speaker Mike Johnson says he won’t block House vote to release Epstein files

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Johnson’s House has been in recess since shutdown, delaying petition to force vote on making documents public

The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, on Tuesday said he would not prevent a vote on legislation to make the Jeffrey Epstein files public, even as the chamber remained out of session for a fourth straight week.

Johnson has kept the House of Representatives in recess ever since the shutdown began at the start of the month, after Democrats and Republicans failed to reach an agreement on extending government funding beyond the end of September.

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Trump says he has commuted sentence of George Santos in federal fraud case

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Former Republican US representative walks free after being sentenced in April to more than seven years in prison for deceiving donors and stealing identities of 11 people

Donald Trump announced on Friday he had commuted the sentence of George Santos, the disgraced former New York representative and serial fabulist who had been sentenced to more than seven years in prison after a short-lived political career marked by outlandish fabrications and fraudulent scheming.

Santos left the Federal Correctional Institution Fairton in New Jersey just hours later and was “on his way home”, his attorney Joseph Murray told Agence France-Presse by phone late on Friday.

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Trump orders approval of 211-mile mining road through Alaska wilderness

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Ambler Road project, approved in Trump’s first term but blocked by Biden, would harm Native tribes and wildlife

Donald Trump on Monday ordered the approval of a proposed 211-mile road through an Alaska wilderness to allow mining of copper, cobalt, gold and other minerals.

The long-debated Ambler Road project was approved in the US president’s first term, but was later blocked by the Biden administration after an analysis determined the project would threaten caribou and other wildlife and harm Alaska Indigenous tribes that rely on hunting and fishing.

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House speaker says Democrats aren’t serious about shutdown negotiation as Democratic leader blames Republicans

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Mike Johnson adds Trump does not want permanent job cuts as talks between parties stalled over weekend

The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, accused Democrats of being “not serious” in negotiations to end the federal government shutdown, while the Democratic leader accused Republicans of driving the shutdown, now on its fifth day and expected to last at least through next week.

Talks between the opposing political parties stalled over the weekend, with no votes anticipated to end the standoff. A CBS poll found just 28% of Democratic voters and 23% of Republicans consider their party’s positions worth shutting down the government.

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Will Republicans in Congress finally stand up to Trump?

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The president has steamrollered the separation of powers but so far his sway over his party has been firm

Democrat Chuck Schumer returned to the Senate floor last week with some urgent questions. “Will Senate Republicans continue to kowtow to a leader they know is dragging the country down?” he demanded. “That they know is a pathological liar? Or will they, as the Founding Fathers intended, stand up to him? Will they help us fight America’s slide into authoritarianism?”

It was a recognition of how Donald Trump has spent eight months seeking to expand presidential power at the expense of Congress and others. He has signed 200 executive orders – more than Joe Biden in four years – unleashed squadrons of national guard troops in Washington, turned investigators on his political foes and sought to bring academic, cultural, financial and legal institutions to heel.

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US House committee releases more than 33,000 pages of Jeffrey Epstein files

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Files appear to contain information already in public domain as calls grow for release of all pertinent documents

The US House of Representatives oversight committee on Tuesday released thousands of pages of records related to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein from the department of justice.

The release comes as the Trump administration has been embroiled in months of controversy over its decision not to release additional files in the case. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges and was alleged to have abused hundreds of girls.

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Duke Cunningham, Vietnam flying ace and congressman convicted of bribery, dies at 83

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Decorated navy pilot who served in House of Representatives pleaded guilty to accepting illegal gifts

Randy “Duke” Cunningham, whose feats as a US navy flying ace during the Vietnam war catapulted him to a House of Representatives career that ended in disgrace when he was convicted of accepting $2.4m in bribes, has died. He was 83.

Cunningham died Wednesday at a hospital in a Little Rock, Arkansas, according to former representative Duncan L Hunter, who spent time with him a week before his death.

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Missouri governor calls special session to redraw congressional maps to aid Republicans

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State follows Texas’s lead in Trump’s push to gain more House seats for Republicans in 2026 midterms

The Missouri governor, Mike Kehoe, has moved to help the Republican party gain an additional seat in Congress, calling a special legislative session to redraw congressional districts in his state.

Kehoe’s announcement on Friday followed a pressure campaign from Donald Trump, who has urged Republican states to reshape district boundaries to more heavily favor Republicans, boosting the party’s chances of maintaining control of the House of Representatives in 2026.

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Trump ‘manufactured crisis’ to justify plan to send national guard to Chicago, leading Democrat says

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Pentagon official confirms plan as House minority leader Jeffries says president is ‘playing’ with Americans’ lives

Planning is underway to send national guard troops to Chicago, an official at the Pentagon confirmed to ABC News on Sunday.

“We won’t speculate on further operations. The Department is a planning organization and is continuously working with other agency partners on plans to protect federal assets and personnel,” a Department of Defense official said, according to ABC.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene joins Bernie Sanders in urging US to end Gaza famine

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Breaking from most of her peers in Congress, far-right Georgia Republican has also described crisis as a genocide

Amid mostly silence in Congress, some US lawmakers on opposite sides of the political spectrum spoke out Saturday over a UN-backed report warning of famine in parts of Gaza.

“Let’s be clear: President Trump has the power to end the starvation of the Palestinian people,” Vermont’s politically independent senator Bernie Sanders posted on X. “Instead he is doing nothing while watching this famine unfold. Enough is enough. No more American taxpayer dollars to Nethanyahu’s [sic] war machine.”

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Texas prepares for final approval of Republican map as senator threatens to filibuster

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Carol Alvarado posted on social media: ‘Republicans think they can walk all over us. Today I’m going to kick back’

The Texas legislature preliminarily approved a redrawn congressional map on Friday that gives Republicans a chance to pick up as many as five congressional seats, fulfilling a brazen political request from Donald Trump to shore up the GOP’s standing before next year’s midterm elections.

The tentative map adoption passed in an 18-11 party-line vote.

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California legislature approves first of three redistricting bills in response to Texas gerrymandering

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Assembly passes measure 57-20, sending it next to the state senate before on to governor Gavin Newsom

The California assembly on Thursday approved the first in a series of three bills designed to redraw congressional boundaries and create five potential new Democratic US House seats.

The effort in California is an answer to the Republican redistricting push in Texas, sought by Donald Trump and aimed at tilting the map in his party’s favor before next year’s midterm elections.

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Democrats are fighting fire with fire over redistricting – but will democracy burn?

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Trump’s plan to boost Republican House seats in the midterms through gerrymandering has provoked a reaction

The mid-decade redistricting war looming between Republicans and Democrats is exposing an idea that’s corroding American democracy – voters may not matter that much in determining who controls the US House.

After Texas Republicans unveiled a Donald Trump-fueled plan to pick up five additional US House seats last month, the California governor, Gavin Newsom, unveiled a plan on Thursday to throw out districts drawn by an independent commission and put in place new ones that would add five Democratic seats in response. Republicans are also expected to push ahead with plans to redraw maps in Ohio, Missouri, Florida and possibly Indiana, in their favor.

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Speaker Mike Johnson visits occupied West Bank to support Israeli settlers

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Palestinian foreign ministry condemns Republican visit for ‘undermining efforts to stop the war and cycle of violence’

Mike Johnson became the highest ranked US official to visit the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Republican House speaker drawing measures of praise and condemnation for his trip in support of Israeli settlements amid a worsening starvation crisis in Gaza.

The excursion followed Johnson’s arrival in Israel on Sunday on an unannounced visit with other Republican lawmakers, and his meeting with Israeli defense minister Israel Katz and foreign minister Gideon Saar.

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