Ultraconservative lawmakers refused to back a critical procedural measure as they pressed for action on voting legislation championed by President Trump.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled his solution to Gotham’s housing crisis, invoking the free-market housing renaissance in Austin, Texas. Weeks later, his Rent Guidelines Board installed historic price controls. The Rent Guidelines Board, six of whose nine members were appointed by Mamdani, voted 7-1 Thursday to pause rent increases for up to two years. […]
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) on Tuesday said “birth tourism” is an issue Congress should address, “not by executive fiat or judicial activism,” after the Supreme Court ruled against President Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship. Three conservative justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts, joined all three liberal justices in ruling that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship…
The Supreme Court has given political parties more advertising bang for their buck – and opened the floodgates to a gusher of midterm campaign commercials – with a Tuesday decision that strikes down an obscure provision of federal election law.
Donald Trump called the bipartisan housing bill a "yawn" compared to the SAVE America Act, refusing to sign it amid his midterm elections push.
The House floor remained at a standstill Tuesday after more than a dozen House conservatives sustained their blockade over the stalled SAVE Act.
The House on Monday passed the KIDS Act, but key senators say the legislation has little chance of advancing in its current form.Why it matters: The vote sets up a showdown over kids' online safety as the White House works to align Congress behind legislation that would preempt some state AI laws. Driving the news: After garnering broad bipartisan support, House lawmakers fast-tracked a package of kids' online safety measures, including a version of the Kids Online Safety Act, and sent it to the Senate.The bill passed in a 267-117 vote.The House version of KOSA does not include "duty of care" language — which would require platforms to take reasonable steps to mitigate harms stemming from design features like endless scroll or algorithmic recommendations. Proponents say the provision is key to holding tech companies accountable.What they're saying: "We worked hard to reach a workable compromise," House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) said Monday on the floor. "While no single bill will solve every challenge facing families online, this legislation represents a significant and long-overdue step forward in establishing meaningful safeguards," he said.Zoom in: The House package includes preemption language that critics say would make it more difficult to sue social media companies for design features.If that language were law, it would have prevented landmark social media cases in California, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said during a call with reporters last week."Let me be clear. The Senate is not interested in having these cases preempted," she said."Preemption should not be a part of it, period," said KOSA co-sponsor Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)."The preemption language in the KIDS Act is written with the explicit intent of ensuring that states have the authority to pass and enforce stronger state laws, including those with a duty of care," House Energy and Commerce Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said.The big picture: The Trump administration and the tech industry have pushed Congress to pass legislation that would override some state AI laws. Any serious preemption effort would need to include measures protecting kids online to have a chance of advancing.KOSA co-sponsor Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has been working with the White House on a deal tying kids' online safety measures to federal preemption of some state AI laws and has said any legislation needs to include duty of care language."Certainly we don't need to tie it to bad AI policy," Cantwell said.Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has been working with the House on kids' online safety bills."Nobody on the committee knows what Sen. Cruz is proposing. I don't think a Republican on the committee knows what he's going to propose," Cantwell said.Cruz is expected to hold an AI legislative markup soon.The bottom line: Congress has repeatedly failed to get KOSA signed into law. This time, sponsors worry that White House pressure may result in a weakened bill crossing the finish line."We need to prevent the White House from forming an alliance with big tech on this issue," Blumenthal said.
More than a dozen House Republicans tanked a procedural vote for the must-pass defense bill — once again over the GOP's signature election bill, the SAVE Act.Why it matters: The SAVE Act has become a recurring source of chaos for House Republicans, repeatedly derailing procedural votes and stalling unrelated legislation. The House has already passed the bill three times, but it's well short of the necessary votes in the Senate, where Democratic support is needed to pass it.House conservatives have mounted a pressure campaign to force Senate Republicans to abolish the filibuster and pass the bill, but the effort has so far gained little traction in the chamber.Just last week, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was forced to scrap votes and end the House's workweek early after conservatives made clear they would block legislation on the floor over the Senate's failure to act on SAVE.Driving the news: Fourteen Republicans — Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (La.), Tim Burchett (Tenn.), Chip Roy (Texas), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Lauren Bobert (Colo.), Max Miller (Ohio), Victoria Spartz (Ind.), Eric Burlison (Mo.), Andy Harris (Md.), Eli Crane (Ariz.), Randy Fine (Fla.), Keith Self (Texas), Mike Turner (Ohio.) and Steve Scalise (La.) — voted against the rule for the National Defense Authorization Act because it doesn't include an amendment on the SAVE Act.Scalise, the majority leader, voted against the rule to allow GOP leadership to more easily bring it back up at a later date. The vote failed 198-224.Zoom in: As a compromise, Johnson agreed to package the SAVE Act with the NDAA before sending it to the Senate. But the Senate could easily strip out the election measure before final passage.The speaker has also floated including parts of the SAVE Act in a potential third reconciliation bill, another offramp conservatives have rejected as insufficient. President Trump publicly urged House Republicans to stop tanking procedural votes last week, but conservatives have so far ignored that warning. What's next: The path forward for passing the defense bill remains unclear, as does a mechanism for Johnson and his leadership team to move forward on other legislation they'd hoped to pass before the July 4 recess.
Trump's new demand suggests that he and his allies will continue attacking birthright citizenship for years to come.