https://www.washingtonsun.com/congress Congress en-US Fri, 23 Oct 2026 09:20:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/in-ohio-brown-and-kaptur-supporters-want-fighting-blood-not-new-blood Paul Kane Sherrod Brown and Marcy Kaptur bet their decades of populism can outrun calls for new leadership. Fri, 23 Oct 2026 09:20:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/in-ohio-brown-and-kaptur-supporters-want-fighting-blood-not-new-blood PERRYSBURG, Ohio — When Sherrod Brown and Marcy Kaptur first shared a political ticket, in 1982, they were well ahead of their time in the Democratic Party.

Brown, who won Ohio's secretary of state office that year, and Kaptur, who won her first term in Congress, preached an aggressive economic populist message meant to appeal to the working class people who worked in steel mills and auto plants, the type of agenda that fell out of favor during the Clinton and Obama administrations.

Now, after they lost every bit of power in 2024, many Democrats are embracing the Brown-Kaptur message as the future of the party — and yet the other big political force of the moment, an anti-Washington fervor, could doom two Democrats with more than 75 years of combined service in Congress.

Brown and Kaptur used a packed carpenters hall last weekend to say that their experience walking the walk with Ohio’s working men and women is more important than their age.

“No one in Washington, with the exception of Marcy and a few of us, are standing up to the corporations that game the system. But politicians who are supposed to work for you too often work for themselves,” the soon-to-be-74-year-old Brown told a few hundred union members.

In a midterm election where the economy and cost of living is far and away the most important issue, no pair of Democrats seems better positioned to tap into an electorate that is angry at billionaires and the political class. Their mission may have found its moment.

Brown is trying to reclaim a Senate seat after his loss to Bernie Moreno two years ago. Kaptur, 80, is trying to secure her 23rd term in the House, the longest-serving woman in the history of Congress, despite repeated gerrymanders that made her Northwest Ohio district more friendly to President Donald Trump.

Yet their very calling card of legitimacy is the thing Republicans are using against them — their decades in politics, especially in Congress. Republicans are using that throughline of longevity on Capitol Hill in just about every attack ad run against the duo.

One super PAC ad starts off with the theme of “it’s time to retire Marcy Kaptur” and goes on to accuse her of voting over the years to raise taxes and allow federal benefits to go to undocumented immigrants. On Thursday the Senate Leadership Fund unveiled its latest ad against Brown that cites votes cast all the way back to the 1970s in the state legislature.

“Sherrod Brown, 50 years in politics, 50 votes to raise your taxes,” the narrator says in the ad, run by the super PAC affiliated with Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

Kaptur’s opponent, former state legislator Derek Merrin, likes to point out how he wasn’t born yet when she first took office and highlights the region’s economic decline over those decades.

“Since 1983 when Marcy Kaptur took office, America's population across the country has increased by approximately 46% — 46%. In Lucas County, the population has decreased by 9% — failure, she's a failure,” Merrin said earlier this month while campaigning alongside House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), at a logistics company that helps the booming data center business.

Both races, which could determine the majority in each chamber of Congress, are considered pure tossups by The Cook Political Report.

Kaptur offers no apologies for her tenure and suggests that her constituents would be worse off without her fighting for them. She is poised to chair a subcommittee that spends almost $60 billion annually on energy and water projects if Democrats claim the majority, a beneficial post for constituents whose local economy is based in the Great Lakes region.

“Now I have some authority, and they try to use it against me in the ads. They try to say, you know, she served there too long. Oh no, it took me four decades to get where I am now, and I'm not giving it up because it's their seniority, not mine,” she said during an interview in Toledo.

Their most fervent supporters agree, as Ohio state Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson, who represents Toledo, dismissed talk of needing “new blood” at the carpenters hall rally.

“We need fighting blood,” Hicks-Hudson told the hard-hat crowd.

Out in the audience Brayden McClure, 26, a carpenter from Lima, nodded along as he attended his second rally for Brown in recent weeks. “I need better wages and a better pension, and he has promises and he has ideas for our future,” McClure told The Washington Sun.
Ohio Politics 2026 (8479x5652, AR: 1.50)Two years ago he voted for Trump, after supporting Joe Biden in 2020, a prototypical voter almost always landing on the change candidate. He thinks the Iran war was a huge mistake that drains an extra $100 a week on gas costs driving to his jobs, leading him to support Brown and Kaptur this fall.

“I don't think age matters at all,” he said, preferring experience over youthful energy. “You get someone up there that's going to fight for your rights.”

Public polls give Brown a small but durable lead over Sen. Jon Husted, the former lieutenant governor who was appointed early last year by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine.

The winner in November will take over the remaining two years of a Senate term that Vice President JD Vance won in 2022 — setting up the possibility that Brown would have to immediately gear up for a third straight grueling Senate campaign.

Husted is an imperfect vessel to run as the anti-politician, as he has worked his way up the power ladder in Columbus: 10 years in the legislature, eight as secretary of state and six as DeWine’s lieutenant governor.

Both Brown and Kaptur are running against the Republican machine in the state capital as much as they are running against the Trump administration.

Brown’s ads dubbed Husted as the “face of data centers” after the Republican-dominated legislature approved tax incentives to attract the now controversial projects to rural patches of Ohio. The line of attack proved so effective national Republicans leaked a memo calling the issue “an anchor” around Husted, pleading for the industry to mount its own PR campaign.

Yet over almost 90 minutes of speeches at the carpenters rally, no one blasted Husted on the issue. The reason was hanging on a “We Build Industry” banner along the side of the venue, rattling off the things the union builds.

Fourth on the list: data centers.

“We know it's controversial, but we are in favor of them because it puts a lot of our members to work,” Lee Daher, 46, senior representative of the regional union, told The Sun.

Kaptur explained later that she doesn’t support a full moratorium on the controversial projects but wants these tech companies to better negotiate with county and state officials to ensure water and power usage by the behemoths doesn’t surge costs for local residents.

Their closing message is focused on blaming the richest people in the world for the decades-long decline in the region. “No human being in America should be a trillionaire. Nobody, and I say that to Elon Musk because he's helping to put money against me,” Kaptur said.

Later, when Brown spoke, he added that no one should be a billionaire. He uses a Husted line about how the “work ethic is broken” in America to riff on how the senator should look “in the eye” of a crowd of different trade workers he mentioned and “say your work ethic is broken.”

It’s a message that’s found new relevance in a party that spent the 1990s and first 20 years of this century courting suburban professionals, only to see folks like McClure abandon the party.

Ohio swung from being the quintessential battleground in presidential campaigns, to an afterthought where Trump won by 11% in 2024. Part of this drift came from culture war issues that broke religious, gun-owning rural voters away from Democrats, something Kaptur is distancing herself from in this campaign, which is all about economics.

Everywhere Kaptur goes, an aide must have a sheet of paper showing the median household income by congressional district.

Of the 50 wealthiest, 35 are marked blue for a Democratic representative. The back piece of paper, for the poorest districts, is overwhelmingly red, for Republicans.

“The Democratic Party as a whole couldn't understand this. They couldn't,” she said of the past ethos.

Now, other Democrats are trying to catch up to this message. Brown and Kaptur hope that they will be there in Congress in January to explain to others how they rode it to victory — and they’re warning their supporters to hold these new converts to doing more than just talking the talk.

“That's kind of all they do. They don't fight. They don't come to rallies like this. They don't show up at picket lines. They don't talk to management sometimes and get them to accept that there's an organizing drive,” Brown said. “I know Marcy's done this. I've done this.”]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/democrats-red-state-momentum-jeffrey-epstein-ad-blitz Avani Kalra Operatives hope what had been a swing-district gambit to exploit voters’ anger at the dead sex trafficker can tip GOP races that had seemed safe. Fri, 23 Oct 2026 09:11:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/democrats-red-state-momentum-jeffrey-epstein-ad-blitz As the limits of where Democrats hope to win in 2026 creep further into reliably red territory, party operatives have been turning more often to a wedge issue that helped Donald Trump win in 2024 — disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

In Kansas, a state that Trump won by more than more than 16 points that is now considered a genuine pick-up opportunity for Democrats, one advertisement slams Republican Sen. Roger Marshall for his September 2025 vote to block the Epstein files release.

“I expected our leaders to hear our stories and actually hold our abusers accountable. They’ve only let us down,” Marina Lacerda, an Epstein victim, tells the camera while a video of Marshall saying Epstein is “not of much interest” to him plays on the screen.

The issue is not new, but Democratic campaign groups are shifting the focus to places like Kansas, flooding the airwaves and social media feeds with spots about Republicans who stood in the way of quickly releasing FBI files about the dead sex trafficker, hoping the issue can tilt such reach contests into the blue column.

More than 150 ads centered on Epstein have aired nationwide during the 2026 election cycle, according to a review by The Washington Sun. They began playing primarily in “toss up” districts and states across the country but increasingly are being deployed in states and districts that Trump won two years ago, often by wide margins.

And Democrats are expected to ramp up their messaging around Epstein in the final stretch before Nov. 3. The Democratic National Committee is planning a flood of Epstein-related ads in red states over the coming days, Axios first reported, targeting Trump’s base on platforms like Fox News and right-wing YouTube channels.

Epstein is a particularly salient issue for Republicans, said Dane Strother, a Democratic strategist, who described Democrats’ messaging around Epstein as “a layup.”

Throughout his 2024 election campaign, Trump campaigned on declassifying the Epstein files, and 82% of self-identified MAGA Republicans supported releasing all files related to the notorious financier, a 2025 Washington Post poll found.

“People feel deceived,” Strother said. “They fully expected these files to be released, and even the hardcore [Republicans] recognize they haven’t all been released. … We’re not talking about taxes, we’re not talking about privatizing schools, we’re talking about protecting children.”

Democrats have already moved that messaging into even deeper red territory. In Mississippi, a Republican stronghold where the Senate race shifted slightly in Democrats’ favor earlier this week, Democrats are targeting Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith for the same vote as Marshall.

“Senator Hyde-Smith, you voted to protect the sex trafficker who abused me,” Jena-Lisa Jones, another Epstein survivor, says in one spot running there. “If you vote to protect pedophiles, it’s time for Mississippi to pick a new senator.”

Most GOP senators cast the same vote to block the release of the files in September 2025, though both chambers of Congress later passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in a near-unanimous vote, following mounting public pressure.

In Colorado’s 5th District, a “lean Republican” seat, the family of the late Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre criticize Rep. Jeff Crank in an ad for “refusing to meet” with them following Giuffre’s death last year.

“Our own Congressman Jeff Crank refused to meet with us,” Giuffre’s sister-in-law Amanda Roberts, who lives in the district, says in the ad. “Then, when he had the chance to expose the truth and release the Epstein files, he repeatedly voted to cover them up.”

Recent polling has shown widespread dissatisfaction within the Republican base over the Trump administration’s handling of the files. Only 21% of Republicans said that the administration helped deliver justice in Epstein-related cases, a June Reuters poll found, a number that is at 10% across all Americans polled.

Strother added that in this year’s political cycle, Democrats may only need to flip a small portion of Republican voters to turn the tide in either chamber of Congress. That makes any issue unpopular with the Republican base important to exploit, he said.

“We need the 8% of [MAGA] voters to perhaps vote, in this case, Democratic, and this is an issue that penetrates red,” Strother added.

Republicans are pushing back. They have slammed Democrats for taking money from donors linked to Epstein. Filings released Wednesday revealed tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, who has been repeatedly connected to Epstein, was the top donor to House Majority PAC, the Democrats’ flagship House super PAC, in the last quarter.

One GOP ad that aired Wednesday in Pennsylvania in Rep. Rob Bresnahan’s “toss up” district against Democrat Paige Cognetti highlights the connection.

“Her lying ads are funded by anti-gun radicals and Epstein Associates. Paige Cognetti is basically Kamala Harris without the charisma,” one ad reads, with a picture of Epstein and dollar bills flashing across the screen.

The Democratic campaign group spent about $2.33 million on ads related to Epstein in nine districts, according to data from ad tracking service AdImpact.

"The soulless shills at House Majority PAC want voters outraged over Epstein ties while cashing checks from Reid Hoffman, who actually visited Epstein’s island,” Mike Marinella, a spokesperson for House Republicans campaign arm, said in a statement. “If these shameless Democrat candidates believed the ads HMP is running for them, they would reject its support and condemn Hoffman.”

Still, Strother said that such attacks have only benefited Democrats. His party has consistently led the narrative on the Epstein issue and spotlighting the financier’s unpopularity can only be beneficial, he added.

“Republicans are answering the attack,” Strother said. “When they have to stop and answer an attack, that means they’re not attacking, and Democrats are winning that debate. That’s exactly the debate that Democrats want to have.”]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/influence/ilhan-omar-fundraise-million-campaign-federal-raid Kyle Chouinard The Minnesota Democrat pulled in more than $172,000 alone on the day federal agents raided her D.C. home. Fri, 23 Oct 2026 04:32:34 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/influence/ilhan-omar-fundraise-million-campaign-federal-raid Rep. Ilhan Omar raised nearly $1.9 million for her reelection campaign in the first two weeks of October, a haul that coincided with a federal raid on her Washington, D.C., home and her efforts to capitalize on what she called an “authoritarian attack.”

More than 1,300 itemized donations totaling more than $172,000 poured in Oct. 12, a Federal Election Commission filing shows, the day the Minnesota Democrat was awakened by federal agents serving a search warrant for what the Justice Department called an “ongoing federal criminal investigation.” That’s nearly 100 times the amount she raised a week before.

Omar’s campaign had brought in about $520,000 in contributions in the two months prior.

Omar’s campaign had fundraised off the raid, asking supporters for donations the night of Oct. 12 by saying the DOJ action was “a dangerous and authoritarian attack on a political opponent.”

“We have an obligation to fight back against this ludicrous, partisan investigation, and show that we will not let Trump’s abuse of power go unchecked,” the email said.

Since federal agents entered her home, Omar’s campaign has sent supporters 11 emails referencing the raid, according to PoliticalEmails.org.

Omar noted the wave of support on TikTok earlier this week, saying the donations would go “a long way as we fight Trump and his administration for trying to intimidate me and so many people right before the midterm elections.”

Following the raid, President Donald Trump said while he was not involved in the case against Omar she was a “terrible person.”

Trump posted to Truth Social on Thursday night to demand Omar’s resignation for using a “fake name” while being sworn in, a reference to a court filing by the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro. The president said Omar “will not be legally allowed to be a Member … from this point forth,” though he has no power to remove her from Congress.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/congress/ilhan-omar-interview-after-law-enforcement-raid Michelle Del Rey The congresswoman said she, her husband and their 20-year-old son were home when federal agents searched their house. Thu, 22 Oct 2026 15:20:02 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/congress/ilhan-omar-interview-after-law-enforcement-raid Rep. Ilhan Omar said she is moving out of her Washington, D.C., home after federal agents raided the residence earlier this month.

The Minnesota Democrat, who has faced multiple death threats, told MS Now on Wednesday that she can’t “continue to live there. … So we have to figure out where to move to because our address has been public.”

Omar recounted the raid, which took place on Oct. 12, for the first time in her interview with Chris Hayes. The government said the search was part of an “ongoing federal criminal investigation,” which officials suggested was related to immigration; it has not provided evidence of immigration fraud.

Omar said she was awakened at 6 a.m. to the sound of federal agents banging on her front door. She said she initially thought there was an urgent evacuation happening throughout her neighborhood due to a potential fire.

Omar was at the home with her husband and 20-year-old son, she said.

Her husband answered the door and saw 15 to 25 Homeland Security Investigations agents standing in front of his home, Omar said.

“That’s immigration. That’s trafficking. That’s drugs,” Omar said of the agents assembled. “The fact that they were at my house that early in the morning was so bizarre.”

Omar said agents wanted her to waive her immunity as a member of Congress. She said the agents spent four to five hours going room by room and took 17 items, including several phones, one of which belonged to her youngest daughter. They also took an antique camera that had been gifted to her husband and a Somali-language book for children, she said.

Omar said she asked the agents if they had a search warrant, which they handed over. Omar said that the warrant was specifically for electronics.

“I think ultimately, their goal is to intimidate and scare people from wanting to participate and vote,” she said.

Omar said she takes the Trump administration’s threats to prosecute or denaturalize her “very seriously.” Omar moved to the U.S. from Somalia when she was 12 years old.

“It would be a huge undertaking to, I suppose, indict a 12-year-old for being so cleverly conspiring to defraud immigration services to come to the United States,” she said.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/trump-kennedy-center-communications-joyce-beatty Torrie Herrington Her attorneys also pointed to a newly disclosed consultant report that they say undercuts the administration’s justification for the shutdown. Thu, 22 Oct 2026 14:41:41 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/metro/trump-kennedy-center-communications-joyce-beatty Rep. Joyce Beatty is asking a federal judge to force the Trump administration to turn over communications about the president’s management of the Kennedy Center, arguing that executive privilege should not shield his decisions as the institution’s chair because the storied arts institution is not a part of the executive branch.

In a court filing Tuesday, the Ohio Democrat’s attorneys said the administration has improperly withheld information about President Donald Trump’s role in the decision to close the performing arts center for two years. They also pointed to a newly disclosed consultant report that they say undercuts the administration’s justification for the shutdown.

Beatty’s lawyers argued that Trump’s communications with Kennedy Center staff about renovations and the closure fall outside the scope of presidential communications privilege because he was acting as the center’s board chair, not in his capacity as president.

“It would do a terrible disservice to the rule of law—to say nothing of disserving the search for truth in this important litigation about a national memorial to a slain President—to permit Defendants to hide the ball in this way,” Beatty’s lawyers wrote, referencing the administration’s “sweeping claim of executive privilege.”

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Beatty’s filing is the latest development in the lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s control of the Kennedy Center, including its efforts to rename the institution and close its main building for renovations.

The administration has invoked presidential communications privilege to withhold information sought by Beatty’s legal team. Her attorneys argued Tuesday that the administration has failed to adequately identify the specific communications it seeks to protect or establish that Trump personally invoked the privilege for each of them.

Beatty’s attorneys also argued that the privilege, which protects a president’s confidential deliberations, should not extend to the daily management of a performing arts institution that operates outside the executive branch.

The dispute has taken on new significance following the disclosure of a report prepared by real estate consultant JLL on Aug. 20. Beatty’s attorneys said the report, which was not provided to the Kennedy Center’s board, found that a phased renovation was feasible and appeared to contradict information presented to trustees.

The report was not disclosed to Beatty’s legal team until Oct. 19, after depositions had already taken place, according to the filing.

Beatty’s attorneys also cited a document in which JLL was told by Kennedy Center management that “Q3 2028 reopening is absolute; driven by Presidential mandate.”

The statement, they argued, raises questions about whether the two-year closure timeline was independently determined by the center’s consultants or dictated by Trump before the board considered its options.

The filing said Matt Floca, the Kennedy Center’s executive director, testified that Trump had decided on the two-year closure. Beatty’s attorneys argued that the newly disclosed JLL report was directly responsive to their discovery requests about renovation alternatives, scheduling and costs.

They also questioned why Floca did not disclose the report during his deposition, despite being asked about the consultant’s findings.

The administration has maintained that the board’s decision was supported by expert analysis. But Beatty’s attorneys said the evidence raises questions about whether the consultants’ work was independent or shaped by Trump’s preferred outcome.

Beatty’s attorneys argued that the board could have breached its responsibilities as trustees if it relied on a predetermined recommendation while ignoring evidence supporting alternatives.

The filing also renewed concerns about Trump’s threats to demolish the center if his name is not added to the building. Beatty’s attorneys said they need access to communications about those threats to determine whether the renovation plans could change based on the outcome of the separate dispute over the institution’s renaming.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/congress/republicans-lame-duck-agenda-midterm-results Al Weaver, Kadia Goba “I think our appetite's definitely going to be bigger than what our stomach can hold on this one,” one senior Republican aide said. Thu, 22 Oct 2026 09:16:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/congress/republicans-lame-duck-agenda-midterm-results Republican leaders are barreling towards a lame-duck period when they plan to fund the government, address the debt ceiling and push through a must-pass defense authorization bill — all while tempering the expectations of members who have their sights set on a reconciliation package many believe won’t materialize.

The party in power is staring down a lengthy must-do list and an even lengthier wish list, especially if they lose one or both chambers come Nov. 3. While the midterm results will determine the top priorities, members are already fretting about the looming issue of fitting 10 pounds into a 5-pound sack.

“I think our appetite's definitely going to be bigger than what our stomach can hold on this one,” one senior Senate Republican aide, given anonymity to speak freely, told The Washington Sun.

“It'll certainly depend to some extent what the chamber breakdowns are gonna be after January 3rd to see what kind of leverage each party has in these negotiations and maybe what's punted to the next Congress,” the aide continued.

Republicans have already passed two reconciliation bills. This summer they laid the groundwork for a third, focused primarily on defense spending. But the prospect of a divided government in 2027 has added a sense of urgency for Republicans looking to pass GOP priorities before the end of the year.

Members are socializing a long list of GOP priorities should Republicans lose the majority in the House. Among those being discussed are permitting reform, imposing new restrictions around children using social media, transportation reauthorization, renewing a surveillance program and approving more money for farmers and the Pentagon.

“We will do a reconciliation bill. One way or the other, we will,” Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno told reporters last week. “Regardless of how the election turns out, we have to do a reconciliation bill. Obviously, if we lose control of Congress, it'll be the Last Supper,”

However, there is a split in the party whether that’s even achievable.

Senate Republicans were unable to get the ball rolling on a third reconciliation bill in the months leading up to the election because they did not have the votes to start the process. House Republicans narrowly approved an outline, but the process stalled. It is unclear whether that will change once the chambers reconvene after the midterm elections.

When asked about Moreno’s confidence about a third reconciliation package, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, a member of leadership, cast doubt on that possibility.

“I’m not ready to make that prediction. That sounds like, ‘Oh! Hail Mary! We’re all going to freak out.’ I don’t see that,” Capito said about a “Last Supper” style bill if Republicans lose their majority.

Other complications in the lame-duck period are potential attendance issues from lawmakers exiting Washington and outgoing flame throwers with little to lose in their final days as sitting members.

“I don't think it's going to happen,” the senior GOP aide said about another party line bill. “I certainly get the argument for it. We could probably get our side to agree on a defense supplemental at this point, but I just don't think we have the calendar time realistically to do that now.”

As the Environment and Public Works Committee chairwoman and an appropriator, Capito says she is still hopeful that bipartisan permitting reform legislation can move in the postelection work period on top of funding bills. Funding is set to expire on Dec. 11.

“There’s plenty of work to do. If you couple that with a massive … reconciliation package, that’s a big chunk. We’ll see what happens,” Capito said. “It may be the impetus to move us in that direction. I don’t know that the elections may be [that impetus]. For right now, we still have plenty of legislative work to do without going to a reconciliation bill.”

She cautioned: “Those things take a lot of time. We didn't have the votes … for a reconciliation package earlier.”

Atop the to-do list is funding the government for fiscal 2027. There is broad support to pass as many appropriations bills as possible before the end of the year. But the expectation is that Congress will rely on a continuing resolution to fund the remaining agencies and programs until mid-March, dulling any suggestion of a year-long CR.

“I could see a shorter-term CR like that. I just don't think we'll do a year-long CR,” the aide said.

The possibility of losing one or both chambers is also expected to impact other fronts, including the debt limit.

Top Republicans have already indicated that they are open to raising the debt ceiling in a reconciliation package to take it off the table as a negotiating point for Democrats if they win one or both chambers. If it’s not handled in the lame duck, it would likely need to be raised in the first half of 2027 on a bipartisan basis.

However, multiple members are indicating the votes may not be there unless there are associated spending cuts to help pay for it.

Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis, who is retiring, told Punchbowl News earlier in the month that it would be “really hard” to back another debt limit increase. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, another retiree, labeled the debt fight as a “next year thing.” And House Freedom Caucus members are already signaling pay-fors are non-negotiable. “There will be no blank check,” Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana told The Sun.

When push comes to shove though, some said they do not have a choice.

Moreno said he believed the votes would be there on the Republican side. “Nobody wants to see a debt default. That would be 1929 on steroids.”

Another item on Senate Republicans’ checklist is confirming judges.

Installing Trump’s judicial nominees has been a top priority of Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley. The pressure to confirm more will only heighten if Democrats win control.

Republicans have confirmed 57 judges since Trump’s return to office, with enough nominees in the pipeline to keep the chamber churning through them through the end of the year. Adding to the urgency, Grassley is term limited as committee chair this year.

There are also a number of must-pass bills also on the docket. In addition to government funding, passing the annual National Defense Authorization Act is also top of mind. Multiple sources do not sense much consternation on that front.

Another bill leaders want to address is Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a national security tool that expired in June, which sources believe could get attached to the NDAA. Members in both parties indicated in September that they still viewed reupping the key surveillance tool a priority, yet it has fallen through the cracks for months.

As lawmakers lobby leaders to move specific items one thing they all agree on is that the path won’t be clear until they know if they’ll still control both chambers of Congress.

Capito admits the sentiment about trying for one more package wrapping together several Republican priorities could shift. “Maybe with different results with the election, we might, but we don't have the answer to that question.”
]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/congress/brad-lander-detained-israel-soldiers-idf-defense-forces-olives-west-bank-palestine Michelle Del Rey A few hours after being taken into custody, Lander said he’d been released with a “warning.” Wed, 21 Oct 2026 14:52:24 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/congress/brad-lander-detained-israel-soldiers-idf-defense-forces-olives-west-bank-palestine A New York congressional candidate was detained by the Israel Defense Forces while harvesting olives in the West Bank on Wednesday.

Brad Lander, a Democrat running to represent the state’s 10th Congressional District, was briefly taken into custody while volunteering alongside Rabbis for Human Rights, an Israeli nonprofit that advocates for social justice.

A few hours after announcing his detainment, Lander said he’d been released from IDF custody with a “warning.”

Others weren’t so lucky — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that several other New Yorkers in the region with Lander remain in custody and “must be released immediately.” 

“The detention of these New Yorkers must end. The occupation must end,” Mamdani said on social media. “The genocide must end.”

In all, 80 volunteers, including 12 rabbis and a Palestinian family, were detained. It remains unclear how many have since been released.

In a video statement before the incident, Lander said, “The Palestinians whose land this is have a right to harvest it in peace.”

In a video statement before the incident, Lander said, “The Palestinians whose land this is have a right to harvest it in peace.”’

A photo of Lander being detained shows him standing between two IDF officers.

He and other volunteers were in the West Bank to shine a light on a recent spate of violence perpetrated against Palestinians by Israeli settlers now living in the territory, which many critics — including Lander — have referred to as an “occupation.”
https://x.com/bradlander/status/2112900551646065073?s=20According to the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, there were 178 attacks on olive farms in 2025, and more than 6,000 trees and saplings were damaged or destroyed.

In September 2026, Israeli military authorities issued orders to remove vegetation from roughly 339,000 square meters throughout the northern and central occupied West Bank, the U.N. reported, including the uprooting of olive trees.

"The olive harvest is an essential source of food, income and livelihood for thousands of Palestinian families, and is deeply rooted in Palestinian cultural and agricultural heritage," the U.N. said.

Lander confirmed he’d been detained in a post on X, along with a group of rabbis and volunteers.

“We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nehalim in the West Bank,” wrote Lander. “The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know.”

After two hours of harvesting, IDF officers told volunteers the area was a closed military zone, according to an emailed news release from T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights. The organization’s CEO, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, was also detained in the incident.

Though volunteers agreed to leave, Israeli forces detained them and transported them to a police station.

Lander first announced he was in the West Bank in a social media post on Oct. 19, saying he was assisting in the harvest with the “Protect the Harvest” coalition.

The coalition helps Palestinian farmers harvest “in the face of state-sanctioned settler terrorism,” wrote Lander.

Lander previously served as the New York City comptroller between 2022 and 2025. The Washington Sun has contacted representatives for Lander and the IDF for comment.
]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/energy-environment/permitting-reform-data-centers-utilities-proposal Mara Hoplamazian Congress’ permitting bill offers the most aggressive proposal yet to charge data centers for their power usage. Wed, 21 Oct 2026 09:38:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/energy-environment/permitting-reform-data-centers-utilities-proposal Almost everyone agrees that data centers should pay their fair share — even data center developers. The newest proposal out of Congress poses the question: What’s fair?

Congress has put forward its most aggressive proposal yet to protect electricity prices from massive new data center developments. The bipartisan permitting reform bill would allow utilities to charge data centers more than other customers for using the grid and would let states charge data centers more on top of that.

“I think policymakers are seeing an opportunity for a good deal to take place here between extremely wealthy technology companies and regular everyday consumers, where the technology companies put many tens of billions of dollars into the power system to pay for the upgrade and keep the costs off of everybody else,” said Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies, a firm that focuses on integrating clean energy into the power grid.

The bill errs on the side of “over-collection,” Gramlich said, meaning data centers could pay more than their impact on the system and effectively subsidize other customers.

So far, major data center developers seem to be on board — though as negotiations continue things could change.

“There are many devils in the details,” Gramlich said. “Regulators at the state and federal levels will have a lot of work to do.”

The data center provisions in the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act would change a longstanding federal policy that allows utilities to charge customers only one of two costs: the general “embedded” costs of operating on the energy grid or the “incremental” cost of any grid upgrades necessary to serve a new project.

Utilities usually only charge customers the embedded cost of operating on the grid, Gramlich said. Incremental costs are difficult to calculate and can vary widely based on the kinds of grid upgrades that are needed at the time a new customer is coming onboard.

Data centers, cryptocurrency miners and other “high-density computing facilities” would be subject to both of those costs together under the bill. A white paper created for utility company Exelon Corporation earlier this year found that data centers could still shift costs onto other customers if they were only charged the “incremental” costs without the continued embedded cost charges.



The bill would also require data centers and similar facilities to provide financial guarantees before the grid is upgraded and to continue paying grid costs even if they abandon projects early.

The bill also notes that states could charge data center customers extra, beyond the incremental and embedded grid costs, using the proceeds as rebates for others on the grid. It also tells states they could choose which projects can connect to the grid first based on how much extra money they’re willing to spend to subsidize other customers.

The idea of data center developers paying for the cost of upgrading the grid for their projects has been widely embraced; several of the data center provisions in the permitting bill seem directly related to President Donald Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge.

But past attempts to avoid shifting data center costs onto the general public have included only voluntary commitments. The permitting bill would turn that directive into law.

Despite the new potential costs, the data center and AI industries have been quiet and moderately supportive of the permitting reform bill, highlighting the support for energy and infrastructure projects from the bill as a whole.

Staci Pies, senior vice president of government affairs and policy at Incompas, an AI infrastructure association, said data center companies have “been very clear” that they will bear appropriate costs.

“They’ll contribute their fair share of whatever kind of incremental infrastructure costs are necessary in order to increase and upgrade the grid,” she said.

But, she added, the costs and analysis “needs to be transparent” — particularly if states decide to charge data centers above the embedded and incremental costs.

“In some instances data centers are going to say ‘we're willing to live by this additional charge so long as it's transparent and we understand the implications.’ And in other instances, they may not,” she said.

OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta didn’t respond to requests for comment on whether they supported the bill’s data center provisions. Lobbying disclosures show the Data Center Coalition spent $480,000 on lobbying between July and September, including on the permitting reform bill.

Michele Nellenbach, vice president of federal affairs at the Data Center Coalition, said the organization was still reviewing details of the bill and noted members were “investing hundreds of billions of dollars in the U.S. annually to build America’s digital infrastructure.”

Some progressives have aired concerns that the bill as a whole would amount to a giveaway for data centers because of the easing of environmental laws and the provisions to limit legal challenges to projects.

At the same time, there’s been concern that the proposed changes amount to overcharging data centers for grid connection. Travis Fisher, director of energy and environmental policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, wrote the bill’s data center provisions risk “shifting costs in the opposite direction,” which, he says, might be necessary to counter the opposition to AI infrastructure developments.

Over the course of the last year, data center development has faced an incredible rise in political pushback. Communities across the country have rallied against the centers being built in their backyards out of fear of higher utility costs, pollution and other concerns. Data center developers have responded by leveling up efforts to sweeten the deal for communities.

But as they scramble for access to reliable energy, developers have increasingly started running their operations off the grid, using their own power systems that don’t necessarily have any benefit for nearby communities.

Pies, with Incompas, said data center companies are using off-grid power as an “immediate solution to an immediate problem,” but want to connect to the grid as a long-term solution. The big-picture impacts of the permitting bill — more power, quicker grid upgrades and increased transmission capacity — are a critical part of that.

How much a financial burden they’re willing to shoulder, however, remains to be seen.

While the future of the bipartisan bill is uncertain, Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School, said the extent of Congress’ proposal shows just how significant a demand data centers are introducing to the nation’s infrastructure.

“There's really no parallels to these data centers because they use so much energy and there's so many of them coming on so fast that I don't think we can really look to historical practice for analogous situations,” he said.]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/congress/dick-durbin-retirement-exit-interview-dream-act Paul Kane The longest-serving Democratic Whip put the Dream Act on the map but leaves without its passage. Wed, 21 Oct 2026 09:10:00 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/congress/dick-durbin-retirement-exit-interview-dream-act Sen. Richard J. Durbin spent more than two decades advising Democratic leaders what to do. But his most important recommendation might have come 20 years ago at Chicago’s Union League when he pulled aside his junior colleague for some advice.

“I'm in a hurry, Dick,” then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois) told Durbin, who said it would only take a minute.

“You've got to run for president,” Durbin told the future 44th president. “You're young enough that if you lose, you get another chance. But you've got something, buddy, that I've never seen in anybody.”

Obama had other people in his ear encouraging him to launch a presidential campaign after not quite two years as a senator, but Durbin was the only senator making that call publicly and privately. Two years later they were back in Chicago and Obama made history with his sweeping 2008 victory.

Durbin recalled that moment with Obama during a taping of The Washington Sun Cast video podcast that covered a 44-year career spanning a productive 14 years in the House followed by three decades in the Senate.

Advising people at the top became his forte. Durbin, 81, who is retiring in early January, ends his career as the longest serving party whip in Senate history, 22 straight years as the No. 2 leader behind Harry M. Reid (D-Nevada) and Chuck Schumer (D-New York).

He has served on the Senate Judiciary Committee for three decades, including confirmation hearings for eight of the nine Supreme Court justices. The past six years he has served as chair or ranking Democrat on the panel.

And he learned how to navigate around ambitious personalities from his first days in Congress, when a group of nearly 80 incoming House freshmen for the class of 1982 met during orientation.

Those newcomers included a young Reid, future Republican presidential nominee John McCain (R-Arizona), future governors such as Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), John Kasich (R-Ohio) and Bill Richardson (D-New Mexico).

Durbin got elected as the head of the Democratic class, along with his longtime friend and future senator, Barbara Boxer (D-California), while McCain headed up the Republican class.

Now considered a liberal stalwart, Durbin linked arms with moderates in those days to work on issues like balancing the budget. “Tip O'Neill at the time viewed most of us as traitors and kind of kept an eye on us,” he said of the House speaker.

It was a different era when power was consolidated with committee and subcommittee chairs, not in the leadership suites where it resides in today’s Congress. So Durbin’s most passionate cause at the time — fighting smoking after his father died from lung cancer at 53 — ran up against several different power brokers who represented tobacco states or were chain smokers themselves.

His first step was to ban cigarette smoking on flights, against the wishes of Democratic and Republican leaders. “Nobody had beaten big tobacco. But the folks on the other side didn't count on the fact that the House of Representatives was the largest frequent flyer club in America and they were sick and tired of secondhand smoke,” Durbin recalled.

His final move required getting past the legendary House Rules Committee chair, Rep. Claude Pepper (D-Florida), who shocked the young Durbin by ruling his amendment into a package that went to the House floor.

Pepper privately explained afterward that his greatest accomplishment was creating the National Cancer Institute and he would join Durbin in his battle. The tobacco industry has been on the run ever since.

“When I took this issue on, 29% of high school students in America smoked tobacco cigarettes — 29%! Today it's 2%. This has changed the world,” Durbin said.

After Bill Clinton won the 1992 presidential campaign and plucked Leon Panetta (D-California) out of the House to become budget director, Rep. George Miller (D-California) needed a new roommate to fill out his townhouse that had become a hub for rising star Democrats. Durbin got tapped, joining Schumer for about two decades of roommate status and periodic jockeying over who would win which leadership post.

In 1996 Durbin’s mentor, Paul Simon (D-Illinois), retired from the Senate. Durbin jumped into a crowded primary and blew away the field, eventually winning the general election by almost 16 points.

He won the next four reelection battles by double-digit margins, helping cement Illinois’ reputation as a Democratic stronghold.

His greatest honor, yet his greatest disappointment, came on the DREAM Act, legislation he crafted 25 years ago to grant permanent legal status to undocumented immigrants brought here as young children who then grew up in the United States.

A few Democrats and almost all Republicans voted to block consideration of the legislation in December 2010, when dozens of Dreamers had filled the public gallery hoping for the act’s passage. He told them later that day that he would not give up, and Obama did sign an executive order implementing parts of his law. Durbin will pass that torch to several younger Democrats when he leaves in January.
Dick Durbin, Dream Act (4896x3264, AR: 1.50)Far from the House moderate of the 1980s, in the Senate, Durbin gained a quick reputation as a liberal who could be a sharp partisan when he felt the need, particularly on the Judiciary Committee. The confirmation battles over judges in the late Clinton years and the early years of George W. Bush’s presidency set the stage for rules changes that would be implemented by Reid and future Republican majority leaders, using the “nuclear option” to ease filibuster constraints.



Not long before the former majority leader died five years ago, Durbin said he and Reid spoke about their decision to take the first party-line step to break filibuster constraints in 2013.



“He was warned ahead of time there would be retribution. It all occurred and we're still suffering from that. Harry, before he passed away, he and I talked about it. He said the Senate will never be the same,” Durbin said, adding that Reid felt “he had no choice” but to do it.



He’s careful not to tell his current colleagues what they should do in the future. But he’s not very supportive of trying to further blow up the institutional guardrails in order to do things now demanded by the party’s most liberal faithful, such as expanding the Supreme Court.



If he were chairing the Judiciary Committee next year and President Donald Trump had the chance to nominate a new justice, Durbin seems inclined to not block the nominee the way Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) blocked the 2016 nomination of Merrick Garland.



At least hold a hearing, he thinks, and vote the nominee down.



Durbin’s biggest complaint, one that would take an uprising from rank-and-file on both sides of the aisle to fix, is that too much power has been concentrated in the “four corners, whatever you want to call it.”



That’s the House speaker, House minority leader, Senate majority leader and Senate minority leader, who often at the end of a legislative session make calls about what legislation gets tacked on to some must-pass bill.



Part of the problem comes from rank-and-file lawmakers in both chambers afraid of their political shadows asking party leaders to save them from having to take tough votes on amendments, leading to a bottled-up process.



“The notion that the next vote's gonna cost you the next election is an exaggeration,” Durbin said. “I've cast 17,000 votes in the House and the Senate. I decided a long time ago I got plenty of votes for anybody to hang me with if they wish.”



But it’s also a function of power-hungry party leaders. “It's no longer up to the body on the floor, it's up to a handful of leaders in rooms that I don't have access to,” he said.



How does the second-in-command not have access to those decisions?



“It’s a great piece of real estate,” he said of an office that for 22 years sat directly above Reid and Schumer’s in the northwest wing of the Capitol.



Durbin said that his decision to retire came from his “degree in geriatrics,” watching several colleagues over the years stick around too long.



He’s ready to retire without any real regrets.



“There reaches a point when you're just not as on the ball as you once were. I did not want to reach that point and be in the middle of a Senate term,” he said. “I wanted to walk out the front door of this great institution rather than be carried out the back.”]]> https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/hakeem-jeffries-miam-cuban-owned-cao-bakery-boycott-democrats-socialism-elliott-rodriguez Michelle Del Rey The bakery later apologized for hosting the Democrats and denounced socialism. Tue, 20 Oct 2026 14:57:58 GMT https://www.washingtonsun.com/campaigns/hakeem-jeffries-miam-cuban-owned-cao-bakery-boycott-democrats-socialism-elliott-rodriguez A Cuban bakery in Florida has become the target of a conservative boycott campaign this week after it hosted a visit from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and a Democratic congressional candidate.

Jeffries and Eliott Rodriguez, who is running in Florida’s 27th Congressional District, went to the bakery in Pinecrest, a Miami suburb, on Friday, meeting with one of the family business’s owners in what appeared to be a relatively routine campaign stop.

Rodriguez, who is Cuban-American, posted a video on social media of the visit while standing alongside CAO Bakery co-owner Yvette Cao. In the footage, Cao gives Jeffries a “care package” of pastries.

Jeffries thanked her for hosting them and thanked Rodriguez for his commitment to “making this community, making Florida and making the country more affordable.”

But the reception ignited a firestorm of backlash from the Miami Cuban community, many of whom accused the bakery of supporting “socialism” by hosting the Democrats — a touchy subject among the city’s community of Cuban exiles who escaped the island nation’s communist government.

Several angry locals left comments on Rodriguez’s video stating they’d no longer patronize the business, while supporters said they’d exclusively purchase Cuban pastries from the bakery.

“I was a loyal Saturday morning customer until now,” wrote one commenter. “I will never set foot in any of your stores again.”

The backlash prompted an apology from Cao, who posted on the bakery’s Instagram account: “To the Cao community, I’ve read your messages and I understand why Friday hurts.”

She said hosting the candidates was not an endorsement.

“Cao stands with our Cuban American community for a free Cuba and condemns Socialism. That will never change,” she wrote.

Cao explained that Rodriguez’s campaign contacted the bakery the day before asking if they could stop by and greet the community.

“As a business, we don’t discriminate based on political views, but at the same time, I didn’t know it would turn into a press conference,” she said, adding: “Our family is here because of what our parents and grandparents gave up to be here. We know what they left behind, and everything we’ve built comes from the freedom this country gave us.”

Rodriguez’s opponent, Rep. María Elvira Salazar, posted about the controversy on X.

“Eliott Rodriguez brought the man who wants to lead the socialists in Congress into a Cuban bakery in Miami and, in one move, showed just how little he knows this community,” she wrote.

“He and his socialist friends turned a Cuban small business into a political prop and left the business dealing with the fallout. It is an insult to parade this ideology through a community built by survivors of socialism and embrace the very people who champion it.”

Polls have consistently shown there’s strong support for President Donald Trump in the Florida Cuban community.

That support handed Trump Miami-Dade County in the 2024 presidential election — the first time that it had flipped red since 1988.

Cuban restaurants and bakeries have long been places for politicians to campaign in Florida.

In June 2023, President Donald Trump stopped by Versailles in Little Havana. He was greeted by crowds of supporters who sang “Happy Birthday” to him.
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