The Trump administration on Wednesday renewed its request to the U.S. Supreme Court to quickly decide a case over an executive order restricting voting, a day after a Massachusetts federal judge expanded an injunction on the order nationwide.

The Tuesday order from U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani that blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order from taking effect anywhere in the country makes the administration’s request to the Supreme Court more urgent, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote. 

“The district court’s new order confirms the urgent need for this Court to grant the stay of the permanent injunction and to explain its rationale for doing so,” Sauer wrote. 

Election Day is Nov. 3, less than three months away.

Decisions in two cases at district and circuit courts have reached different conclusions about whether the rulemaking could continue in the lead-up to this fall’s elections. 

That means the Supreme Court’s decision, now on its emergency docket, will likely determine whether the executive order can move forward. A decision could come any day.

The Trump executive order would limit vote-by-mail, the primary method of voting in several states, especially in the West. 

It would require states to send the federal government lists of voters who intend to vote by mail ahead of the election and restrict the U.S. Postal Service from delivering ballots to or from people not on the list, among other things.

The administration has sought to focus arguments on the narrow legal question of whether an executive order can be challenged before an agency, in this case the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Homeland Security, issues a final rule. The government argues that the executive order only instructs the agencies to issue rules, and those rules are not yet final, and therefore cannot be challenged.

Trial court order

Talwani’s memorandum and order on Tuesday rejected that argument, and she expanded a previous injunction from just the 23 states and the District of Columbia that brought the suit to be effective nationwide. 

Talwani said — in her order published just 12 weeks before Election Day — she was only blocking the order with respect to the “fast-approaching” midterms. Further arguments over the merits of federal voting regulations could still happen, but federal law requires the status quo to be preserved this close to an election, she said. 

Because of the tight timeline and the assumption that a final rule will be similar to a June 2 notice of proposed rulemaking, Talwani said she could rule simply on the constitutionality of the executive order. It was an easy call, she said.

“The executive branch has no authority to regulate elections,” she wrote, citing the Constitution.

The administration has not shown how blocking the executive order would harm the public, as it has not documented any “illegal or fraudulent absentee voting,” while the voting rights organizations challenging the order have shown that voters with disabilities, in rural areas, who need translation help, attend college outside their home states and in other circumstances would be harmed, she said.

In fact, the organizations showed their members in states across the country are already being harmed by the uncertainty around what rules will govern the midterm elections, said Talwani.

“Where the (executive order) is presently causing confusion and threatening both increasing chaos and an erosion of trust in our democracy, the court finds that enfranchisement heavily outweighs the executive’s attempt to unconstitutionally insert itself into the domain of election regulation,” Talwani wrote. The proximity to Election Day “underscores the critical need for an injunction to prevent Defendants from changing election rules on the eve of the election.”

The Federal Voter Registration Act also prohibits states from purging voter rolls within 90 days of an election, Talwani wrote.

DOJ’s double bind

The nature of the argument puts Sauer and the U.S. Department of Justice in a seemingly difficult legal position, arguing both that the executive order cannot be challenged because it is not enforceable and that the administration must be allowed to put an enforceable rule in place before Election Day.

Sauer asked the court Wednesday to rule for the government and “make clear” that it was doing so “based on the uncertainty concerning the government’s future actions.”

But in the next paragraph, he said implementing the executive order was crucial to the public interest.

“In all events, it is critical that the Court act promptly on the pending stay,” Sauer said. “Otherwise, the district court’s erroneous orders will effectively run out the clock on the government’s ability to implement Section 3 of the Executive Order for the federal elections in November, thereby causing irreparable harm to the federal government, the public, and election integrity.”

WASHINGTON — After a lengthy battle over the status of President Donald Trump’s nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, Todd Blanche was confirmed as attorney general by the U.S. Senate early Saturday.

Blanche, the acting attorney general, won approval to take the role permanently after GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said he would back him, a turning point for Blanche’s nomination push. The vote at about 4:30 a.m. Eastern was 50-49, with Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., absent due to health issues.

Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine joined all Democrats in opposing the confirmation of Blanche, Trump’s personal defense attorney before joining the government at the start of Trump’s second term. 

“I am deeply honored by the trust and confidence President Trump has placed in me to lead the Department of Justice as our great nation’s 88th Attorney General.  I am grateful to the Senate for staying late to complete this process. To the dedicated public servants of the Department of Justice, thank you for your work each day to uphold the law and keep our country safe,” Blanche said in a statement on social media following the vote. “God bless America.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., blasted Blanche’s confirmation.

“Senate Republicans have handed Trump an excuse on a silver platter to keep up his pervasive, breathtaking corruption,” he said in a statement.  “If you want to wipe out corruption, you can’t have the president’s personal attorney as the Attorney General. You don’t need a PhD in political science to know that.

“Todd Blanche has no intention of stopping Trump’s corruption. He advanced his career enabling it. Every senator who voted to confirm him has now branded themselves as an enabler, too.”

The Senate adjourned for its summer recess about an hour after the vote and will not return to regular session until Sept. 14.

Cassidy explanation

Cassidy, who has long clashed with Trump, said in a Friday floor speech his vote was not a reflection of that relationship, but about the importance of having a Senate-confirmed attorney general who had the backing of U.S. attorneys in Louisiana and former Attorney General Bill Barr.

“Mr. Blanche is not perfect, and he will tell you this, but the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche,” he said. “It is between Mr. Blanche and another acting attorney general who may not run the department effectively under President Trump… All considered, I will vote for Mr. Blanche.”

Cassidy held the determinative vote on Blanche following Murkowski’s announcement earlier Friday she would oppose his confirmation. Collins had said earlier in the week she would vote against confirmation. 

Trump announced Blanche in June as his pick for the top role at the Justice Department, replacing Pam Bondi.

Cassidy alluded to his strained relationship with Trump. He voted to convict in Trump’s second impeachment trial that covered Trump’s conduct leading to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Cassidy lost his primary race to a Trump-backed challenger this year.

“I have a history with Mr. Trump,” he said. “But that history does not matter one bit.”

Murkowski opposition

In a social media post, Murkowski — another Republican at whom Trump has leveled strong criticism, including as recently as a podcast interview published early Friday morning — said the country needed an attorney general able to “check the worst impulses of this administration,” and that she lacked confidence in Blanche to do that.

Cassidy seemed to hold a similar objective, but reached a different conclusion about Blanche’s ability.

Trump is often unwilling to take advice, Cassidy said, but a competent, Senate-confirmed attorney general with whom Trump has a close relationship might be better equipped than whoever else Trump would choose to run the department.

Cassidy said that in a recent conversation with Barr, who had his own clashes with the president during and after his time as attorney general in Trump’s first term, the former attorney general endorsed Blanche as someone who could “run the department as effectively as anyone can under President Trump.” 

“Some have called that faint praise,” Cassidy said. “I don’t think that it is. I think it is a reality.”

Trump has expanded presidential decision-making at the Department of Justice, which, at least since the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, has been viewed as operating independently from the White House.

Ultimately, the attorney general answers to the president, Cassidy said.

‘Slush fund’ concerns

Cassidy criticized Blanche’s role in creating a fund for “victims of lawfare,” including those convicted of Jan. 6-related charges, and in approving a settlement with the IRS that gave Trump and his family broad immunity from tax prosecution.

“Mr. Blanche showed poor judgment in approving the anti-weaponization slush fund and exempting the president from IRS audits,” Cassidy said.

Blanche acknowledged those “mistakes” and “made efforts to kill the slush fund,” Cassidy said.

Blanche wrote a memo this week that said the fund would not move forward and that the IRS agreement only applied retroactively, not to future prosecutions. That move was enough to win over Republican holdouts on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas.

Murkowski on Friday raised doubts that the fund would be dissolved if the Senate voted to confirm Blanche and loses leverage with the administration, but again, Cassidy appeared to reach a different conclusion.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, praised the confirmation vote and spoke in favor of Blanche’s nomination on the Senate floor.

“Beyond his obvious qualifications and successful track record, Blanche has demonstrated extraordinary patience, compassion and tenacity as he’s made his way through the gauntlet of the Senate’s advice and consent process,” Grassley said in a statement. “He’s been forthcoming and responsive to my colleagues and has proven himself to be a steadfast advocate for the rule of law. Today, the United States Senate voted to confirm Todd Blanche’s nomination and advance the safety and security of Americans nationwide.”  

Confirmation bestows legitimacy 

Cassidy noted that Blanche did not need Senate approval, and that he could continue doing the job in an acting capacity.

But a major factor in voting to confirm Blanche was that people within the department viewed Senate confirmation as crucial to an attorney general’s influence.

“I am told that Senate confirmation is important in interactions with the president, with others in the Cabinet and is important to DOJ employees in general,” Cassidy said. “Being Senate-confirmed gives him greater leverage to push for things that should be pushed for.”

Cassidy also said he spoke to Louisiana U.S. Attorneys David Courcelle and Kurt Wall, who told him having a Senate-confirmed attorney general was important and that Blanche was more than capable. 

They praised Blanche for quickly providing resources when they asked, Cassidy said.

“I cannot overstate Mr. Walls’ and Mr. Courcelle’s support for Mr. Blanche,” he said.

WASHINGTON — Republicans on a U.S. Senate panel voted Thursday to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress after he declined to answer any questions at a hearing last week about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted along party lines to approve a resolution referring to the Justice Department charges that Fauci, a top public health official during the pandemic, violated a congressional subpoena when he repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to answer any questions at a July 29 committee hearing.

Fauci asserted his Fifth Amendment right 111 times, even in response to Republicans’ questions about his tie color or the day of the week meant to test his strategy.

Chairman Rand Paul of Kentucky and other committee Republicans said Thursday that was a misuse of the privilege, in part because President Joe Biden issued a broad pardon to Fauci covering any conduct from 2014 to 2025.

“We are voting on whether a witness who has received the benefit of a sweeping federal pardon can be ordered by this committee to answer questions and then defy that order without consequence,” Paul said.

Walking into a ‘trap’?

Democrats raised a host of objections to the contempt resolution.

They said, as Fauci argued during the hearing, that Paul sought to trap Fauci. Biden’s pardon of Fauci would not cover new misstatements to Congress, Sen. Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat, said. 

“The goal was to wait for Dr. Fauci to make any kind of misstatement and then have a weaponized Department of Justice file criminal charges for that new statement that would not have been covered by the pardon, leaving Dr. Fauci little choice but to invoke his constitutional right to not walk directly into a trap,” Hassan said.

Fauci said during an opening statement at last week’s hearing that he believed “any reasonable person” would conclude that Paul’s objective was to trip him up.

“The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something — anything — that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, ‘behind bars,’” he said. 

Weakening future investigations

Ranking Democrat Gary Peters of Michigan also said the partisan vote undermined the panel’s legitimacy.

He took particular exception to Paul’s intention to send the resolution directly to federal prosecutors without gaining approval from the full Senate, which would require a bipartisan vote to meet the chamber’s 60-vote threshold.

“No individual senator and no committee speaks for the entire Senate,” he said. “Institutional powers belong to the full body. Allowing one chairman to unilaterally assert those powers would invite future chairs in both parties to bypass the Senate whenever they cannot secure the support of their colleagues.”

Future witnesses could use the vote to justify not appearing before congressional committees, Peters said.

Highly public role

The July 29 hearing was a departure for Fauci, who, as one of the nation’s most visible public health officials during the pandemic, spoke publicly about it on a daily basis for several months. 

He has testified before congressional committees two dozen times since January 2020 and had never declined to answer lawmaker questions before last week. 

Fauci was a member of the coronavirus task force during President Donald Trump’s first administration and a chief medical adviser on COVID-19 during Biden’s term. He headed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under presidents of both parties for nearly four decades.

As the pandemic response turned increasingly political in the months following nationwide containment efforts in early 2020, Republicans became more critical of measures that caused significant economic problems.

Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican who chaired the panel in 2020, said Thursday that learning what officials like Fauci knew at the time was key to understanding what led to the response he considered an overreaction.

“It’s been six years since the pandemic began,” he said. “We have not had a reckoning of what happened.”

WASHINGTON — The stopgap spending bill supported by an overwhelming majority of U.S. senators does not address tens of billions in expiring transportation funding, leaving states facing a massive effective budget cut starting Oct. 1.

The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, which authorized highway and transit programs for five years, expires Sept. 30. Roughly $38.6 billion per year in extra federal transportation funding is set to expire with it, even if the continuing resolution the Senate advanced 89-4 Monday becomes law.

The stopgap measure, a version of which has also passed the House, would keep the government funded mostly at current levels, and reauthorize highway and transit programs through Dec. 11.

But it would not renew the advance appropriations that provided $184 billion over five years for a host of transportation programs under the infrastructure law President Joe Biden signed in his first year in office.

Ben Gilsdorf, an associate legislative director for transportation at the National Association of Counties, said in a Tuesday interview that the advance appropriations funded many of the group’s top transportation priorities.

“It’s not all of the programs under (the infrastructure law) that would stop without an extension,” he said. “But for us, it’s several of the most impactful ones.”

The National Association of Counties was part of a broad range of advocacy groups representing business, labor, cities, state departments of transportation and every mode of transportation that signed a letter last month asking Congress to extend the supplemental funding.

Funding for Transportation Department programs makes up a bit more than half of the total advance appropriations in the infrastructure law, which also includes major funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Energy Department and telecommunications program.

The total advance appropriations for fiscal 2026 were about $66.2 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Bridges, airports, transit and more

The DOT funding largely flows to state departments of transportation.

Returning to pre-2021 baseline infrastructure spending would leave every state with less federal funding to cover varied transportation needs.

About 30%, $10.8 billion per year, of the extra transportation funding is determined by formula, meaning the amounts sent to each state vary based on population, highway miles and other factors.

California is the only state that would lose 10 figures worth of funding, at nearly $1.1 billion.

But even Vermont, the state with the lowest total funding lost, would see $55.6 million less in formula funds if the funding is not extended, according to data Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray of Washington sent to her fellow Democratic senators last month.

A total of 10 formula programs representing different modes of transportation would be affected, according to the fact sheet from Murray’s office.

More than half of the formula funding, $5.5 billion, is slated for the Federal Highway Administration’s bridge repair program.

Airport construction funds represent the next-greatest funding at $3 billion per year. The Federal Transit Administration’s grant program to maintain transit system infrastructure would lose $950 million and state transportation departments would lose another $900 million in federal funding for electric vehicle charging stations.

Other affected programs are for highways in Appalachian states, truck safety inspections, ferry boats and terminals, FTA grants for senior passengers and those with disabilities and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration programs.

In addition to formula funds, the remaining 70% of advance appropriations is distributed via 25 competitive grant programs, according to the Murray document.

Grant programs to fund ports, large highway and rail projects, transit station upgrades, roadway safety and other projects would be among those losing funding.

Complicating spending negotiations

While the law that initiated the additional funding was bipartisan, there are indications an extension could be a more partisan issue.

Murray said ahead of the Senate floor vote Monday that Republicans did not “agree to our efforts to extend critical advance appropriations for infrastructure” and vowed to continue pursuing the additional funds.

Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, did not reference advance appropriations in a press release announcing a deal on the stopgap bill.

Republicans, who hold majorities in both chambers of Congress, may prefer to settle the future of the funding through a long-term surface transportation bill or full-year appropriations measure, Gilsdorf said.

Even if the Senate bill is enacted, there will be an opportunity when it expires to revisit the issue, he said.

“There’d be another bite at the apple,” he said.

A person familiar with negotiations who was not authorized to speak on the record said Tuesday that the advance appropriations in the 2021 law were meant to be one-time funding, and that extending them in a stopgap measure meant to preserve the status quo would be inappropriate.

The funding is part of a larger policy debate than is usually considered in a continuing resolution, the person said.

The issue could hang over negotiations for full-year spending bills, likely to begin in earnest after November’s elections.

Senate appropriators have not reached a deal for top-line spending levels for fiscal 2027.

Republicans, at President Donald Trump’s urging, are seeking a massive boost to defense programs.

Democrats historically seek parity between non-defense and defense spending, but have relaxed that stance while the extra infrastructure funds have been flowing. Without that additional funding, Democrats might be less amenable to compromise.

WASHINGTON — States do not have time before November’s midterm elections to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order mandating overhauls of their mail-in-voting systems, two dozen Democratic state officials told the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday.

Justices should keep a stay pausing the order in place through Election Day, the Democrats, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, wrote. The court is compelled to keep voting rules in place this close to an election, but the executive order would force massive changes on state administrators, they wrote.

Neither the president nor the U.S. Postal Service has authority to administer elections under the U.S. Constitution, which assigns that responsibility to state governments, the Democrats wrote. 

Trump’s March 31 order directs USPS to collect lists of registered voters from each state and only mail ballots to registered voters, and the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of voting-age citizens in each state. 

That would insert the executive branch directly into elections administration and the administration has not defended the legality of that move, the Democrats wrote.

Worse, the officials said, the order would create mass confusion at this point in the election cycle, meaning that the court should delay considering whether it is legal until after the midterms.

“Because of the high risk of errors and the limited window for correcting mistakes, many of the millions of voters who rely on mail voting—especially voters with disabilities and those in rural areas—would likely be denied mail ballots and, as a result, disenfranchised,” the state officials said. “Many more voters would be confused—either because they wouldn’t receive their mail ballots or would fear that USPS would fail to deliver their voted ballots to state officials for tabulation.”

Bonta signed the brief along with the attorneys general of Massachusetts, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Connecticut, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro also signed on.

Their filing was the Democrats’ response to the Justice Department request that the Supreme Court overturn an appeals court decision against lifting a district court stay of the executive order. The court is considering the issue on its emergency docket that allows for speedy decisions.

Spokespeople for the Justice Department did not return a message seeking comment Monday.

No final rule 

The administration argued that the states’ challenge was premature because the Postal Service and DHS had not yet written the rules the executive order directed.

While a three-judge panel of the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Democratic states, a separate case at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the administration that the states could not yet challenge the policy because there was no final rule. The case under consideration at the Supreme Court is from the 1st Circuit.

In an amicus brief supporting the federal government, a coalition of conservative groups led by attorney William Olson said Monday that the district court stay was possibly the first time a judge has blocked a notice of proposed rulemaking, which “is the very definition of an agency action which is not a final agency action.”

Sowing voter confusion

The states said Monday the order itself, even without final rules from the affected agencies, would impose significant burdens on their election administrators. And the administration has detailed in court the steps the agencies must take to finalize the order’s mandates.

Forcing the states to wait until there is an actual rule in place, especially when the steps agencies have taken “do not materially differ” from the order, would mean state election officials could face an untenable situation of needing to prepare for the new requirements.

“If litigation challenging final implementation of the EO does not even begin for several more weeks, it would be extremely difficult—if not impossible—to obtain a definitive judicial resolution with enough time remaining for States to redesign and reorder their ballot mail, train elections officials, and adequately educate the public before the November midterms,” the state officials wrote.

That would drain significant resources from overworked election offices at a busy campaign time, and leave voters “confused about which rules govern,” they added.

Support for states

Several friend-of-the-court briefs weighed in on the states’ side. 

Scores of state and local election officials and the nonprofit voting rights group Center for Election Innovation wrote in one amicus brief that if the executive order is allowed to proceed, it would put them in the “untenable position” of updating their mail-voting procedures in the midst of primaries and just weeks before a general election.

And Democratic campaign groups said the order was plainly unconstitutional and rejected the administration’s argument, saying it “makes little sense.” 

In part, the administration argued the district court injunction caused irreparable harm because the administration was running out of time to implement the policy before the midterms, attorney Marc Elias wrote for the Democratic National Committee, three campaign groups and the Democratic leaders of each chamber of Congress.

“When the President launches an unconstitutional seizure of sensitive election powers during an election year, he may not avoid an injunction by insisting he is in a rush,” Elias wrote.

WASHINGTON —The U.S. Senate voted Monday to advance a bipartisan measure to keep the federal government funded through Dec. 11 and pause the Trump administration’s effort to add controversial new criteria for federal grants.

The agreement — which Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, and Vice Chair Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington state, released Sunday — would avoid an Oct. 1 government shutdown and keep federal spending at current levels, punting debates about full-year spending past the midterm elections. It would also extend authorization for the federal fund for highway and transit.

The Senate bill, which advanced 89-4, differs considerably from the more partisan stopgap spending measure the House passed last month, with Republicans providing nearly all the votes in support.

The Senate was scheduled to take a procedural vote Monday evening to advance the bill and, if that attracts more than 60 yes votes, would likely consider final passage this week.

In a statement, Collins said she worked with committee members of both parties and that the measure, known as a continuing resolution, or CR, excludes provisions that would doom its chances in the consensus-driven Senate.

“This CR is straightforward,” Collins wrote. “It continues current government funding levels until December 11th and includes necessary adjustments for programs like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), vital national security programs, including shipbuilding across multiple vessels, and the Disaster Relief Fund. The CR also avoids any poison pills.”

Murray championed Democrats’ success in blocking provisions of the House bill that would increase spending for military action in Iran and allow transfers for immigration enforcement, while adding sections to extend housing and food assistance programs and a section blocking the proposed rule on grant funding.

“This bill includes important extensions and language that House Republicans’ CR did not, and it rejects Trump’s frivolous war spending wish list,” Murray wrote. “Importantly, we closed the loophole in House Republicans’ CR that would have allowed the Trump administration to transfer funding provided for other programs to Border Patrol, which desperately needs reform, not more money.”

The Senate bill would keep nearly all federal spending steady until Dec. 11, which would save lawmakers from the painstaking work of cobbling together the 12 annual spending bills — and taking potentially difficult votes on them — while freeing more time to campaign ahead of the November elections.

OMB proposal paused

It would also freeze until Dec. 11 the White House Office of Management and Budget’s proposed rule that Democrats have criticized for giving immense decisionmaking power to executive branch political appointees who would be empowered to confirm that federal grants align with the administration’s policy priorities.

House Appropriations ranking Democrat Rosa DeLauro said she was pleased to see the Senate bill block the rule from taking effect into December, but wanted a more permanent ban.

“While the bill temporarily blocks the proposed OMB rule, the fight must continue,” she wrote Sunday. “The Senate bill forces OMB to continue reviewing the half-million comments that were submitted, but Congress must permanently prevent this corrupt, harmful power grab before the new deadline of December 11.”

A draft of the rule, posted May 29, said the policy aims to downplay criteria based on diversity, equity and inclusion goals “and make merit-based decisions.”

Some Democrats, including those in Maryland’s congressional delegation, criticized the policy, saying it would create “arbitrary standards that are ripe for abuse” and “seeks to prohibit freedom of association, speech, and … international collaboration.”

More broadly, Democrats and some moderate Republicans objected to the power the rule would centralize in OMB and other executive agencies. 

“The proposed rule would systematically politicize federal funding and allow Trump officials to cancel grants at any time for any reason,” Murray wrote. “Enabling this rule would only give Trump the greenlight to take even more federal funding hostage.”

In a July letter to OMB Director Russ Vought, Collins said she agreed with the principles of awarding grants based on merit, but that the rule would add a level of bureaucracy to grants that have already been approved by the scientific community and weaken Congress’ power over spending decisions.

“While I agree these principles should guide the administration and oversight of Federal funds, the rule would impose new, burdensome requirements on award recipients that would harm small and rural communities, undermine scientific and biomedical research, and conflict with Congress’ control over the federal funding process,” Collins wrote.

Road funding extended

The stopgap measure would also extend the major federal transportation trust fund through the duration of the bill.

The Highway Trust Fund sends set funding to state departments of transportation and local authorities to finance road and transit infrastructure. 

Its authority to collect revenue, mostly through the federal gas tax, and send it to states is set to expire at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. The continuing resolution would keep in place the contract authority level, about $80.2 billion per year, Congress approved in a 2021 law.

It would not, however, include the “advance appropriations” from the 2021 law that provided additional funding to several Transportation Department programs that disperse money to states and local governments.

Murray said she sought to have the $36.8 billion annual program extended, but was rebuffed by committee Republicans.

White House spokespeople did not immediately return a message seeking comment Monday.

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the federal government can continue implementing President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting vote-by-mail, reaching the opposite conclusion that another appeals panel decided over the weekend.

The conflict appeared to make it even more clear the issue will have to be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court, which already has been asked for its opinion on Trump’s sweeping order that would have a huge impact on states just a little more than three months before the midterm elections.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said Tuesday the executive order, which directs the U.S. Postal Service to collect from states lists of eligible voters who intend to vote by mail at least two months before an election and the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of voting-age citizens in each state, can proceed because the agencies have not yet written rules implementing the order.

A D.C. trial judge in May denied several voting rights groups’ request to block the order, saying the groups had not yet been harmed.

Judges Patricia Millett and Robert Wilkins, who were appointed by President Barack Obama, and Gregory Katsas, whom Trump appointed, affirmed the decision.

They wrote that the executive order, which Trump signed March 31, is not self-executing and specifically tells the USPS and DHS to write the prescribed rules in a way that is consistent with the federal laws the groups say the order violates.

“We affirm because, while Plaintiffs have identified a number of serious questions concerning the lawfulness of proposed actions if implemented on the threshold of the upcoming federal election, this case likely is unripe for review in its present posture,” they wrote.

Their order directly contradicts a ruling the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals published Saturday in a case brought by Democratic officials from 23 states and the District of Columbia. 

That opinion held that states would be harmed if the order was allowed to proceed because state elections officials would immediately have to shift significant resources to prepare to meet the order’s requirements, even without final rules from USPS or DHS.

The Trump administration appealed that ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the justice assigned to the 1st Circuit, requested briefs on whether the court should hear the case by Aug. 3. 

In a social media post, the news outlet Democracy Docket, which covers voting and elections and is not affiliated with the case, called Tuesday’s ruling “a loss for voters” and said the administration under it could build a citizenship roster and withhold mail-in ballots from states that do not share citizenship data.

The Trump administration on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt a district court ruling that blocked President Donald Trump’s broad March 31 executive order restricting vote-by-mail.

The move came just two days after a federal appeals court denied the administration’s request to resume the controversial plan, which would force significant limits and voter information collection requirements on states in regard to vote-by-mail. 

It also sets up a high-stakes confrontation at the high court between the administration and the 23 states that sued over the Trump order, a little more than three months before the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

“The district court has issued an extraordinary injunction barring federal agencies from implementing an Executive Order promoting election integrity in the upcoming federal elections in November,” wrote Solicitor General D. John Sauer in his petition to the high court.

Sauer argued the executive order should not be blocked because, among other things, the U.S. Postal Service has not yet come up with a final rule on how it would be implemented.

Appeals court ruling

A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court ruling last month that blocked the order because the U.S. Constitution grants states — not the president — authority to administer elections.

The executive order “directs unprecedented levels of involvement by federal officials in how states administer elections,” two appeals judges, Gustavo A. Gelpí and Julie Rikelman, wrote in a Saturday order. Both were appointed by President Joe Biden.

Gelpí and Rikelman considered and rejected the administration’s argument that states could not challenge the order because the Postal Service rule was not finalized. 

The order directed the agency’s final rule to contain a requirement that states start submitting citizenship rosters 60 days from the general election, which is Sept. 4 this year. Allowing the order to go into effect would force states, which have been preparing for the election for months, to use considerable time and funding to create a new election system in mere weeks.

“The Government has failed to convince us that the impact of the (executive order) on the Plaintiff States is ‘hypothetical,’” Gelpí and Rikelman wrote.

The panel’s third judge, Joshua D. Dunlap, concurred in part and dissented in part, noting that the Postal Service rule mandated by the executive order had not been finalized. The timeline suggested by the order, though, would have required states to take immediate action related to mail ballots, he added.

Consequences for states

Time is running out for Trump’s administration to successfully place the restrictions on vote-by-mail before November’s midterm elections 99 days from Monday.

The 1st Circuit panel pointed to the approaching midterms as a reason to block the order for now. A full analysis of the executive order could be considered on a longer timeline, but state election officials faced imminent consequences if they did not begin preparing for the order’s requirements in time for the November general election and September primaries, the judges found.

The order directed the U.S. Postal Service to require states to notify the agency 90 days before an election if they plan to use mail-in ballots and, if so, to send the federal government a list of eligible voters at least two months before the election and before sending ballots to those voters.

Democratic officials in 23 states — California, Massachusetts, Nevada, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — and the District of Columbia brought the suit challenging the executive order. 

Twelve states with Republican attorneys general — Alabama, Missouri, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas — joined the appeal on the federal government’s side.

Citizenship lists

The executive order also required the Department of Homeland Security, with help from the Social Security Administration, to compile lists of voting-age citizens living in each state, and then provide that information to state officials at least 60 days before each federal election. 

The list of citizens would be drawn from naturalization and Social Security records, according to the order. It would also include data from SAVE, a powerful computer program maintained by Homeland Security that verifies citizenship by checking names against information in federal databases. 

The district court judge, Indira Talwani, said the executive order did not cite relevant constitutional or legal authority to support the creation of the lists.

Trump erodes faith in mail ballots

Trump has consistently raised unfounded concerns about mail-in voting, which nearly every state allows and some use exclusively. 

The practice, especially common in Western states, enjoyed strong bipartisan support until Trump sought to undermine its credibility during the 2020 election cycle.

In 2018, the Pew Research Center found 71% of voters, including 57% of Republicans, supported vote-by-mail. 

By the time of an April 2026 poll, Democrats’ favorable opinion of vote-by-mail remained high, but Republican support cratered to 34%.

In the executive order, Trump said restricting mail-in voting would limit voting by noncitizens, another voting issue Trump has often raised without offering evidence it has created a significant integrity problem in any election.

Three people who observed federal immigration enforcement during the Trump administration’s sometimes-violent surge said in a federal lawsuit filed Friday the Department of Homeland Security illegally recorded them and revoked their status in the department’s trusted traveler programs.

The suit, filed in the Southern District of California, says the administration violated a federal privacy law, administrative law and the First Amendment by targeting people who observed and protested aggressive immigration enforcement, including during the deadly operation in Minneapolis in January. 

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a legal group that advocates for privacy issues related to technology, is also a plaintiff in the case.

Amid a nationwide surge of immigration enforcement that has included federal agents shooting and killing protesters, observers and immigrants, opponents “did what anyone is supposed to do when they disagree with government action: They exercised their First Amendment rights” by assembling, protesting and recording DHS agents’ activity in public, the suit says.

“In response, DHS decided to record the Americans who were peacefully observing its agents,” the suit says.

Officers with the DHS agencies Immigration and Customs Protection and Border Patrol killed two observers, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis in incidents 17 days apart in January. 

‘Driven home by ICE’

ICE and Border Patrol agents used facial recognition technology, license plate readers and other technology to identify protesters and observers. The agents would then use that information in efforts to intimidate and retaliate against protesters, the suit says. 

Federal immigration officers addressed many legal observers by name, despite having never spoken to them. In Minnesota, legal observers tailing DHS agents in a car would commonly be led back to their own home addresses, according to the suit.

“The experience … is so widespread that Minnesota residents have coined a term for it: being ‘driven home by ICE,’” the suit said.

The practice shows that DHS is no longer following its own 2023 policy on facial recognition, the suit says. The department quietly removed the policy from its website — omitting it even from a set of archived pages — during President Donald Trump’s first month back in office, the suit says.

The complaint argues that amounted to a policy change, which DHS did not conduct through the process agencies must follow under the Administrative Procedure Act. 

The department also retaliated against protesters and observers by revoking their status in DHS trusted traveler programs TSA Precheck and Global Entry, the suit says.

Nicole Cleland, a Minnesota woman who is one of the individual plaintiffs in the suit, said Global Entry status was revoked three days after an encounter with a Border Patrol agent whom she was following at a safe distance, according to the suit.

Chilling rights

The suit alleges DHS’ actions have had a chilling effect on First Amendment-protected activity. 

Cleland has stopped observing DHS operations for fear of further retaliation, according to the suit.

The two other individuals who brought the suit, Jacquelyn Ivey of South Carolina and Anna Walker of California, said they experienced “fear, anxiety and emotional distress” following their interactions with DHS officers.

The suit also mentions activity in Maine, North Carolina and Chicago.

DHS response

In response to a request to DHS for comment, a spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection, which administers Global Entry, said trusted traveler status can be denied for “inability to demonstrate low-risk traveler status.”

“Global Entry or other CBP Trusted Traveler Program memberships are not revoked because someone exercises their First Amendment rights,” the spokesperson wrote. “Membership may be denied or revoked for reasons such as criminal activity (including pending charges or warrants), violations of customs or immigration laws, or inability to demonstrate low-risk traveler status.”

The spokesperson added that travelers whose Global Entry is denied or revoked can ask for additional review. A Global Entry ombudsman provides “additional oversight” of some cases, the spokesperson said. 

A denial of Global Entry is not an impediment to travel, they wrote.

DHS did not respond to questions about its policies for recording or using facial recognition on observers.

The nation’s election infrastructure is vulnerable to cyberattacks by foreign actors, President Donald Trump said during a primetime address Thursday night, citing a batch of documents he declassified — but providing no proof broad interference actually occurred or affected an election outcome.

Democrats and advocates quickly criticized the remarks as another attempt by Trump to give Republicans an advantage in crucial midterm elections and sow distrust of results, following his firing of members of the Election Assistance Commission, demands by his administration for state voter rolls, an executive order limiting mail-in ballots and more.

Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and some non-state groups “have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure,” Trump said, quoting one of the documents, which were compiled by White House and intelligence community staff. The document said its authors did not know if any adversaries planned to interfere in elections.

Trump claimed that voter rolls in at least 18 states were “bought, stolen, or hacked by China” ahead of the 2020 election. The attempted methods of interference, he said, ranged from influencing voters to trying to produce fake ballots in favor of Democratic nominee Joe Biden.  

Standing behind a lectern at the White House, Trump said during the 2020 election, the People’s Republic of China carried out the “largest compromise of election data in history,” and said varyingly that China had illicitly accessed tens of millions or up to 220 million voters’ personal data. 

“Our purpose in disclosing this information is not to weaken confidence in (elections), but to earn that confidence by confronting vulnerabilities and correcting them very, very quickly,” he said. “And that’s what we’re doing.”

Trump announced he was immediately declassifying five sets of documents that he said proved foreign interference in the election and 2018 midterms, as well as “shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure.” 

“Just as disturbingly, this vital information has, for many years, been covered up and hidden from you, the American people,” he said.

He claimed that the election vulnerabilities were known by members of the “deep state” who included top members of the intelligence community and worked to hide “the extent of China’s sinister election meddling,” including while he was president prior to and during the 2020 election. 

He further accused Biden’s Department of Justice of killing any investigation into the matter and preventing its disclosure. 

The documents were posted on a whitehouse.gov webpage Thursday evening.

Trump also said the vulnerabilities were another reason to pass the SAVE America Act, a bill that in its various versions would restrict voter access by adding requirements to register and cast ballots, including photo IDs. The bill, which is stalled in the U.S. Senate, does not include funding for election security infrastructure. 

Midterms impact

Many Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, said the remarks were not about the 2020 cycle, but were ultimately meant to undermine confidence ahead of this year’s midterms.

“Trump knows he has lost American families,” Schumer said in a statement following the address. “He knows he has made their lives more expensive, endangered their friends & families with an unnecessary war, and embarrassed the country on the global stage. And rather than pivot his policies, he is working to rig the midterms before a single vote has even been cast. We won’t let him.”

Former vice president and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris wrote shortly before Trump’s speech that he wanted the American people to believe their vote does not matter. 

“He wants you to lose confidence in our electoral system so you stay home this November,” she wrote on X. “He knows how discontent the American people are, and he wants to make sure that you do not vote.” 

Election forecasters say the most likely result of the midterms is that the GOP retains control of the U.S. Senate and Democrats gain a majority in the House.

Chinese meddling attempts

During his roughly 25-minute-long remarks, Trump avoided explicitly repeating his debunked claims the 2020 election was rigged, only implying it at one point.

“We’re taking swift action to ensure that sensitive voter data is better protected so we can never be bought, we can never be hacked, and we can never watch a stolen election again,” he said.

Instead, Trump said the documents showed U.S. elections are “vulnerable to being rigged and stolen.”

He said China did try to meddle with voter registration and influenced public opinion against him by paying U.S. journalists “large sums of money to write more negative articles about him.” He did not say that was the reason he lost the election and he did not identify the journalists.

According to the Election Assistance Commission, voter rolls are sometimes commercially available and are often obtainable through public records requests. 

Trump said another set of documents revealed a scheme by a get-out-the-vote group in Muskegon, Michigan, to file fraudulent voter registrations. He did not say the scheme, which has been discredited, affected any votes counted in Michigan’s 2020 election.

In a statement, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said the state’s elections “are safe and secure.”

“Any suggestion otherwise is designed to undermine our voters’ basic rights,” she said.

Trump also claimed that 278,000 non-citizens are registered to vote in the U.S., citing a Department of Homeland Security report released shortly before his speech. That figure may be higher, he claimed, because Democratic-led states have not shared their voter information. 

The White House documents released Thursday link to a one-page document created by the department, which cites a “review” of voter information in four states: California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada. It does not reference any specific data. 

Throughout his speech, Trump took aim at the media, including NBC News and ABC News, which had both said they would not broadcast his speech live. CBS ultimately broadcast a portion of his speech in a special report after it began. 

2020 claims

Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election began almost immediately after his loss. 

Trump and his allies filed dozens of lawsuits challenging the results of the election, nearly all of which were dropped or thrown out for lack of evidence. 

The post-election campaign culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by Trump’s supporters on the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to disrupt Congress’ certification of Electoral College results. A U.S. House committee investigating the attack concluded Trump was responsible for inciting it by knowingly lying to his supporters about the election results. 

The investigation also found Trump sought to use Department of Justice resources and his influence among state-level Republicans to reverse the results.

Trump also faced a federal indictment for his conduct leading up to the riot. That prosecution was dropped when he won the 2024 election. After returning to office last year, Trump also pardoned everyone convicted of charges related to the attack.

Dems push back: ‘totally bogus’ 

Immediately after Trump’s remarks, Democrats slammed the president’s claims about China’s election interference. 

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said in a post on X that the “shocking ‘bombshells’ about China are totally bogus.” 

“The fact is our intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that China did not even try to change a single vote in the 2020 election,” he wrote. “A single concurring opinion suggested China may have tried to sway voters’ opinions… but that’s been public knowledge since 2021.”

During his speech, Trump, without evidence, cast doubt on the integrity of the Los Angeles mayoral race and the state’s recent gubernatorial race. 

California’s primary election was Tuesday, June 2, but election officials are allowed to take roughly a month to complete vote counting. The lengthy process is a product of the state’s large population, as well as its reliance on voting by mail. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom echoed other Democratic officials and said the speech, which he described as “the ramblings of a mad king,” was about the midterms. 

“Before a single vote has been cast, he’s already laying the groundwork to rig this election and convince YOU not to trust the results if they don’t go his way,” he said. “Don’t fall for it.” 

President Donald Trump said Friday morning he would not sign federal legislation aimed at lowering the cost of housing, but the bipartisan package became law at 12:01 a.m. Saturday anyway.

In a post to his social media site, Trump again said that as a protest against Congress not passing an elections bill known as the SAVE America Act he considers a top priority, he would not sign the housing bill that both chambers of Congress passed with wide margins. 

If the president does not sign or veto a bill passed by Congress, it becomes law in 10 days, excluding Sundays, after it reaches the White House. The constitutional provision does not apply if Congress is adjourned, resulting in what is called a pocket veto, but the current July Fourth recess does not count as an adjournment, experts agree.

The housing package, known as the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, overhauls several areas of housing policy in an effort to make it easier for builders to construct new units and potential buyers to secure federally backed loans. 

Trump in his post targeted the SAVE America Act.

“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, which is polling at 97% with the Republican Party, and very high with the non-politician Dumocrats,” Trump wrote, overstating the bill’s level of support.

Liked, but not universally

Public polling on the SAVE America Act, which would impose photo ID requirements for voters and limit mail-in voting, among other provisions depending on the version of the bill, is scant. But surveys that are available show the bill, while generally popular, is much more divisive than Trump represented.

A May Politico survey showed that, when pollsters did not describe the bill’s provisions, more voters supported than opposed the bill, 37% to 21%, but that a 42% plurality of voters had no opinion. Even among the sample of respondents who voted for Trump in 2024, only 62% said they supported it.

Asked about particular elements of the bill, the most popular in the Politico poll was a requirement to show proof of citizenship to register to vote, with 52% of respondents saying they supported it compared to only 18% who opposed.

In the U.S. Senate, Democrats are universally opposed to the bill. And not enough Republicans support abolishing the chamber’s legislative filibuster, which would allow the chamber’s majority Republicans to pass bills along party lines.

Consensus housing measure

The housing legislation, on the other hand, registered barely any opposition.

The measure passed 85-5 in the Senate and 358-32 in the House. Many of the no votes in the House came from a group of conservatives who took Trump’s cue and opposed the package not on its merits but as a protest of the Senate’s inaction on the elections bill.

The housing overhaul packages together many earlier proposals sought by various interests involved in housing policy. It would reduce some regulatory hurdles to home construction and expand the possible uses of federal housing funds. 

The bill would also allow money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program to be used for construction of affordable housing. 

It would in addition tie the amount some cities and states receive from the $3.3 billion grant program to their rates of affordable housing construction and expand the eligibility for some federally backed low-income mortgage programs.

The White House initially said Trump supported the bill, and scheduled an unusually prominent signing ceremony at the U.S. Capitol in late June. 

But the president changed course just hours before he was scheduled to sign the bill and canceled the event. He has since dismissed the housing measure as unimportant compared to the SAVE America Act.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s guidelines to states on how to request funding under counterterrorism grant programs include potentially illegal demands related to election administration, Democrats on the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee said Thursday.

The Department of Homeland Security, which includes FEMA, sent states last month notices of available federal funding for non-disaster grants under the Homeland Security Grant Program, the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and the Transit Security Grant Program.

Those notices included “blatant attempts to force communities to comply with the Trump administration’s political demands” or risk losing $200 million in federal funds, the letter said.

“As we approach the 25th anniversary of September 11th, it is deeply alarming that DHS and FEMA, under Donald Trump, continue to manipulate the very funding born out of a national tragedy,” they wrote. “Playing political games with counterterrorism funding undermines public safety and deprives first responders of the resources they need to do their jobs.”

The panel’s 15 Democrats, led by ranking member Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, signed the letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and acting FEMA Administrator Robert Fenton.

Spokespeople for DHS, FEMA and the committee’s Republicans did not immediately return messages seeking comment late Thursday. A White House spokesperson referred a request for comment to DHS.

SAVE computer system

The department is withholding up to 20% of the programs’ congressionally appropriated grant funding unless states and cities update their election laws, the Democrats wrote. The administration wants states to use the department’s powerful SAVE computer system to verify the citizenship of every voter, among other demands, the letter said.

The department also continues to retain more than $600 million in 2025 funding, the lawmakers said.

Some of the administration’s demands are unworkable or illegal under federal court decisions or state law, they said.

For example, two days before the notice went to states, a federal judge ruled that states could not use the SAVE system to check voter eligibility.

“It is unclear how or why DHS and FEMA published (notice of funding opportunity) guidance that would deliberately conflict with a court ruling,” they wrote. “To date, FEMA has not provided a revised (notice) that complies with court orders on the use of the SAVE system.”

‘Costly and impossible’ for states

Several requirements, demanded barely five months before midterm elections in November and one month before grant applications are due, “are costly and impossible to achieve on the unrealistic timeline dictated by the administration,” the letter said.

Other criteria were unclear, such as a requirement to “reconcile voters and ballots using a methodology the Secretary has not disclosed,” the Democrats wrote. The department has also not said how post-election manual audits must be conducted.

The lawmakers asked the administration to revert to 2024 guidance, which would remove confusion about the grant programs’ requirements and their legality, release materials that informed the department’s decision to tie the grant funding to election security and to immediately release all holds “explicit or de facto” on last year’s grants.

Constitutional mandate 

The changes would “very likely harm” states’ election integrity, David Becker, the executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, said in a media briefing earlier Thursday. 

Becker predicted that the order would be “very easy to block” in court.

The department’s requirements are not authorized by Congress or the Constitution, which empowers states to administer elections, Becker said.

“This administration continues to either fail to understand or openly defy the constitutional mandate that gives authority to run elections to the states,” he said.

President Donald Trump is running out of time to decide what to do with a bipartisan bill meant to lower housing costs by making it easier to build.

If Trump does not sign the measure, it would become law at 12:01 a.m. Saturday under a provision of the Constitution that gives the president 10 days, excluding Sundays, to sign or veto a bill. Trump has said he would not sign the bill to pressure the U.S. Senate to pass an unrelated election security measure he considers a higher priority.

The constitutional provision does not apply if Congress is adjourned, resulting in what is called a pocket veto, but the current July Fourth recess does not count as an adjournment, experts agree.

“This would be considered a recess so the bill will become law without signature 10 days after presentment,” Jason Roberts, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina, wrote in an email to States Newsroom. 

The White House has not publicly communicated its legal position and spokespeople did not return a message seeking comment Wednesday. 

Trump has vetoed only two other bills passed by the GOP-controlled Congress during his second term. Both were noncontroversial and targeted to local projects in Florida and Colorado.

‘A huge problem’

Groups representing a vast array of housing interests, from low-income renters to bankers, have endorsed the wide-ranging legislation that packages together numerous bills affecting every corner of the industry.

“Housing affordability is a huge problem for almost everybody,” Alys Cohen, the director of federal housing advocacy at the National Consumer Law Center, said in an interview. “And so there’s broad consensus that Congress needs to do something about that, period. So, as a result, they have a lot of different stakeholders coming together to really get something done.”

The bill, called the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, generally seeks to lower housing costs by expanding the supply, while also adjusting loan programs backed by the federal government. 

Estimates of the number of housing units needed to meet demand vary, but it is “probably” near 4 million units, Kristen Klurfield, an associate director for housing policy at the Washington, D.C.-based Bipartisan Policy Center, said.

The package includes an assortment of smaller bills to update regulations on manufactured homes, loosen requirements for home construction and adjust a rural loan program to help lower income people qualify for and keep mortgages. The wide scope of the bill gives every segment of the policy space a reason to support it.

“In general it modernizes federal programs,” Klurfield said. “It incentivizes pro-housing policies locally, streamlines regulations that have been hindering housing production and really expands options for affordable housing financing. And so we think that the bill tackles the problem from these several angles, and that’s really what it’s going to take to chart a path forward.”

Trump quiet

As the package was gaining momentum in Congress last month, White House staff said Trump supported it. After it passed both chambers of Congress with broad bipartisan votes, he was set to sign it at a high-profile ceremony at the Capitol. 

But the president changed course and canceled the signing ceremony at the last minute in a protest of Congress’ failure to pass an election security measure, the SAVE America Act, he considers a top priority.

Since the Senate passed the housing measure, 85-5, and the House cleared it, 358-32, in June, Trump has disparaged the bill as “a big yawn” and “unimportant” compared to the election bill. 

That bill would introduce a series of restrictions on voting, especially vote-by-mail, and would require voters to provide photo ID to cast ballots. Critics say it raises new barriers to voting while attempting to limit noncitizen voting, which is exceedingly rare. The GOP-controlled House has passed a version of the SAVE America Act, but it does not have the 60 votes needed to advance in the Senate.

Trump has not commented on the bill in several days and spent Wednesday attending a NATO conference in Turkey.

A host of high-profile Democrats called for Graham Platner, the party’s nominee to take on Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine in November’s election, to drop out of the race as they tried to save the party’s chances to retake the Senate majority.

In the wake of Politico’s explosive Monday report that an ex-girlfriend of Platner’s alleged he sexually assaulted her in 2021, the political newcomer’s supporters in Congress and Democratic circles in Washington, D.C., rescinded their endorsements and sought a new candidate in the race that is seen as crucial to Senate control. 

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said it would pull all its resources from the race as long as Platner was the nominee, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for him to drop out and Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who gave a critical early boost to Platner in the race for the Democratic nomination, said he told Platner directly he should “step aside.”

Even Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said Platner should withdraw.

And key outside Democratic groups, including Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club, and the Sanders-founded Our Revolution PAC, also withdrew their endorsements after the Politico report came out.

Platner has denied the accusation and, as of Tuesday afternoon, was still the Democratic nominee. But he raised the possibility he would leave the race Monday, saying in a short direct-to-camera video that he was “taking the time to reflect on the best path forward.”

Under state law, he must withdraw by July 13, and the party would have until July 27 to replace him.

Four Senate seats

Monday and Tuesday, national Democrats seemed eager to move on from the oysterman and first-time candidate, who gained nationwide attention for both his energetic economic populist campaign and his personal scandals, in an effort to preserve one of the party’s best chances to pick up a Senate seat this year. 

Democrats need to flip four Senate seats to win control of the chamber, with Collins the only Republican up for reelection in a state President Donald Trump lost in 2024. 

Elections forecasters generally considered the Maine race a toss-up before the latest news about Platner.

The Cook Political Report rates a North Carolina seat being vacated by retiring Republican Thom Tillis as leaning toward Democrats, while Republican incumbents facing strong Democratic challengers in Alaska and Ohio are tossups, as is an open race to replace Democrat Gary Peters in Michigan.

If Collins wins reelection, Democrats would have to sweep those races and pick up at least one seat currently seen as favoring the GOP to tilt the balance in the Senate, now controlled by Republicans with 53 seats.

The national environment generally gives Democrats an advantage, given Trump’s poor poll ratings and trends that favor the party not in the White House in midterm elections. 

But Collins’ electoral strength — she outperformed Trump by 15 percentage points in 2020, the last time she was on the ballot, to remain the only New England Republican in the Senate — has beguiled Democrats for decades. 

Quick consolidation 

Replacing Platner and quickly coalescing around another candidate could be the party’s best chance to keep the map competitive.

Rodell Mollineau, a Democratic strategist and co-founder at D.C.-based ROKK Solutions, said Maine Democrats should be mindful of the party’s loss in the 2024 presidential race following the replacement of President Joe Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket.

“A replacement could win if everyone gets on the same page quickly,” he said in a Tuesday interview. “Drawing from some of the lessons of 2024, it would be helpful if there could be a process where voters do not think that this person was thrust upon them and they had a choice.”

Several potential replacements have expressed interest since the Politico story published.

Former state CDC Director Nirav D. Shah, who finished second in the gubernatorial primary last month, said he had fielded “hundreds of encouraging messages” and that he was evaluating his next move.

Jordan Wood, who finished third in the primary for the U.S. House seat held by retiring Rep. Jared Golden, indicated he would appreciate consideration.

“If my fellow Maine Democrats decide through an open and democratic process that I am the best candidate to defeat Susan Collins, I would be humbled by their trust,” Wood said in a statement.

Our Revolution, which supports progressive candidates, warned “the Democratic establishment” to heed primary voters’ wishes if and when a replacement is selected. 

The Hill reported Tuesday the group is backing former state Senate President Troy Jackson, who finished third in the gubernatorial primary.

Spokespeople for Platner’s campaign did not return messages seeking comment Tuesday.