Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) officially submitted his resignation letter on Friday, as he leaves Congress to go lead the American Jewish Committee.

Deutch, who first began serving in Congress in 2010, announced in February that he was leaving the lower chamber to become CEO of the American Jewish Committee, an advocacy organization.

The Florida Democrat’s resignation takes effect at close of business on Friday, and he is slated to assume his new role on Saturday. He resigned roughly three months before his term was set to expire.

Once he departs the lower chamber, the party breakdown will be 220-212 in favor of Democrats — shrinking their margin to just three votes.

In a tweet on Friday, the outgoing congressman wrote “My last day in Congress…” and linked the song “One Last Time” from the musical “Hamilton.”

Deutch reflected on his more than 12 years in the House in a farewell letter.

“When I was first elected to serve as your Representative over twelve years ago, I promised to represent your interests in Congress as best I could. I arrived in Washington in 2010, the lone freshman member in the middle of the 111th Congress. I never could have expected then how many of you I would meet, how many of your stories would shape our nation’s policy, and how many victories we would achieve together as a community,” he wrote.

Perhaps one of the events Deutch will be remembered most in connection to is the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., which is in his district. He mentioned the massacre, which killed 17 people, in his farewell letter.

“Even more important than our accomplishments are the moments that led to them: the moments we truly came together as a community,” the outgoing congressman wrote.

“There was the horrific day on February 14th, 2018, when 17 members of our community had their lives cut short in a senseless act of violence. What the people in our community—especially the young people—did after that tragedy was unforgettable, not only for all of us in South Florida, but for our entire nation. You created a sense of community and empowerment that shaped our national discourse, and you raised your voices, together, to speak out to prevent the next tragedy,” he added.

The Florida Democrat credited the activism of his constituents with helping push Congress to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act this year, marking the first time in almost three decades that Congress approved significant legislation to curb gun violence.

President Biden signed the bill into law in June.

“It was because of your activism and your support for one another that Congress passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act this year, the first major gun safety law in 30 years,” Deutch wrote. “Your voices transformed the way gun violence and school safety are viewed across the country, and we are not done feeling the impact of this community’s efforts.”

Deutch’s district — which was previously the 22nd but became the 23rd following redistricting — will be without a representative in the House until January, when the winner of a November election will assume the seat. Former Florida state Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D) is running against entrepreneur Joe Budd.

Cook Political Report rates the seat “solid Democrat.”

Ten House Republicans bucked party leadership and voted for a short-term funding bill on Friday that will avert a government shutdown.

The stopgap bill, which will fund the government at last fiscal year’s levels until Dec. 16, cleared the lower chamber in a 230-201 vote.

Republican Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio), Garret Graves (La.), Chris Jacobs (N.Y.), John Katko (N.Y.), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), Patrick McHenry (N.C.), Harold Rogers (Ky.), Fred Upton (Mich.) and Steve Womack (Ark.) joined all voting Democrats in supporting the measure.

Also included in the continuing resolution is more than $12 billion in security and financial assistance for Ukraine, $2 billion for U.S. disaster relief, $2.5 billion for wildfires in New Mexico and $1 billion for home heating assistance. Additionally, it reauthorizes Food and Drug Administration (FDA) user fees for five years.

The Senate passed the stopgap bill in a bipartisan 72-25 vote on Thursday. The measure now heads to President Biden’s desk for signature. It will avert a government shutdown, which would have been triggered at midnight.

House Republican leadership began whipping against the continuing resolution on Tuesday. In a notice sent to all House GOP offices, Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) urged his colleagues to vote against the stopgap bill because Democrats allegedly refused to negotiate with Republicans on key matters, such as inflation and the border.

“The Majority has refused to negotiate with Ranking Member Granger or any other House Republican leader on pressing issues relating to our government funding priorities, including runaway inflation, the supply chain crisis, the border crisis, or the opioid deaths associated with drugs like fentanyl coming across our open southern border, and have instead decided to kick the can to December, setting up another government funding showdown during the unaccountable lame duck period,” the notice from Scalise reads.

Top Republicans also took issue with the short-term nature of the funding measure, which will only keep the government running until Dec. 16, “setting up yet another shutdown showdown." Lawmakers will have to come up with a funding bill by mid-December to keep the government operating for the rest of the fiscal year.

Additionally, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) last week said Republicans in the lower chamber should not support the spending bill if it does not “address the border crisis immediately.”

Rogers in a statement said he voted for the stopgap bill “despite some of its flaws” because of the disaster relief and home energy assistance provisions.

He referenced historic flooding that has inundated Kentucky, his home state.

“Eastern Kentucky needs every federal dollar we can get to help with flood relief efforts,” the congressman said in a statement.

“This bill is far from perfect, but it's a good addition for disaster relief as we work together to meet the needs that are still prevalent in Eastern Kentucky's hardest hit communities,m” he added.

The Kentucky Republican did, however, gripe that the measure did not address increasing inflation, energy or the flow of immigrants and drugs over the southern border.

“Nonetheless, this bill gives us more time to work toward a resolution and provides important supplemental funding in support of Ukraine, and critical emergency funding for disaster relief,” he said.

Upton outlined the provisions in the continuing resolution in a statement on Friday, pointing to the Ukraine funding, disaster relief and the extension of FDA user fees.

“Particularly with their recent military success the past two weeks, one can only imagine if the rug was pulled out on any Ukraine aid which also restocks US military supplies,” he wrote.

The Hill reached out to the 10 lawmakers for comment on their votes.

A spokesperson for Womack told The Hill that while the congressman “would have liked to see full-year appropriations done on time,” he supported the continuing resolution because it “was a product of previously negotiated terms by Republicans and continues agreed to funding levels.” The spokesperson also noted that the measure did not include partisan riders.

President Biden on Friday signed a bill to honor the late Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), days after the president asked if the congresswoman, who died in an August vehicular accident, was in the room during an event this week.

The bill designates the clinic of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Mishawaka, Ind., as the Jackie Walorski VA Clinic. Biden signed it in a private ceremony with members of Walorski’s family and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), according to the White House.

“The president has been looking forward to hosting the late representative’s family and other lawmakers to honor her legacy,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Friday. “Clearly this is an important moment for her, for her family.”

Walorski’s husband, mother, brother and staff attended, as well as other lawmakers, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Biden made headlines on Wednesday when he was delivering a speech at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health and he recognized the lawmakers who helped make the event a reality.

“Rep. … Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie?” Biden said, referring to Walorski. When asked about the comment, Jean-Pierre on Wednesday attributed it to the fact that Walorski was “top of mind” for Biden.

Walorski and two staffers were killed in an Aug. 3 car accident. She had served in Congress since 2013.

Jean-Pierre on Friday noted that the issue to combat hunger is bipartisan when asked about McCarthy visiting the White House. During her time in Congress, Walorski made combating hunger and malnutrition a key part of her work.

Conservative commentator and former Trump White House adviser Sebastian Gorka on Friday said House Republicans should form a select committee to investigate President Biden's son Hunter Biden's business dealings — and offered his services to be a staff director for such a body.

House Republicans, anticipating taking control of the chamber and preparing to lead investigations into the Biden family, are getting requests from conservatives to up the ante on the probes and Gorka said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) invited him to be involved in efforts to investigate President Joe Biden’s son.

“I’d be honored to act as Staff Director for any serious GOP effort, because they need to get serious, and they need to investigate and have a special commission, a special Congressional committee, to investigate both the criminal, the RICO, and the national security aspects of Hunter Biden’s corruption, and the corruption of the Biden crime cartel family,” Gorka wrote in Breitbart on Friday. The Washington Examiner first reported his interest in working on a congressional Biden probe. 

Gaetz, a firebrand in the House GOP conference, has also previously called for creation of a select committee to probe Biden, but House GOP leadership has not committed to doing so.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, has committed to probing the younger Biden’s business dealings if Republicans win the majority next year and he becomes chair of the committee. The panel has a copy of the infamous laptop hard drive and has been pouring over it, and has sought documents on Hunter Biden's business activities. 

Comer threw cold water on the idea of a select committee on the issue, adding that he expects the Oversight Committee to lead the probe into Hunter Biden.

“I’ve told House leadership that I believe that we have the staff and we have the prep work already in place to be able to come out of the gate pretty strong with some hearings,” Comer told reporters. “I hope that everyone will just hold off on that, and give the Oversight Committee a couple of opportunities to shine light on some of the wrongdoing with respect to the Biden influence peddling all over the world.”

Gaetz, though, told The Hill that there have not been final decisions made on the structure of Biden probes. He added that Comer has done a “great job” and that he is “well positioned to play a leading role” in Biden probes.

Comer said he has never talked to Gorka.

Gorka argued to The Hill that House Republicans have not done enough.

“They haven't done anything substantive at all, and they're not doing anything,” Gorka said. “The Hunter Biden scandals are so multiple because they involve him, his father, his Uncle Frank. It hits upon, you know, almost every aspect of oversight, so you could have investigations of the Biden family in every committee. But my recommendation to Matt and to the Republicans is that you need to have a special investigatory committee because of the national security aspects of this.”

On Comer specifically, Gorka said: “Nobody's ever heard of him, and that tells you everything you need to know about him.”

Gorka suggested that former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, as well as several reporters who have reported on Biden, could be advisers to or witnesses for the committee he envisions.

Comer said that he has gotten a lot of outside tips and suggestions relating to Hunter Biden.

“I've talked to other people that go on conservative media a lot,” Comer said. “We will look at anything that has credibility, but at the end of the day, it's not going to be on Oversight stationary unless it's factual.”

Anger is boiling over at House Democratic leadership for failing to deliver on a bill to ban members of Congress from trading stocks — a key priority for voters on both sides of the aisle — ahead of the midterms.  

Democratic leaders unveiled draft legislation to tackle the issue Tuesday, just days before Congress was set to leave for an extended recess. That left lawmakers little time to review the bill or offer changes, such as closing loopholes that critics say make the bill toothless, dooming its chances of a floor vote. 

Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) on Friday issued a scathing statement, accusing Democratic leaders of slow-walking her own stock trading proposal — introduced two years ago with bipartisan backing — and ultimately offering a more complicated bill that was designed to fail. 

“This moment marks a failure of House leadership — and it’s yet another example of why I believe that the Democratic Party needs new leaders in the halls of Capitol Hill, as I have long made known,” Spanberger said in her statement.  

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters Friday that the bill didn’t come to the floor because it didn’t have the votes to pass.  

The delay is a momentous setback for the stock trading reform effort, which drew a rare confluence of support from an overwhelming majority of Republican and Democratic voters.  

Public scrutiny of lawmakers’ trades intensified when Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) unloaded much of his portfolio after attending a private briefing on the devastating impacts of COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic. Pelosi, whose husband is a prolific trader, also drew backlash when she said she wouldn’t support a ban on stock trading in Congress, a position she later reversed. 

“Passing a stock trading bill before the midterms would have been a good faith sign to the voters that Congress takes its responsibility to the public interest seriously,” said Danielle Caputo, an ethics lawyer at the Campaign Legal Center. “And so obviously, that's disappointing.” 

The Combatting Financial Conflicts of Interests in Government Act, spearheaded by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) at the request of Pelosi, aims to prevent insider trading among members of Congress, federal government officials and Supreme Court justices. 

The bill is meant to stop insider trading by making officials put any stocks they own into what’s called a blind trust, whereby the stocks are handed over to a third-party who manages them without their owner’s knowledge. 

But critics of the bill say that it contains a loophole that allows officials to get out of this requirement. 

“The problem is that the bill allows people to create a trust that they can claim is blind and diversified, and yet it doesn’t actually have to meet the criteria that are currently in the law for it to officially be a blind trust,” said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, an advocate with The Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a non-profit watchdog organization.  

Congressional ethics committees, notorious for failing to hold lawmakers accountable for violating existing ethics rules, would sign off on the blind trusts under the proposal.  

“It’s basically a fake blind trust,” he said. “We don’t have that much trust in what the ethics committee is going to do because they’re notoriously weak in doing anything that’s particularly restrictive or robust around what happens internally.” 

Critics of Democratic leaders’ approach say that the stock trading bill should have stuck to the legislative branch, and that including ethics reforms to the judiciary and federal government only complicated its chances of passage. Those changes could have come in future bills, they said. 

Lawmakers complained this week that the Lofgren bill was not crafted with input from many rank-and-file lawmakers, particularly Republicans.  

“This is a complex issue requiring thought, debate, amendment and a full airing in committee to build as much bipartisan agreement as possible rather than the normal cram-down from the top that permeates literally everything we do,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who partnered with Spanberger on a stock trading bill, said in a statement Wednesday. 

House Judiciary Committee member Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) said in an interview that he suspects that many members of his committee haven’t had time to properly review the legislation. 

“I would suppose there are many members who have not actually read the legislation. And it’s certainly an important enough issue that we need to take adequate time to deliberate on it. We know that stock trading by members of Congress and by judges – Article III judges – is unacceptable,” he said, referring to judges who are nominated by the president and can only be removed from office with impeachment proceedings. 

A recent analysis by The New York Times found that one-fifth of U.S. lawmakers traded financial assets in industries that relate to their work on government committees in recent years.  

A 2012 law called the STOCK Act forbids members of Congress from using insider information when buying and selling stocks, but watchdogs say violations of the law are common. 

“We keep seeing STOCK Act violations,” POGO’s Hedtler-Gaudette said. “We see them time and time again. And they’re not even assessing penalties on the people who are violating the STOCK Act.” 

The proposed stock trading ban in the House is one of several bills now being debated in the Senate from lawmakers including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). 

The proposals from Hawley and Ossoff allow for stocks to be put into blind trusts while the bipartisan measure from Warren and Daines is more strict and requires that stocks be sold off outright. 

Supporters are still hopeful that lawmakers can finish a stock trading bill in a lame duck session after the election. But they note that there will be less pressure on lawmakers to appease voters, and Congress will already have its hands full with a slew of legislative priorities, including a government spending bill. 

The Hill has reached out to Pelosi's office for additional comment.

The House on Friday passed a short-term funding bill to keep the government running for the next few months, narrowly avoiding a shutdown just hours until the midnight deadline.

The Democratic-led House voted 230-201, largely along party lines, to advance the legislation as GOP leadership urged their members to reject the bill over disagreements about the timing and policy areas like border funds. 

The legislation, known as a continuing resolution, passed the Senate on Thursday and now heads to President Biden’s desk for approval. 

The measure will allow the government to remain funded at the current spending levels through Dec. 16. Negotiators say it will give them more time to work out a larger agreement over how to fund the government for fiscal 2023, which begins on Saturday.

The legislation also includes more than $12 billion in security and financial assistance for Ukraine to defend itself from Russia’s ongoing invasion, as well as funding for disaster relief. The White House requested emergency funding in both areas earlier this month.

More than 200 Republicans voted against the bill on Friday as GOP leaders accuse Democrats of not doing more to address border security, supply chains and inflation. Republicans in both chambers have also taken issue with the length of the CR, with many pushing to put off working out spending levels for the coming fiscal year until January, when the next congressional session comes into power.

Republicans are hopeful about their chances of taking back control of both chambers in the November midterms.

The pushback provides just a glimpse of the obstacles that have threatened the funding package’s path to passage in recent weeks.

The House vote on Friday comes days after lawmakers cleared one of the biggest hurdles to Congress greenlighting the bill: a permitting reform proposal offered by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

Manchin had previously pushed to use the must-pass funding bill as a vehicle to advance a deal struck with top Democrats that promised a measure aimed at speeding up the approval process for energy infrastructure projects in exchange for his vote on Democrats' sweeping tax, climate and health care bill last month.

The proposal was stripped from the funding bill this week following growing opposition from Democrats and Republicans that threatened final passage of the overall legislation.

More than a handful of Senate Democrats had pushed for the package and energy proposal to be delinked after their colleagues in the House began to line up against the push over concerns it would undercut environmental reviews.

At the same time, Republicans argued the reforms didn’t go far enough while drawing red lines around the issue. 

The package passed on Friday also excludes supplemental funding for the nation’s coronavirus and monkeypox response, despite a request by the White House for billions of dollars, after Senate Republicans opposed the ask.

The back and forth underscores the challenges Democrats have faced in passing funding priorities in Congress, with razor-thin majorities in both chambers.

Anticipation is building on Capitol Hill around the coming critical midterm elections, which members on both sides say will likely be a major factor in larger funding talks for fiscal 2023.

The House is scheduled to begin its weeks-long recess when members leave Washington on Friday, and it’s unclear how much work appropriators will be able to get done between now and November. 

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, told The Hill on Thursday that she thinks Republicans “want to wait until after the elections” to hash out spending, though she added she thinks “there'll be conversation” in the meantime.

But lawmakers will face a time crunch after midterms to finish work on fiscal 2023 omnibus, setting the stage for another shutdown showdown in December, as Congress also stares down an end-of-year deadline for a defense authorization bill and other measures.

Pressed about the chances of Congress having an omnibus by the next deadline, Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told The Hill on Thursday: “If the past is any indication of what's going to happen in the future, we'd be lucky for that to happen.”

Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) on Friday called for new Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill after top House Democrats scrapped plans to vote on legislation banning lawmaker stock trading.

The scathing statement from Spanberger, a two-term congresswoman in a tight reelection race, came one day after House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said a bill prohibiting lawmakers from trading stocks would not be put up for a vote this week.

Spanberger was one of a number of Democrats in tough reelection contests pushing for a vote on the legislation — which has widespread public support — before the November midterms, in the hopes of securing a victory to tout in the final weeks of campaigning. She sponsored a bill on the matter last year.

“This moment marks a failure of House leadership — and it’s yet another example of why I believe that the Democratic Party needs new leaders in the halls of Capitol Hill, as I have long made known,” Spanberger said in a statement.

“Rather than bring Members of Congress together who are passionate about this issue, leadership chose to ignore these voices, push them aside, and look for new ways they could string the media and the public along — and evade public criticism,” she added.

The House leaves Washington on Friday and is not scheduled to return until after the midterms.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — who was at first opposed to a stock ban but backed the effort in February — had teased a September vote on the measure earlier this month. Hoyer, who is reportedly against the stock ban push, told reporters on Thursday that lawmakers did not have enough time to review the legislation, which was unveiled this week.

Spanberger claimed that leadership engaged in “repeated delay tactics.”

“For months, momentum grew in both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate to finally take a step towards prohibiting Members of Congress from day trading while on the job. We saw remarkable progress towards rectifying glaring examples of conflicts of interest. And after first signaling her opposition to these reforms, the Speaker purportedly reversed her position. However, our bipartisan reform coalition was then subjected to repeated delay tactics, hand-waving gestures, and blatant instances of Lucy pulling the football,” she wrote.

The bill introduced by the House Administration Committee this week would have implemented a stock trading ban for members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children, senior congressional staffers, the president, the vice president, federal judges, Supreme Court justices and others.

Momentum behind such a ban has been on the rise in recent months, especially amid reports of members of Congress violating conflicts of interest laws.

The committee, led by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), began working on the legislation after Pelosi backed the effort and directed the panel to work on policy recommendations. A number of bipartisan bills aimed at ending congressional stock trading had already been introduced at that point.

But Spanberger on Friday argued that the House Administration Committee crafted a bill that was bound to be unpopular in the chamber because of its wide-ranging provisions.

“As part of their diversionary tactics, the House Administration Committee was tasked with creating a new piece of legislation — and they ultimately introduced a kitchen-sink package that they knew would immediately crash upon arrival, with only days remaining before the end of the legislative session and no time to fix it,” she said.

“It’s apparent that House leadership does not have its heart in this effort, because the package released earlier this week was designed to fail. It was written to create confusion surrounding reform efforts and complicate a straightforward reform priority — banning Members of Congress from buying and selling individual stocks — all while creating the appearance that House Leadership wanted to take action,” she said.

The Virginia Democrat vowed to “be dogged in my efforts to ban Members of Congress from using the privilege of their position to profit,” in the coming months.

“I look forward to working with both my Democratic and Republican colleagues to get these reforms done,” she added.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) says that he has received whistleblower reports of sexual misconduct at the FBI, comparing the agency to the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

"It sounds like Sodom and Gomorrah up there," Gohmert said on the House floor Thursday.  "We got complaints this week about sexual harassment, about sexual improprieties on the top floor, the seventh floor where the headquarters is, of the FBI and all the favors and all the intimidation that goes along with sexual improprieties."

In the Bible, God destroys the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of the sins of those living there, including sexual immorality.

Gohmert made the comment on the House floor while arguing against a package of antitrust measures that took aim at tech giants. Republicans were split on the measure, but those who were against the bill argued that it would empower the FBI and the Department of Justice, entities that Republicans say are rife with politicization.

“Those are the last people who we need to trust with reining in the Big Tech,” Gohmert said.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, has said that 14 whistleblowers from within the FBI have come to his committee alleging various politically motivated biases against conservatives. Gohmert said that the reports he has received go beyond those 14 individuals.

Gohmert also compared the tactics of the FBI and Justice Department to the Gestapo, the secret police in Nazi Germany.

"When it comes to intimidation and manipulation, they are right there — and I don't say this lightly — they are right there with the Gestapo," Gohmert said. 

Gohmert has also spoken extensively about what he says are “political prisoners” held in jail in Washington, D.C., over charges relating to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, raising concerns about the conditions in the jail.

Gohmert will leave Congress at the end of this term, having forgone reelection to unsuccessfully run for attorney general of Texas.

Congressional Republicans will likely find themselves in a sticky situation next year when it comes to Justice Department investigations of former President Trump should they win control of the House or the Senate in the face of pressure by the ex-president to thwart the work of federal investigators.

Some Republicans have floated defunding parts of the FBI in response to what they call a politically motivated search and seizure at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property. An ascension to power also gives the GOP a chance to put a magnifying glass to the Biden administration through congressional hearings and investigations that could also throw some speed bumps into Department of Justice (DOJ) probes.

At a recent rally in Ohio with GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance, the former president complained that he has been “harassed, investigated, defamed, slandered and persecuted like no other president,” and that there has been “political repression unlike anything our nation has ever seen.”

“J.D., you gotta get it stopped,” Trump said.

But taking an ax to funding for Trump probes is unlikely. And congressional investigations may do more to sway the court of public opinion than stop DOJ probes into the former president.

"Some members of Congress could make a bunch of noise, but that’s about it," said Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney and senior FBI official.

Trump is currently at the center of several investigations, two of which are under the Justice Department’s purview.

Federal investigators are digging into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. A number of ex-Trump White House aides have been called before a grand jury — including former counsel Pat Cipollone and Marc Short, who served as chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence — and the department has reportedly seized cellphones belonging to Trump advisers.

The Justice Department is also investigating Trump’s handling of presidential records and classified documents after he departed the White House in January 2021. The FBI executed a search warrant on the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in August and found scores of classified and top-secret documents that had been sought by the federal government after Trump left office.

Power of the purse

The Mar-a-Lago search spurred calls from some Republican members and GOP commentators to “defund the FBI.” But the logistics of actually defunding DOJ probes into Trump are politically fraught.

It is unlikely that appropriations negotiators would make cuts to the DOJ or FBI that could make it past a Senate filibuster, let alone be signed into law by President Biden. Republicans could theoretically leverage the threat of a government shutdown or need to raise the debt ceiling when negotiating for the cuts, but there does not appear to be a widespread political will among Republicans to play hardball to that extent over perceived politicization at the DOJ.

The conservative House Freedom Caucus has called for bringing back the Holman Rule, which would give more power to individual members by allowing them to propose amendments to appropriations bills that cut the salaries of specific federal workers down to $1, effectively defunding them. The arcane rule has been floated as a potential way to impact the investigations should they target investigators. 

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), the former chair of the House Freedom Caucus, suggested at a CPAC Texas event in August, days before the Mar-a-Lago search, that Republicans could use the Holman Rule to “start defunding some of these bad agencies, the FBI, the DOJ.” He did not specifically mention the agencies’ probes into Trump.

House Republicans restored the Holman Rule — which dates back to 1876 and is named after former Rep. William Holman (D-Ind.) — in January 2017 after securing control of the lower chamber, but Democrats nixed the procedural rule two years later when they took back the majority.

“We should be able to take and restrict dollars flowing to a particular bureaucrat who we think is not doing the will of the people or following the law,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the Freedom Caucus, told The Hill.

“Take, for example, [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas; take, for example [Anthony] Fauci; take, for example, other bureaucrats, the administration, but also [Attorney General Merrick] Garland and the FBI and what they’re doing,” he said.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), the current chairman of the Freedom Caucus, said Garland and investigations into Trump will be “included” in the conference’s use of the Holman Rule, but emphasized that the group plans to cast a wide net.

“We’re looking to fix the abuse of spending and power at all the federal levels,” Perry said. “It’s everything.”

Pressed on if there will be a particular focus on probes into the former president, he said “it’s not specific to Trump investigations, it’s specific to government overreach and overspending.”

While bringing back the Holman Rule is a priority for the Freedom Caucus, not all Republicans are lining up behind the initiative.

“It may come back, I’m not a big fan of it,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), ranking member on the House Rules Committee, adding that it “tends to personalize politics in ways that are not helpful.”

Shine of the microscope

Republicans have already pledged to use their congressional investigatory authority in response to the DOJ’s probe of Trump.

After the search at Mar-a-Lago, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) promised “immediate oversight” of the DOJ in a GOP majority, arguing that it had “reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization.” He directed Garland to “preserve your documents and clear your calendar.”

The Justice Department has long responded to congressional inquiries about ongoing investigations by claiming that providing such information could interfere with national security, compromise an investigation or amount to improper political interference.

A GOP-led congressional committee would have broad ability to seek records and testimony as long as there is a legitimate legislative purpose. Congress has typically considered the needs of an agency to keep matters relating to its deliberative process confidential.

Criticism relating to those concerns rose in 2018 after former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein gave former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), then the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), then the chair of the House Oversight Committee, access to a memo that launched the FBI’s investigation into Russia and the Trump campaign. 

Harry Litman, a law instructor at the University of California at San Diego and former U.S. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general, wrote in an op-ed at the time that the disclosure “could compromise the investigation, unfairly expose uncharged individuals and provide a road map for defendants to sculpt their stories.”

But with different leadership in the DOJ, Litman does not have the same worries about a future Congressional requests. 

“So long as Merrick Garland remains atop the DOJ, the Department will vigorously resist providing any information about pending investigations (as Rosenstein did in 2018),” Litman said. “That includes going to court, where the law is uncontroversially in their favor and they should prevail.”

The Iran-Contra affair provides another notable historical instance of a congressional investigation affecting a federal criminal probe even when the dual investigations had the same target. Former National Security Council aide Oliver North’s 1989 conviction on felony charges were later overturned in part over concerns that testimony he gave to Congress on the condition it would not be used against him was utilized in his trial. 

Multiple experts agreed that there is ultimately little Congress can do through oversight activities to thwart the DOJ. 

David Janovsky, analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, said that while a GOP congressional investigation may add “speed bumps” to DOJ probes into Trump, it cannot alone stop it.

​​Matthew Miller, a former DOJ spokesman and an MSNBC analyst, said that the DOJ would simply refuse to turn over certain information.

"They're pretty used to litigating these fights with Congress by this point in the D.C. courts,” he said.

Concerns about congressional investigations affecting DOJ probes have already affected GOP investigations into matters concerning Trump. The National Archives and Records Administration, for instance, has declined to share records relating to the Mar-a-Lago search with Republicans on the House Oversight Committee in order “to protect the integrity of the DOJ’s ongoing work.”

Nine House Republicans voted against a bill on Thursday aimed at requiring federal agencies to vet companies seeking funds through small business programs that are exploited by foreign countries of concern, including China.

The legislation, titled the SBIR and STTR Extension Act, passed in a 415-9 vote. All “no” votes came from Republicans — Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Dan Bishop (N.C.), Mo Brooks (Ala.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Tom McClintock (Calif.), Ralph Norman (S.C.) and Chip Roy (Texas) opposed the measure.

The bill, which passed the Senate by unanimous consent last week and has bipartisan sponsorship, now heads to President Biden’s desk for his signature.

The nine Republicans who opposed the measure did not speak during debate on the bill on the House floor Wednesday. The Hill reached out to the lawmakers for comment on their votes.

The measure directs federal agencies with Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) or Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs to create a “due diligence program” that would evaluate potential security risks presented by small businesses seeking federal funds.

The due diligence programs would then be mandated to review the financial ties and obligations between the small business requesting federal funds and foreign countries, people or entities. Additionally, the measure calls for the evaluation of the small business’ cybersecurity practices, patent analysis, employee analysis and foreign ownerships.

“Agencies shall not make an award if they determine existence of improper business ties to or affiliations with foreign countries of concern, or if agency-supported activities, or national security are deemed to be at risk,” a section-by-section breakdown of the 46-page bill reads.

According to the bill, "foreign country of concern" includes the People's Republic of China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran or any other countries determined to be of concern by the secretary of state.

The SBIR and STTR are competitive programs that advocate for small businesses in the U.S. to take part in federal research and research and development, with the possibility of commercializing.

Federal agencies with extramural research and development budgets that surpass a certain level are required to distribute a portion of their funds through the SBIR program and save another chunk for the STTR program.

Even federal agencies currently take part in the SBIR program, according to its website, five of which are also involved with the STTR program.

The legislation sets additional parameters for awarding funds through the SBIR and STTR programs — including barring small businesses that made material application misstatements — and it reauthorizes the two programs in addition to six pilot programs.

They were initially set to expire on Friday, but under the bill will be extended through Sept. 30, 2025.

Passage of the bill comes after a review by the Department of Defense found that China was exploiting the SBIR program. The Wall Street Journal, which reviewed the April 2021 study, reported in May that China was targeting companies that were given funds through the SBIR program with state-sponsored practices.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a co-sponsor of the bill, referenced the Wall Street Journal article in a statement outlining the legislation.

Recent comments made by Georgia’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams regarding fetal heartbeats were a hot topic among GOP lawmakers on Thursday during a House Oversight Committee hearing examining abortion restrictions across the country. 

Abrams has faced heavy criticism from the right following a comment she made last week during a panel discussion in Atlanta. 

“There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks,” she said. “It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have a right to take control of a woman’s body away from her.”

Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) raised Abrams’ remarks during Thursday’s hearing and, like two other GOP colleagues, pressed the expert witnesses to respond to the claims. 

"Within the first four weeks of pregnancy, the baby develops a heartbeat, despite, by the way, claims of my home state's gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, this is not merely a manufactured sound,” said Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.).

Abrams comments undercut the rationale for so-called “fetal heartbeat” bills popular among some on the right, which ban abortions after about six weeks, although some women may not even know they are pregnant. 

An appeals court in July allowed Georgia’s fetal heartbeat bill to go into effect immediately, part of myriad actions in GOP-led states following the Supreme Court’s decision in May to overturn Roe v. Wade and the federal right to an abortion. 

Abrams’ comments reflect the position of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), which says on its website: “It is clinically inaccurate to use the word ‘heartbeat’ to describe the sound that can be heard on ultrasound in very early pregnancy” 

It adds that the chambers of the heart don’t develop until roughly 17-20 weeks of gestation, meaning “What pregnant people may hear is the ultrasound machine translating electronic impulses that signify fetal cardiac activity into the sound that we recognize as a heartbeat.” 

Dr. Nisha Verma, an OBGYN who works for the ACOG, did not respond directly when asked Thursday if heartbeats heard at six weeks of pregnancy were a “manufactured sound.” 

But she previously told NPR that “The flickering that we're seeing on the ultrasound that early in the development of the pregnancy is actually electrical activity, and the sound that you 'hear' is actually manufactured by the ultrasound machine." 

However, there is not a consensus within the medical community on the question. Johns Hopkins Medicine, for example, says a fetal heart begins beating within four weeks of pregnancy. 

Dr. Monique Wubbenhorst, a witness invited to Thursday’s hearing by Republicans, said the cardiac activity present at six weeks is not just “a random contraction of cells.” 

“There’s coordinated movement that’s well documented,” she said. “The fetal heart is beating early in pregnancy and the other point that I think is important to make is that we rely on assessments of the fetal heart rate, presence or absence of the fetal heartbeat in order to assess fetal health.”  

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) submitted for the record a study titled “Role of ultrasound in the evaluation of first trimester pregnancies in the acute setting.” 

“It finds that in normal fetal development, a heartbeat is expected at or around six weeks,” he said. 

Hice argued that what to call the cardiac activity detected by ultrasound didn’t change what it represents.

“Referring to an unborn baby's heartbeat as mere cardiac activity does not change the fact it’s another attempt to simply deny what we are talking about and that is a human life,” he said.

Abrams, like many Democrats, has made abortion a central theme of her campaign. 

During an appearance on “The View” earlie this month, the candidate said she believes abortion should be allowed until the time of birth if a woman’s health or life is in danger.

However, she grew up opposing abortion as the daughter of two United Methodist pastors.

"I evolved on this issue because I learned more. And what I understand is that abortion is not a political decision. It is a medical choice," she said in July, according to NPR. 

The House passed a bill on Thursday that seeks to address mental health concerns among students, families and educators aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which lawmakers say had a “severe impact” on those three groups.

The bill, titled the Mental Health Matters Act, passed in a largely party-line 220-205 vote. One Republican, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), joined all Democrats present in supporting it.

The legislation, if passed by the Senate and signed into law, would provide grants to establish a pipeline for school-based mental health service professionals. Additionally, it would grow the number of mental health experts at elementary and secondary schools that are based in high-need locations.

The measure would direct the Department of Education to allocate those grants.

The Department of Education would also be ordered to administer grants to state educational agencies to go towards recruiting and maintaining school-based mental-health-service providers at public elementary and secondary schools that are considered high need.

Passage of the bill comes roughly two and a half years into the COVID-19 pandemic, which has made mental health conditions more widespread.

The World Health Organization revealed in March that, in the first year of the pandemic, the prevalence of anxiety and depression around the globe grew by roughly 25 percent.

The 2022 KIDS COUNT Data Book, which was released in August, revealed that about 1.5 million children in the U.S. experienced depression or anxiety throughout the first year of the pandemic.

Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.), the sponsor of the bill, said his legislation is needed to address the ripple-effect student mental health concerns are having on schools and educators.

“Educators have been forced to play an outsized role in supporting and responding to students' mental health needs, leading to increased depression and trauma among educators, their students, and the families and the community. However, our schools do not have the specialized staff necessary to respond to the increased prevalence and complexity of students' mental health needs,” he said.

“Simply put, the Mental Health Matters Act delivers the resources students, educators, and families need to improve their well-being,” DeSaulnier added.

Rep. Virginia Foxx (N.C.), the top Republican on the Education and Labor Committee, said the “country would be better off without” the legislation on the floor.

She specifically took issue with the provision that allows the Labor Secretary to levy civil monetary penalties on sponsors of plans and administrators of group health plans if they do not fulfill parity requirements regarding mental health.

“Providing [the Department of Labor] with the authority to level civil monetary penalties against plans and increase their risk of litigation will only force plans to drop mental health coverage,” Foxx argued.

“This money would be better spent on compliance assistance instead of targeting employers based on ambiguous standards,” she added.

The legislation also mandates that disability accommodations are available to incoming students at higher education institutions if they have documents outlining their disability, and it establishes a grant program to bolster access for students to evidence-based trauma support and mental health services through projects that connect schools and local education agencies with trauma-informed assistance and mental health systems.

The House on Thursday passed a package of antitrust bills aimed at boosting antitrust enforcers’ ability to take on powerful tech firms in a 242-184 vote that split both parties. 

Thirty-nine Republicans joined most Democrats in voting for the bills. 

Sixteen Democrats broke from their party to oppose the package of bills that together would update filing fees for mergers to increase them for larger deals, allow state attorneys general to select their venue when enforcing antitrust laws and use the merger notification process to require parties to disclose subsidies they have received from countries that pose a risk to the U.S.

It is the first major antitrust reform package to pass on the House floor as part of a three-year process that started with a House Judiciary Committee investigation into the market power of Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook, now under the parent company name Meta. 

The House Judiciary Committee last year advanced four other proposals aimed at reforming antitrust laws in a way that supporters say better addresses modern day industry titans. The proposals were created based on recommendations from the report that concluded the investigation. 

But the dwindling legislative calendar may hamper their ability to get the proposals across the finish line, especially if Republicans win the House majority in November. 

House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) was one of the most vocal critics against the antitrust package, meaning antitrust bills will likely not advance next Congress if Jordan takes the reins of the committee. 

Despite support from some Republicans, Jordan slammed the effort as partisan in nature and said it would give more money to Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to “harass” the American people. 

“If you want to do something about Big Tech this is not the vehicle,” Jordan said. 

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) urged colleagues to vote against the bill. She said her opposition was mainly to the portion of the package that allows state attorneys generals to choose the venue of their antitrust enforcement action. She said the change would help state attorneys general in bringing cases against companies over content moderation.

“We have seen in the January 6 Committee a lot of material that has spread lies, that has incited violence, and that content should be moderated. It should not be subjected to bogus effort by state AGs to prevent content moderation through the antitrust provision,” she said. 

“I mean, AGs can bring cases right now without this provision. In fact, California just did against Amazon. Fine, go at it if you've got a case. But if you don't think that the Attorney General of Texas, who's currently hiding from a process server and facing other legal complications, wouldn't try to use this to undermine content moderation. I think you're sadly mistaken,” she added. 

Lofgren said without that proposal attached, she would “happily” support the package. 

Senators on both sides of the aisle had urged the House to support the package. 

Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and antitrust subcommittee chair Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) issued a joint statement urging the House to vote for the package. Separately, Republican Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Tom Cotton (Ark.), and Senate Judiciary ranking member Chuck Grassley (Iowa) put a statement out earlier this week urging the House to pass the package.

Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) on Thursday called on President Biden to publicly say the National Museum of the American Latino should be built on the National Mall in Washington.

In a letter led by Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.), 36 members of the CHC asked Biden to use the White House's Hispanic Heritage Month reception Friday as a backdrop for the long-awaited endorsement.

"As you graciously host Members of Congress and the CHC for a Hispanic Heritage Month celebration this Friday September 30th, the CHC respectfully asks that you publicly state the importance of building the National Museum of the American Latino on the National Mall," the lawmakers wrote.

The signers include all four of the CHC’s senators, as well as Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.), who in 2019 was appointed to the Smithsonian Institution’s board of regents.

Biden earlier this month addressed the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute gala, and for the first time said publicly that the museum should be built in Washington, but stopped short of calling for a spot on the Mall.

"It’s long overdue for a National Museum of the American Latino, long overdue — I mean it — to take its rightful place here in Washington, where it belongs,” Biden said.

But the lawmakers asked Biden to take his endorsement one step further.

"The CHC strongly believes that a public statement voicing your support would solidify that the National Museum of the American Latino will have its rightful place on the National Mall, holding true that the over 62 million Latino Americans in the U.S. should have their stories told in America’s most visited national park," they wrote.

The debate over the upcoming museum's placement, as well as the placement of the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum, has heated up in recent months as both projects get ready to choose their permanent homes.

But construction on the National Mall is highly restricted, and only a few suitable spots remain available along the park that houses the country's signature museums and monuments.

In their letter, the lawmakers said former President George W. Bush's endorsement of placing the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) on the National Mall was key to overcoming those restrictions.

"President Bush’s public statement of support during [Black History Month] made clear to all Americans that he believed in African American history and culture and that the museum should be placed in the heart of our nation’s capital. Prior to President Bush’s public statement, the NMAAHC’s site location remained uncertain due to bureaucratic limitations, but because of the former president’s public showing of support, the NMAAHC was built in its rightful place on the National Mall," they wrote.

The Latino Museum's backers say Biden could step into a similar role and blame White House advisers for preventing that step.

"There are challenges within the White House staff around how blunt and direct the president should be. Unfortunately, they're denying the president his proper role in history, saying what needs to be said," said Estuardo Rodríguez, president and CEO of the Friends of the Museum of the American Latino.

"You've got a Republican standing behind the building of the museum on the National Mall for the African American community. And yet you have a Democratic president who can't seem to find his way through that. That's frustrating. Very frustrating," added Rodríguez.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

There are four sites where, realistically, a new museum could be added to the National Mall.

Only one, the Arts and Industries Building, is currently managed by the Smithsonian.

While administratively the historic building would be the easiest location for a new museum, the building's age, size, and layout make it the least desirable site.

"If we raise $500 million for the American Latino Museum, half of it is gone. Half goes straight to fixing the inside of that building," said Rodríguez.

And backers of the two new museums — both officially approved by Congress in December 2020 — say each building's architecture and outside appearance are critical to the National Mall's mission of reflecting the tapestry of the United States.

"As you look at the architectural design of the African American Museum and the Native American museum, you know that that architectural design is critical to the storytelling part. You have to have its own architecture to begin to tell the stories of the American Latino Community from the outside," said Rodríguez.

Two other potential locations are part of what's known as "The Reserve," essentially a no-build-zone on the Mall.

The sites are not on the main stretch of the Mall, the open space from the Washington Monument to the Capitol, where construction of any project would likely change the essence of the public space.

One is a small, lightly wooded area across Independence Ave. from a U.S. Department of Agriculture building, across the mall from the NMAAHC, which sits in a similar location.

The other is a nearby empty lot used as a rugby field across the street from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Both those locations would require legislation to become available, as Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) pushed for the museum's approving legislation to include a ban on construction in The Reserve.

Manchin has long held a stance against adding new museums and monuments to The Reserve, including opposition to adding a Global War on Terror Memorial to the area.

The fourth available location is northwest of the Capitol, the Northwest Capitol site, roughly equivalent to the United States Botanic Garden's grounds southwest of the Capitol.

That site was an early proposed location for the NMAAHC, but the Senate blocked it, citing national security reasons.

While that national security argument is seen by most observers as a red herring, most museum advocates believe The Reserve sites are more likely candidates for construction.

And advocates say the more than 24 million visitors who visit Washington each year make a distinction between sites on or off the National Mall.

"It's very symbolic, it's important. It means something to be on the National Mall, it really ties everyone together, as opposed to saying, 'oh, yeah, and if you want to learn about the Latinos go down there, if you want to learn about the women go over there,'" said Rodríguez.

"It's where the history is told. And I think that is something that will also send a message to the almost 60 million Latinos in the country, that their story is part of the American fabric," he added.

The Senate on Thursday approved a short-term government funding bill, less than two days ahead of a looming shutdown deadline on Friday night.

Senators voted 72-25 to advance the bill, sending the must-pass legislation to the House, where it is expected to pass swiftly before heading to President Biden’s desk for signature. 

“We’re not going to shut the government down,” House Appropriations Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) told reporters on late Wednesday, adding she is “ optimistic that we're going to pass a bill.”

The bill, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), will temporarily allow the government to remain funded at the current spending levels through mid-December, giving negotiators and leadership more time to work out a larger agreement over how to fund the government for fiscal 2023, which begins on Oct. 1.

The legislation also includes more than $12 billion in security and financial assistance for Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion, as well as funding for disaster relief, following a White House request for emergency funding in both areas weeks back. 

However, the package excludes supplemental funding for the nation’s coronavirus and monkeypox, despite a request by the White House for billions, amid staunch GOP opposition.

The passage on Thursday afternoon caps off weeks of drama in the upper chamber, after members on both sides of the aisle came out against a push by Democratic leadership to use the vehicle to advance an energy proposal offered by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

Manchin and top Democrats had previously struck a deal to advance the proposal,  which is aimed at speeding up the country’s energy infrastructure projects, as part of a larger agreement to gain his support for the Inflation Reduction Act, a sprawling tax, climate and health care plan passed along party lines last month.

But the proposal, which ​​advocates say would undercut environmental reviews, fell out of the package earlier this week amid opposition from more than a handful of Senate Democrats and a growing number of Republicans that threatened final passage for the overall funding plan. 

Republicans also saw rifts in their own party in recent weeks amid disagreement over how long Congress should put off hashing out new government funding levels, with the November midterm races approaching around the corner.   

A growing number of House conservatives, and some in the Senate, have been pressing for leaders to wait until January to set new funding limits, as GOP hopes swell of taking back control of Congress. 

However, other Republicans have pushed back on the campaign, raising concerns about how putting off new funding levels could hurt agencies and set back the next session of Congress, particularly as the Senate’s top two appropriators are stepping down. 

The heated debate comes as anticipation builds on Capitol Hill around the coming critical midterm elections, which members on both sides say will likely be a major factor in larger funding talks for fiscal 2023.

“Obviously, the results of the midterms will have a lot to do with our ability to get this done,” Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security Chair Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told The Hill ahead of the vote on Thursday. “But with both Senator Shelby and Senator Leahy retiring, I think there'll be a lot of support within both caucuses to get a budget done before they retire.”

The next chair of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House, is likely to be Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) after his sole competitor dropped out of the running on Wednesday.

Freshman lawmaker Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) announced during a caucus meeting on Thursday that she would end her bid and endorse Hern, sources told The Hill.

“This entire process, it's been really humbling the support that I've received. But it's not my time,” Cammack told The Hill, adding that Hern will do “a wonderful job” as chair of the caucus. 

“More than ever, we need to be one team, one mission,” Cammack said. “It was actually probably the lowest-key, no-drama race ever within conference.”

The two contenders had announced bids for the chairmanship in May, with a generational undertones emerging in the race. The 34-year-old Cammack pitched bringing a new generation of leadership to the table and elevating RSC’s profile in individual members’ districts.

Hern, 60, has focused his bid more on policy. He has head of the RSC’s Budget and Spending Task Force for two years, leading creation of the caucus’s model fiscal year 2022 and 2024 budgets. He announced his bid for Chair with endorsements from nearly 40 other members.

“It's important that we continue with our conservative ideas and principles as we try to return this country to some sanity and get our inflation under control,” Hern told The Hill. “I've been in leadership roles my entire life, in business before coming here four years ago. And I think it's no different here. You have to listen, and you have to assimilate the ideas. You have to move the conference forward, and that's what we're going to be doing.”

The Republican Study Committee, which has more than 150 members and accounts for a majority of the House GOP conference, will mark its 50th anniversary next year. The chairmanship has been a launching pad for some, with former chairs including House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and former Vice President Mike Pence.

Current Chair Jim Banks (R-Ind.) is term-limited. He is exploring a bid for House Majority Whip if Republicans win control of the House in 2022. As chair, he oversaw an expansion of the caucus’s communications apparatus and strategy.

House Democrats have scrapped a tentative plan to move this month on legislation barring lawmakers from trading stocks — a vote sought by some Democrats heading into the midterm elections.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Thursday that there was not enough time for lawmakers to study the details of the proposal, which had been introduced just two days earlier, before the House leaves Washington Friday for the long midterm recess.

"People have to look at it," Hoyer told reporters gathered in his office in the Capitol.

"It's an important issue," he continued, and leaders want the extra time "to make sure that if and when we do something, we do it right."

The announcement is a departure from comments made by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) earlier in the month, when she indicated the negotiations were going well “and we believe we have a product that we can bring to the floor this month.” 

It’s also certain to anger those Democrats who were pressing to vote on a reform proposal — one that’s popular among voters — before November’s elections. Some supporters of the legislation said this week that the true reason the vote was punted was that Democratic leaders simply don't support the concept of banning lawmakers from owning and trading stocks.  

Pelosi and Hoyer have been among those prominent opponents, noting that federal law already prohibits insider trading and warning that a special ban for members of Congress might dissuade talented people from running for office.

Yet the proposal has gained enormous momentum in the current Congress following revelations that scores of lawmakers have violated existing laws designed to eliminate conflicts of interest between legislators and the investments they pursue. 

Even if no laws are violated, supporters of the ban say, the current system can create the damaging perception lawmakers are trading on information not available to the general public or crafting legislation to boost their own finances.

That pressure from within the caucus forced Pelosi to have a change of heart earlier in the year, when she directed Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), chair of the House Administration Committee, to draft a stock ban proposal based on “where the support is in our caucus.” 

After months of negotiations, Lofgren released that proposal on Tuesday night. The wide-ranging legislation prohibits stock trades not only by members of Congress, but also their spouses and dependent children, senior congressional aids, the president, the vice president and high-ranking members of the judicial branch, including Supreme Court justices. 

While some supporters of the bill wanted the opportunity to vote on it before the elections, Lofgren said Thursday that the exact timing of the House vote — before the midterms or after — is insignificant. 

“In a way it doesn’t matter,” she said, “because the Senate’s not gonna be able to act before the election,” she said. 

Mychael Schnell contributed. 

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) underwent an emergency appendectomy late Wednesday night after being diagnosed with appendicitis, his office announced on Thursday.

Bacon, 59, was admitted to Walter Reed Hospital on Wednesday night after experiencing “intense abdominal pain,” according to his office. The congressman described the emergency appendectomy as a “home run.”

“I want to thank the medical team at Walter Reed Hospital for their efficient and swift care they provided not only to me, but those they serve every day,” Bacon said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to a full recovery and quickly returning to work.”

The congressman is expected to be released later on Thursday, according to his office.

Appendicitis is a condition that occurs when the appendix becomes inflamed, causing pain to the lower right abdomen. The standard treatment is surgery that removes the appendix, also known as an appendectomy, according to Mayo Clinic.

Roughly five to nine of every 100 people develop appendicitis throughout their lives, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

Bacon, a three-term congressman, represents Nebraska’s second congressional district.

The Nebraska Republican handidly won his Republican primary for reelection in May, besting business owner Steve Kuehl by more than 50 percentage points. He will now face state Sen. Tony Vargas (D) in the general election.

Cook Political Report rates his race a “toss up.”

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.) introduced two bills on Thursday to create a museum dedicated to LGBT history and culture in Washington, D.C.

“As our community faces unprecedented attacks and attempts to erase our history, we must preserve and protect our stories for future generations,” Pocan, a member of the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus said.

“It is vital to remember our collective past – particularly when certain states seek to constrain and repeal existing rights by passing bills that harm LGBTQ+ youth and our community at large," he added. "Let’s tell these stories, and honor the many contributions the LGBTQ+ community has made to this nation with a museum in Washington, D.C."

The news comes ahead of LGBT history month.

The first bill would create an eight-person commission with individuals who have experience in museum planning and knowledge of LGBT history to investigate the resources, cost and fundraising needed to build a facility in the nation's capital, according to a press release from Pocan's office.

The commission would also be required to present a plan for fundraising as well as a plan for establishment and maintenance for a National Museum of LGBTQ+ Culture and how the facility may impact other museums in the city.

The bill would also help determine whether or not the museum would be part of the Smithsonian Institution, the world's largest museum and research complex. A large majority of the museums in the nation's capital are part of the Smithsonian Institution, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Air and Space Museum and the National Zoo.

The commission would have 18 months to complete its study under Pocan's bill.

The second bill would formally create the museum, to be considered after the commission completes its study and issues recommendations.

According to the press release, Pocan's bill is sponsored by all nine "openly LGBTQ+ members of Congress" as well as 50 other members.

The introduction of Pocan's bills comes amid moves by majority-GOP controlled states to restrict transgender youth's access to gender affirming care such as puberty blockers — which are reversible — and gender-affirming surgeries.

Some of these same states have also restricted transgender youth from participating on sports teams that correspond with their gender identity.

Most recently, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) released 2022 "model policies" for the commonwealth's public schools, largely rolling back accommodations for transgender students.

Democrats from Massachusetts are asking Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to investigate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's (R) flight of almost 50 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. earlier this month.

“The Department should use all tools within its authority — including enforcement of its consumer protection rules — to ensure that migrants are not transported under false pretenses as part of a competition among wannabe Trump acolytes to claim the mantle of cruelest governor in the United States,” wrote Sen. Ed Markey and Reps. Bill Keating, Lori Trahan, Stephen F. Lynch, Jake Auchincloss and Seth Moulton.

The lawmakers said in their letter, first reported by Politico, that the "conduct ... may have violated DOT’s Charter-Broker Rule." The Trump-era regulation bars those who arrange charter air transportation from misrepresenting the route of a flight.

They added that the state and Florida officials may qualify as charter brokers if they were involved in the alleged misrepresentation of the flight destination.

A lawsuit filed by some of the Venezuelan migrants claims that they were told they were being sent to Boston or Washington, D.C. before being dropped off in Martha’s Vineyard.

“We urge DOT to swiftly investigate the company and individuals responsible for these representations and take all necessary action to protect migrants from such dishonest behavior,” wrote the Massachusetts lawmakers.

“To the extent that any of those individuals or entities misled migrants about flight details, they may have violated the Charter-Broker Rule and be liable for a civil penalty,” Markey and his colleagues added.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) have also sent migrants to cities run by Democrats, including Washington, D.C., New York City and Chicago, in a protest of immigration laws.