WASHINGTON — Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed late Monday to testify in a House investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but the Republican leading the probe said an agreement had not yet been finalized.
Rep. James Comer, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, continued to press for criminal contempt of Congress charges against both Clintons Monday evening for defying a congressional subpoena when attorneys for the Clintons emailed staff for the Oversight panel, saying the pair would accept Comer’s demands and “will appear for depositions on mutually agreeable dates.”
The attorneys requested that Comer, a Kentucky Republican, agree not to move forward with the contempt proceedings. Comer, however, said he was not immediately dropping the charges, which would carry the threat of a substantial fine and even incarceration if passed by the House and successfully prosecuted by the Department of Justice.
“We don’t have anything in writing,” Comer told reporters, adding that he was open to accepting the Clintons’ offer but “it depends on what they say.”
The last-minute negotiating came as Republican leaders were advancing the contempt resolution through the House Rules Committee — a final hurdle before it headed to the House floor for a vote. It was potentially a grave moment for Congress, the first time it could hold a former president in contempt and advance the threat of prison time.
As Comer and the Clintons negotiated over the terms of the depositions, the House Rules Committee postponed advancing the contempt of Congress resolutions.
Comer earlier Monday rejected an offer from attorneys for the Clintons to have Bill Clinton conduct a transcribed interview and Hillary Clinton submit a sworn declaration. He insisted that both Clintons sit for sworn depositions before the committee in order to fulfill the panel’s subpoenas.
A letter from the committee to attorneys for the Clintons indicated that they had offered for Bill Clinton to conduct a 4-hour transcribed interview on “matters related to the investigations and prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein” and for Hillary Clinton to submit a sworn declaration.
“The Clintons do not get to dictate the terms of lawful subpoenas,” Comer said.
The former president and secretary of state had resisted the subpoenas for months after the Oversight panel issued subpoenas for their testimony in August as it opened an investigation into Epstein and his associates. Their attorneys had tried to argue against the validity of the subpoena.
However, as Comer threatened to begin contempt of Congress proceedings, the Clintons started negotiating towards a compromise. The Republican-controlled Oversight committee advanced criminal contempt of Congress charges last month. Nine of the committee’s 21 Democrats joined Republicans in support of the charges against Bill Clinton as they argued for full transparency in the Epstein investigation. Three Democrats also supported advancing the charges against Hillary Clinton.
Republicans push Bill Clinton’s involvement
Bill Clinton’s relationship with Epstein has reemerged as a focal point for Republicans amid the push for a reckoning over Epstein, who killed himself in 2019 in a New York jail cell as he faced sex trafficking charges.
Clinton, like a bevy of other high-powered men, had a well-documented relationship with Epstein in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He has not been accused of wrongdoing in his interactions with the late financier.
The Clintons have remained highly critical of Comer’s decision, saying he was bringing politics into the investigation while failing to hold the Trump administration accountable for delays in producing the Department of Justice’s case files on Epstein.
“They negotiated in good faith. You did not,” a spokesperson for the Clintons, Angel Ureña, said in response to Comer’s threats on Monday. “They told you under oath what they know, but you don’t care.”
Still, the prospect of a vote raised the potential for Congress to use one of its most severe punishments against a former president for the first time. Historically, Congress has given deference to former presidents. None has ever been forced to testify before lawmakers, although a few have voluntarily done so.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said earlier Monday that his caucus would have a discussion on the contempt resolutions later in the week but remained noncommittal on whipping votes against them.
Jeffries said he was a “hard no” on contempt and accused Comer of focusing on political retribution rather than investigating the delayed release of case files. Democrats also say the Justice Department has not yet released all the material it has on the late financier.
“They don’t want a serious interview, they want a charade,” Jeffries said.
Gov. Josh Shapiro is backing a proposal to ban cell phones from Pennsylvania classrooms, joining a growing chorus of parents, teachers, and officials seeking to curb school disruptions and detach kids from addictive devices.
“It’s time for us to get distractions out of the classroom and create a healthier environment in our schools,” Shapiro said in a post on X on Thursday.
He called on Pennsylvania lawmakers to pass a bill that would require schools to ban the use of cell phones during the school day, “from the time they start class until the time they leave for home.”
The endorsement from the Democratic governor — who could promote the issue during his budget address Tuesday — comes as school cell phone bans have increasingly become the norm: 31 states have restrictions of some kind on phones, including 23 states with “bell-to-bell” bans barring the use of phones the entire school day, according to Education Week.
Pennsylvania currently lets schools set their own cell phone policies — and districts have taken a patchwork of approaches. Pennsylvania in 2024 implemented a pilot program allowing schools to access funding for lockable pouches that students could place their phones in during the day, but few districts took the state up on the money.
Some schools have banned cell phones during classes, including by asking students to place their phones in hanging shoe organizers on the backs of classroom doors.
Advocates for entirely phone-free school days say such measures aren’t sufficient. Phones are still buzzing, and if class ends early, “kids are constantly looking at it,” said Kristen Beddard, a parent from the Pittsburgh suburb of Sewickley and leader in the PA Unplugged coalition seeking to curb children’s reliance on phones and screens, in and out of school.
Barring phones only during class time is “not enough to truly break the dopamine feedback loop these kids are exposed to, and inundated with constantly,” Beddard said.
Since PA Unplugged began advocating for a bell-to-bell ban a year ago, “the landscape has changed so much,” including more states moving to restrict phones, Beddard said.
In Pennsylvania, the state’s largest teachers’ union came out in favor of a ban, and legislation that would require school districts to adopt bell-to-bell cell phone policies was unanimously approved in December by the Senate Education Committee. The bill would grant exceptions for students with special needs.
The Pennsylvania State Education Association “supports legislation like Senate Bill 1014 that would establish a consistent, statewide expectation that public schools will restrict the possession and prohibit use of mobile devices for all students during the school day,” said spokesperson Chris Lilienthal.
“Think about how disruptive those notifications are during the course of the school day when students should be focused on learning,” Lilienthal said.
In a divided Harrisburg, the proposal has bipartisan support. Beddard called banning cell phones in schools “maybe one of the few bipartisan issues left.”
In the Philadelphia area, groups of parents have mobilized against cell phone use, circulating pledges such as a commitment to not give children phones before eighth grade. Delco Unplugged, an offshoot of PA Unplugged, has advocated for cell phone bans in school districts and encourages parents to not give children access to phones before high school.
There has been opposition to strict bans, including from school leaders who think kids need to learn how to live with technology, rather than avoid it. Some administrators have also questioned the logistics, and some parents say they want their children to have phones in the case of emergencies, like a school shooting.
Advocates like Beddard say kids are safer during emergencies if they pay attention to the adults in their school, rather than their phones. They also argue that the logistics aren’t so daunting and that there are many ways to enact a ban besides lockable pouches.
Some schools require kids to put their phones in a locker or simply keep them in their backpacks, Beddard said, noting that the legislation advancing in Harrisburg would allow districts to decide how to enact a ban.
Schools that have implemented bans “describe the experience as transformational,” going beyond academic improvements to better socializing among kids, Beddard said. “Awkward conversations in the lunchroom make you a better human being,” she said.
At this point, “Pennsylvania isn’t a pioneer on the issue,” Beddard said. “We need to get with the program.”
President Donald Trump has said the “only thing” he worries about is losing Republican control of Congress in the November elections. The latest campaign finance filings show he’s built an unprecedented war chest to help keep that from happening.
Trump’s political committees and the Republican National Committee amassed $483 million through the end of December, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission. That’s nearly triple the $167 million collectively held by the Democratic National Committee and its Senate and House party committees and super PACs.
The haul comes from tapping Trump’s wealthiest donors with events like “MAGA Inc. dinners” at his Florida and New Jersey resorts as well as relentless appeals via text and email to small-dollar contributors who constitute the Make America Great Again base.
Since returning to the White House, MAGA Inc. has gotten eight-figure contributions from pipeline billionaire Kelcy Warren and his company Energy Transfer LP; quant trader Jeff Yass; OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman; and Crypto.com exchange operator Foris DAX Inc. In total, MAGA Inc. alone has raked in $313 million since Trump’s 2024 election victory.
Targeting the other end of the donor spectrum, Trump’s Never Surrender leadership PAC recently asked potential contributors to make a “small, sustaining contribution so we can complete the MAGA agenda.” It asked for as little as $33.
Whether all that financial armor is enough to buck history – incumbent presidents almost always lose ground in midterms – isn’t so clear, and Trump knows it.
“Even presidents, whether it’s Republican or Democrat, when they win, it doesn’t make any difference – they seem to lose the midterms,” Trump said in a Jan. 27 interview on Fox News. “So, that’s the only thing I worry about.”
Only twice since 1938 has the party in control of the White House gained House seats in a midterm election. During Trump’s first presidency, in 2018, Republicans lost 40 seats. In the two midterms that took place during Barack Obama’s presidency, in 2010 and 2014, Republicans netted 63 seats and 13 seats, respectively.
– – –
Growing Frustration
This year, momentum and history seem to be on the Democrats’ side – they only need to swing a handful of seats to take control of the House.
Working in their favor, national polls show a majority of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, as well as growing frustration with the administration’s approach to deportations and foreign policy. Parts of the coalition that swept him back to office – including independents and young voters as well as Black and Hispanic males – are fraying.
That handicap for Republicans has been evident in elections over the past three months in which Democrats have outperformed expectations, in part by tapping into voter frustration over cost-of-living concerns.
“House Republicans are running scared,” said Viet Shelton, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He added that “with better candidates, a better message, and the public souring on Republicans, Democrats are poised to take back the majority.”
Reflecting the shifting mood, the non-partisan Cook Political Report last month moved 18 House races toward Democrats, bringing the number of seats considered solidly blue to 189, compared to 186 for Republicans. A party needs 218 seats to win the majority.
In the latest example of the headwinds Republicans face, this past weekend in Texas a Democratic candidate for a state Senate seat, Taylor Rehmet, defeated a Republican in a district Trump won in 2024 by 17 percentage points over Kamala Harris.
As the GOP’s fund raiser-in-chief, Trump isn’t waiting until November to put his cash to work. The president intends to use the money he’s amassed to play the role of kingmaker in the midterms, according to people familiar with the strategy.
That involves doling out money to loyalists, or chosen candidates in competitive primaries or congressional races and punishing lawmakers who’ve crossed him over the past year on everything from the passage of his signature tax bill to the release of the Epstein files.
Trump allies also expect to tap their stockpile for specific districts in the final two months in the states and races where it’s most needed, flooding the zone to try to ensure victory.
“MAGA Inc. will have the resources to help candidates who support President Trump’s America First agenda,” Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesperson for the super-PAC, said.
MAGA Inc. has already intervened in one election: it spent $1.7 million backing Tennessee Republican Matt Van Epps in a special election to fill a vacant House seat. Van Epps won by about 9 points – but that margin was narrower than the cushion of more than 21 points his Republican predecessor enjoyed in 2024.
Privately, many Trump allies are resigned to the idea the party could lose control of the House. Trump has warned he could be impeached for a third time if that happens, and his signaled he thinks his party’s lawmakers would be to blame.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a perennial optimist in his public remarks, said on Sunday that he remains “very bullish on the midterms” and cited the party’s fund-raising prowess as one reason.
“We’re going to have a war chest to run on,” Johnson said on Fox News Sunday. “I think we’re going to defy history.”
Trump says his first year as president shows he deserves reelection. Pressed in Iowa last week about why voters may perennially pick the opposition party in midterms, Trump mused about the electorate wanting “fences” or “guardrails” on presidents.
But, he quickly added, “I don’t need guardrails. I don’t want guardrails.”
He walked toward the cellblock in Riverside Correctional Facility, pulling a cart of books behind him.
For a moment, it was quiet. The only sounds that echoed off the jail’s cinder block walls were the squeaks of his cart’s wheels.
But as a heavy door to a busy unit swung open, Seth Williams’ work was set to begin.
“Chaplain up!” one of the inmates inside yelled.
Williams smiled at the crowd of prisoners who began walking toward him and his squeaky cart, which was filled with Bibles, Qurans, and other religious texts.
“Step into my office,” he said, placing his hand on an inmate’s shoulder.
The role’s expectations are modest. He offers spiritual counseling and religious programming to the 600 or so prisoners held at Riverside. It is part-time and pays about $21 per hour.
Still, for Williams, the position was uniquely appealing. After putting people in jail as the city’s top prosecutor, then spending five years in federal prison as an inmate himself, he believes he can use what he learned from that journey to help young men avoid committing crimes in the future.
“I can be a better advocate, a better vessel, to help prevent crime and reduce recidivism … by helping people learn the skills they need to keep jobs and de-escalate conflict,” Williams said. “The best use of my experience … is helping people who are incarcerated the way I was.”
Williams believes his efforts now can help reduce recidivism among young men in jail.
It is a long way from the halls of power that Williams once inhabited as the city’s first Black district attorney — and from his standing as a politician who was viewed as a possible future mayor.
Still, Williams says, he is fulfilled by this more humble form of service. And becoming chaplain is not the only role he has taken up behind bars: For the last two years, he has also volunteered at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, teaching weekly classes on career preparedness and poetry, and at State Correctional Institute Phoenix, where he directs a volunteer program about Christianity.
Last month, Williams agreed to allow an Inquirer reporter to join him inside the city’s jails as he counseled inmates. He shared stories about his time in prison, delivered socks and toothpaste to indigent inmates, gathered a group to recite the rosary, and gave books to men who expressed interest in spiritual counseling.
He was energetic, open, and passionate. He spoke openly about his past misdeeds, but remained defiant about his federal prosecution — saying he was wrong for not reporting gifts he received as DA, but insisting that he did not sell his office to his benefactors, as the U.S. Attorney’s Office alleged.
Williams acknowledged that his path to becoming a jailhouse chaplain and volunteer has been unusual. He pointed out, for instance, that the room where he teaches his Career Keepers course is just down the hall from the jail’s print shop — which once printed the DA’s letterhead with his name at the top.
Prisons Commissioner Michael Resnick said Williams’ transformation is one of the key attributes he brings to the job.
“He just has a passion for this work, to get people on the right path,” Resnick said.
And Williams said he feels as if he is doing more to help people now than he ever has.
“What if the worst thing that happens in your life,” he said, “could be used for good?”
From rising star to ‘criminal’
To understand where Williams is now, it helps to recall where he came from.
After he was elected district attorney in 2009, Williams, then 42, promised to reform the office where he had spent a decade working as a line prosecutor. He said he would assign lawyers to handle cases by neighborhood, place greater emphasis on charging crimes correctly at the outset, and divert minor offenses into community-based treatment programs.
His policy positions were part of his appeal, but he also leaned into a compelling personal story: Abandoned in an orphanage at birth, Williams was adopted at age 2 and raised in Cobbs Creek. He went on to graduate from Central High School, Pennsylvania State University, and Georgetown University’s law school before returning to his hometown to work as an assistant district attorney.
When he ran to become the city’s top prosecutor in 2009 — his second attempt after a narrow loss four years earlier — he had a campaign slogan that matched his aspirations: “A new day, a new D.A.”
Williams thanks supporters after winning the Democratic primary for district attorney in 2009.
And for a while, some political observers said, he was living up to that mantra. In addition to engineering an ambitious restructuring of the office, he made headlines during his first term by charging West Philadelphia doctor Kermit Gosnell with killing babies during illegal late-term abortions, and by charging Msgr. William Lynn, a top official in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, with shielding sexually abusive Catholic priests.
Charismatic and camera-friendly, Williams was easily reelected to a second term in 2013, and homicides began falling to their lowest levels in decades. Some began wondering if he might leverage his success as DA into a run for City Hall.
Williams and then-Mayor Michael Nutter at a press conference in 2010.
Beneath the surface, though, challenges in Williams’ personal life began to mount.
He now admits he was also drinking too much, “numbing myself from the daily trauma with too much Jack Daniel’s and martinis and Yuenglings.”
By 2015, the FBI was investigating whether he had been misusing campaign funds to live beyond his means. And two years after that, he was indicted on charges of wire fraud, honest services fraud, and bribery-related crimes.
Federal prosecutors said he not only misspent political money but also sold the influence of his office to wealthy allies who showered him with vacations, clothing, and a used Jaguar convertible.
Williams outside of federal court, where he was charged with bribery and related crimes.
Williams insisted he was not guilty and took his case to trial. But midway through the proceedings, he accepted an offer from prosecutors to plead guilty to a single count of violating the Travel Act.
U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond showed no mercy — jailing Williams immediately, then imposing a five-year prison term, the maximum allowed by law. The judge called Williams a “criminal” who surrounded himself with “parasites” and “fed his face at the trough” of public money.
A mentor in solitary
During the first five months of Williams’ incarceration, he was held in solitary confinement at Philadelphia’s Federal Detention Center. That was intended to protect him — former law enforcement officers can become targets behind bars — but it left him confined to a cell for 23 hours a day.
The Federal Detention Center, at 7th and Arch Streets.
Beyond the once-monthly 15-minute phone call he was allowed to make to his daughters, Williams said, there was one thing that helped him endure isolation: Friar Ben Regotti.
Regotti, then a resident at Center City’s St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, served as the detention center’s chaplain. And when Williams was in solitary, he said, Regotti came to his cell every day and offered an escape: praying with him through a slit in the thick steel door, hearing his confession, and offering him books, including the Bible, which Williams — who was raised Catholic — said he finally read cover-to-cover for the first time.
“I’d lost everything,” Williams recalled. “But Father Regotti was the kindest person to me.”
When he was transferred to a prison camp in Morgantown, W.Va., Williams continued his spiritual journey by attending weekly Masses, Bible studies, and services for other religions. He also completed substance abuse classes, taught classes to help prisoners get high school diplomas, and learned how to play the saxophone.
He made some unlikely friends while he was locked up, including Michael Vandergrift of Delaware County, who is serving a life sentence plus 20 years for killing a rival drug dealer as part of a hired hit; and Bright Ogodo of Brooklyn, N.Y., who was sentenced to more than six years in prison for running a sophisticated identity-theft ring out of TD Bank branches.
Williams said Ogodo later told him he was considering taking his own life — he had even written a letter to his family, convinced they would be better off without him. But when Ogodo saw that Philadelphia’s former DA was in jail, too, Williams said, Ogodo changed his mind.
“He said, ‘I saw you walking with your head up, and [thought], if you can survive, so shall I,’” Williams said.
Three years ago today, I walked out of prison. My friend Bill, picked me up in Morgantown, WV and drove me home. In many ways being incarcerated was less difficult than Re-Entry. I am grateful for all that I have learned. Thank you God. 🙏🏽 pic.twitter.com/393p8KQXmg
Williams was released from prison in 2020, but said almost no one was willing to help him get back on his feet. Before he was incarcerated, he said, he had visited the governor’s mansion and taken his daughters to the Easter egg roll on the White House lawn. But afterward, few people would even take his calls.
“Nobody would hire me,” he said, describing people’s default position toward him as “the Heisman,” the college football statue with an arm extended to keep opponents away.
So Williams — whose law license was suspended when he was convicted — found work at a Lowe’s Home Improvement store in Havertown, unloading trucks and fulfilling online orders from 7 p.m. until 5:30 a.m.
Most of his coworkers, he said, had also recently been released from prison. And while working, he said, he was “kind of providing pastoral care [to them] daily,” similar to his teaching of GED courses in prison, or participating in Bible studies.
In time, he said, he began developing his ideas about self-improvement into formal programs for nonprofits, providing ways for recently incarcerated people to learn the skills needed to maintain consistent employment — developing a resumé, for instance, but also focusing on topics like conflict de-escalation.
Much of his motivation for doing that work, he said, came from research showing that recidivism is greatly reduced among people who receive substance abuse counseling, career coaching, and regular spiritual practice.
“What all three have in common,” Williams said, “is changing the hearts and minds of people.”
Federal Supervised Release ended Friday. First time at the beach since 2016. First time going outside of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania WITHOUT having to ask for permission since ‘17 made me cry! If you want to know my thoughts on Judge Diamond or federal prosecution ask me pic.twitter.com/pwzb9Qa0IR
In 2023, he ran into Terrell Bagby, then a deputy commissioner in Philadelphia’s jail system, and the two discussed the possibility of bringing Williams’ teachings into the jails. That’s how he ended up bringing his volunteer courses — Career Keepers and Prison Poets — into Curran-Fromhold, the city’s largest jail, he said.
In a recent session of Career Keepers, Williams was at the head of the class as nine prisoners sat at a U-shaped table around the room. They took turns practicing public speaking by delivering updates on the weather, sports, and news, then discussed topics including how to reward positive behavior — rather than linger on bad choices — and how to display gratitude.
In the moments after the prisoners were escorted back to their blocks, Williams said the men he has taught over the years have often been more open and vulnerable than he expected. Some have shared stories about traumatic experiences — such as being shot or sexually abused — and then discussed how those experiences affected their lives.
“I spent all this time trying to get out of prison,” he said, “and then I found myself loving being there, trying to help the inmates themselves.”
Becoming a presence
Inside his spare chaplain’s office at the jail, Williams has a desk, a few shelves, and scores of religious books. He keeps packs of white T-shirts, socks, and toothpaste to put into care packages for prisoners and, before making his rounds, keeps a list of people he wants to see.
His time on the cellblocks can be brief. During his rounds on a recent day, his presence did not always seem to have much of an impact. As he passed through each unit’s main expanse, where dozens of prisoners have cells overlooking a bustling common area, some prisoners were more interested in getting their lunch or hanging out by the phones than in checking out what Williams had to offer.
But other times, during several different stops, Williams sat and prayed with prisoners. And the care packages he hands out have become a frequent request, he said.
He wound down his shift in a room near the law library, reciting the rosary with a half-dozen men who had expressed interest in praying with him.
Williams’ chaplaincy is centered at the Riverside Correctional Facility in Northeast Philadelphia.
Regotti, the chaplain Williams had encountered in solitary, said in an interview that even though they first met while the former DA was behind a thick steel door, Regotti could immediately sense his curiosity, intellect, and desire to better himself.
“Going from feeling absolutely desperate to finding ways to cope, it was kind of a mark of his own personal resilience,” Regotti said. “He really developed into somebody that was in touch with God’s grace.”
Williams said he now aspires to be for people what Regotti was for him — a comforting presence in a dark place, and someone who, he hopes, can help provide guidance that can last well beyond someone’s time in confinement.
“The cheapest way to do that is by spreading the gospel,” he said. “People don’t want you to preach to them. They just want your presence — they want you to be there.”
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) on Sunday defended Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials who wear masks to obscure their faces, arguing that doxing is a “serious concern” for agents.
An email to Fetterman’s office seeking additional comment about the senator’s stance on masked agents was not returned Sunday afternoon.
Senator @JohnFetterman on @SundayBriefFNC expresses concern with Dem proposal prohibiting federal agents from wearing masks:
SEN JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): I also say now, some of those, the agents wearing masks, I think primarily that's driven by people are going to dox those… pic.twitter.com/gP5WIVTgM4
“They could target [ICE agents’] families and they are organizing these people to put their names out there. So don’t ever, ever dox people and target their families, too,” Fetterman said to Heinrich. (Heinrich is engaged to U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Bucks County Republican.)
Fetterman’s remarks come as congressional leaders argue over ICE funding in the wake of the shooting deaths of Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol agent and Renée Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Last week, Senate Democrats attached a list of reforms to a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security, of which ICE is a part. The proposal includes banning federal agents carrying out President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown from wearing masks, among other conditions.
Critics have argued the wearing of masks not only reduces accountability for ICE agents, but according to the FBI, has led to an increase in incidents where criminals have impersonated ICE officers to commit crimes.
Last Thursday, an overwhelming majority of Philadelphia’s City Council members signed on to sponsor a package of legislation that would restrict ICE operations within the city. The “ICE Out” proposals include prohibiting law enforcement officers from concealing their identities, like by wearing masks.
Democrats narrowed Republicans’ U.S. House majority and flipped a state Senate seat on conservative terrain in a pair of Saturday special election runoffs in Texas with national implications.
Democrat Christian Menefee won the special election runoff Saturday for Texas’ 18th Congressional District, paring House Republicans’ slim advantage by securing a long-vacant seat in a heavily Democratic area. In a second election runoff in Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth, Democrats won a notable upset, with Taylor Rehmet defeating Republican Leigh Wambsganss in a district where President Donald Trump won by 17 points in 2024.
In special elections and other local races over the past year, Democrats have largely outperformed Republicans. National Democratic leaders have pointed to the results, including Rehmet’s win, along with sweeping victories in last fall’s elections, as reasons for optimism headed into this fall’s midterms. Democrats are hoping in November to capitalize on anger at Trump’s agenda. Republicans will try to defy recent political trends and hold on to their control of Congress.
The House majority is the marquee prize in the November midterms. Republicans have been clinging to a narrow edge in the chamber, at times complicating their agenda. Because the competition in the Texas House race was down to two Democrats, the effect on the balance of power has been long anticipated. Special elections coming later this year to fill vacancies in Georgia, New Jersey, and California could further alter the partisan breakdown of the chamber.
Menefee defeated fellow Democrat Amanda Edwards, the Associated Press reported, winning a Houston-area district briefly held by Democrat Sylvester Turner before his death in March. When Menefee is sworn in, Democrats will have 214 House seats. Republicans hold 218, giving House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) a razor-thin margin. To pass legislation, Johnson can lose only one Republican vote if all members are present and otherwise vote along party lines.
In Texas, the midterms are set to be contested under a new House map backed by Trump that state GOP leaders enacted last year. Both Menefee, a former Harris County attorney, and Edwards, an attorney and former Houston City Council member, will immediately move to an unusual intraparty contest in a newly redrawn district against longtime Rep. Al Green (D). Texas will hold its primaries on March 3.
Residents of Texas’ 18th District are now set to have representation in the House through the end of Turner’s term after nearly a year of vacancy. For months, Texas Democrats had accused Gov. Greg Abbott (R) of deliberately delaying the special election to fill the vacant seat to help Republicans maintain a slim majority. Abbott blamed Harris County for election administration issues, saying he had to schedule the election for late last year to give officials there time to prepare.
The 18th District, which covers much of central Harris County, has a predominantly Black and Latino population. The district has been a Democratic stronghold for decades and has been represented by civil rights leaders such as Sheila Jackson Lee and Barbara Jordan.
Throughout his campaign, Menefee touted himself as a fighter with a record of suing the Trump administration, focusing heavily on healthcare, voting rights, and federal funding to the district.
Saturday’s runoff took place because no candidate won a majority of the vote in the November special election. Menefee was the top vote getter then, with roughly 29%, while Edwards finished second with roughly 26%.
The state Senate special election was to replace Republican Kelly Hancock, who became the state’s acting comptroller. With most of the vote in Saturday’s election tallied, Rehmet was ahead by more than 14 percentage points.
Rehmet, an Air Force veteran and union leader, won nearly 48% of the vote in the November special election to face Wambsganss in the runoff. Wambsganss is an executive at Patriot Mobile, which describes itself as “America’s only Christian conservative wireless provider.”
Rehmet’s victory is largely symbolic because candidates will have to run for the seat again in November, before the Texas legislature begins its next session in January 2027.
But strategists and analysts look at special elections as one barometer for measuring the national political mood and voter attitudes. Democrats have tended to do better than Republicans in special elections and other lower-profile races in recent years, while the GOP was successful in 2024 with Trump at the top of the ballot.
“Senator-elect Rehmet ran an exceptional campaign focused on solutions to the issues that families care most about, from the rising cost of groceries and utilities to the healthcare crisis,” DNC Chairperson Ken Martin said in a statement, adding that this win is “a warning sign to Republicans across the country.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) said Sunday that he is “confident” he will have enough support from Republicans in the House conference to end the partial government shutdown by Tuesday.
In an interview with NBC News’ Meet the Press, Johnson said the House will vote to reopen the government “at least by Tuesday.”
“We have a logistical challenge of getting everyone in town, and because of the conversation I had with Hakeem Jeffries, I know that we’ve got to pass a rule and probably do this mostly on our own,” Johnson said, referring to the minority leader as he looked to blame Democrats for the second shutdown of President Donald Trump’s second administration, which began early Saturday.
After the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis left two U.S. citizens dead, Democrats have said they would not advance government funding measures unless changes were made to a funding bill for the agencies driving the Trump administration’s immigration policies, including the Department of Homeland Security. The department houses U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
On Friday, Congress missed a midnight deadline to approve six new spending bills because the Senate changed DHS funding measures after the House passed them. The Senate, however, quickly approved a bipartisan agreement backed by Trump to pass five major appropriations bills and a temporary two-week funding extension for DHS to buy time for additional policy negotiations.
Over the weekend, Johnson remained adamant that the House will move quickly to pass those measures when it returns to Washington on Monday, despite frustrations from conservative members of the Republican caucus and skepticism from House Democrats.
“We’ll have a lot of conversations to have with individual Republican members over the next 24 hours or so. We’ll get all this done by Tuesday,” Johnson said on Fox News Sunday. “I don’t understand why anybody would have a problem with this, though. Remember, these bills are bills that have already been passed.”
Johnson will need nearly all of the House GOP majority to pass the bills if Democrats refuse to support DHS funding. The speaker said he believed he could get the backing of his members, emphasizing that Trump “is leading this” and that it “is his play call to do it this way.”
The president, Johnson added, “has already conceded that he wants to turn down the volume” in the immigration enforcement operations, a change punctuated by his decision to send border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis last week to take control of the situation.
Johnson said the Trump administration has acknowledged to Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D., N.Y.) that some of the changes and processes that Democrats are demanding “are fine with them,” including a requirement for ICE agents to wear body cameras.
Johnson, however, said that while some of the proposed DHS revamps are “obviously reasonable,” he doesn’t think House Republicans will support Democrats’ demands that federal agents remove their masks and wear an ID while conducting immigration operations.
“There’s a lot of details in this, we could get deep in the weeds, but we will do that over the next two weeks,” he said on Meet the Press.
House Democrats have not committed to supporting the bipartisan agreement struck in the Senate, although they plan to support the other five funding bills. Jeffries (D., N.Y.) told ABC News’ This Week that Democrats would meet Sunday afternoon to discuss “what we believe is the best path.”
“What is clear is that the Department of Homeland Security needs to be dramatically reformed,” Jeffries said. “Body cameras should be mandatory. Masks should come off. Judicial warrants should absolutely be required consistent with the Constitution, in our view, before DHS agents or ICE agents are breaking into the homes of the American people or ripping people out of their cars.”
When asked if he believes the administration will enforce the changes if they pass, Jeffries said that this is “an untrustworthy administration” but that the American people are strongly rejecting the violent immigration enforcement actions they’ve seen out of Minneapolis.
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HARRISBURG — Rents are soaring, homelessness is rising, and homeownership is out of reach for many families in Pennsylvania. As the state grapples with a serious housing shortage and affordability dominates the national political conversation, Gov. Josh Shapiro is preparing to release a long-awaited plan to tackle the crisis.
The plan, first announced in late 2024, will draw on months of outreach to advocates, developers, and local officials. Supporters hope it will offer a clear path forward and build momentum around proposals that can win support in Pennsylvania’s politically divided legislature. But significant obstacles stand in the way.
“The housing crisis has risen to the level such that none of the four caucuses can ignore it,” said Deanna Dyer, director of policy at Regional Housing Legal Services, a nonprofit law firm.
The housing shortage is a nationwide problem, but Pennsylvania has been particularly slow to build new units. The shortfall leaves families squeezed by rising costs, pushes recent graduates to take jobs in other states, and makes it harder for companies to expand.
Other states are passing laws to loosen local zoning restrictions and encourage new development — despite often fierce opposition from groups representing local governments.
Similar efforts in Harrisburg have not yet gained traction, although more lawmakers are exploring solutions, said State Rep. Lindsay Powell, a Democrat representing Pittsburgh who cochairs the House Housing Caucus.
“Pennsylvania has an opportunity to really push itself forward here.”
Falling behind
Underlying Pennsylvania’s housing crunch is the law of supply and demand.
Between 2017 and 2023, the number of households in Pennsylvania grew by 5%, according to a recent report from Pew Charitable Trusts, a think tank. Over the same period, local governments issued only enough building permits to increase the state’s housing stock by 3.4%.
That left Pennsylvania ranked 44th out of 50 states on the rate of housing built.
“The most important driver of affordability is whether there are enough homes for everyone,” said Alex Horowitz, Pew’s director of housing policy.
High demand for existing units, combined with a lack of new supply, gives landlords more leverage to raise rents and drives up house prices, Horowitz said.
“The shortage is what is causing housing to get so expensive right now.”
The problem is not spread evenly across the state. Costs have risen the most in areas with growing populations that have not added enough housing, including the Philadelphia suburbs, Northeastern Pennsylvania, and cities like Harrisburg, York, and Lancaster.
To keep up with the demand, state officials estimate, Pennsylvania needs to build 450,000 units by 2035 — a 70% increase in new construction.
In September 2024, Shapiro signed an executive order directing the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development to create a statewide plan to increase the supply of housing, and to review the effectiveness of existing programs. The executive order also requires the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services to conduct a separate review of policies to address homelessness.
“We don’t have enough housing, the cost of housing is going up, and the housing we do have is getting older and is in need of more repairs,” Shapiro said, announcing the plan.
Since then, DCED has received feedback from almost 2,500 people and organizations, and held 15 listening sessions across the state, a spokesperson said.
A draft was due to be submitted to the governor’s office in September, according to the executive order, but the details have not yet been made public.
Zoning headaches
In roundtables and written feedback, state officials heard about problems small and sweeping. One issue came up repeatedly, according to interviews with participants and a review of hundreds of pages of written recommendations obtained through the state Right-to-Know law: To build more housing, Pennsylvania needs to change local zoning rules that stifle new construction.
There are a number of ways the state could approach this. Many municipalities reserve most of their land zoned residential for single-family homes. Pennsylvania could allow apartment buildings on land currently zoned for commercial use, or near public transit, or legalize accessory dwelling units, like backyard cottages and granny flats.
Changes like these would require revising the municipal planning code, the state law that gives local governments authority over land-use decisions.
These changes would also make it easier to address rising demand for smaller units, as the average household size falls and more people live alone.
Any attempt to change zoning laws, however, will likely face strong opposition from groups representing Pennsylvania’s municipalities. They argue that local governments know their communities best and should retain control over decisions about land use. They also say the focus on zoning overlooks other factors contributing to the housing shortage, like the rising cost of construction materials and supply-chain disruptions.
Municipal zoning laws are “often scapegoated” as the culprit for a lack of affordable housing, Logan Stover, director of policy and legislative affairs at the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs, told Spotlight PA in a statement.
In October, a senior Shapiro staffer working on the housing plan told a local group in Lancaster the plan would focus on “incentives rather than mandates,” with a points-based system to give communities that adopt pro-housing policies priority for state funding. Communities with policies that restrict new development could be disqualified, he said.
At least six states — including California, Massachusetts, and New York — have already created incentive programs, which vary in design and enforcement mechanisms.
These efforts have not proven as effective as broader statewide zoning changes, said Horowitz, the Pew researcher.
“States that tried that early on didn’t see the supply response,” he said.
The state plan will also likely focus on how to simplify and speed up local permitting processes, which can delay construction with time-consuming paperwork and unpredictable outcomes. Streamlining state permitting has already been a major focus for Shapiro.
Focus on preservation
Pennsylvania doesn’t just need to build more housing — it also needs to help people stay in their current homes, state officials heard.
Groups that provide free legal services to low-income residents say there has been a dramatic increase in the number of people seeking help with evictions, foreclosures, and similar problems. In 2024, legal aid providers said, housing made up a third of all their cases — the single largest category.
They also urged state officials to keep pushing to seal eviction records in some cases, which Shapiro has said he supports but would require changing state law.
Another common thread was the need for a permanent source of funding to help low-income homeowners with repair costs. The state has some of the oldest housing stock in the U.S.; more than 60% of houses were built before 1970.
Investing in home repairs is broadly popular but has proven politically challenging.
In 2022, the state legislature agreed to spend $125 million in federal pandemic aid to create a new home repair program.
Demand was overwhelming: Some counties were able to take applications only for a few days and thousands of homeowners ended up on wait lists. The program was widely praised for its flexibility, which allowed administrators to help homeowners who would not have been able to get help from other programs, although some counties ran into administrative difficulties.
The program was created with bipartisan support, but efforts to continue it with state funding in 2023 and 2024 were unsuccessful. Last year, Shapiro proposed $50 million for a new, rebranded repair program, but the money didn’t make it into the final budget deal.
Looking ahead
Although Shapiro could make some changes through executive action, many of the suggested policy goals would require legislation.
Housing has proven to be an issue that can cut through political divides in Harrisburg, where Democrats control the state House and the governor’s mansion while Republicans hold a majority in the state Senate.
In recent years, lawmakers have agreed to a series of funding increases for a grant program to build and repair affordable housing. They also supported Shapiro’s proposal for a major expansion of a program that gives older and disabled residents a partial refund on their rent and property tax payments. The changes, which took effect in 2024, made more Pennsylvanians eligible and boosted the value of the rebates.
Between July 2024 and June 2025, more than 25 states passed legislation aimed at increasing the supply of housing, according to an analysis by the Mercatus Center, a libertarian think tank. Pennsylvania was not one of them, although lawmakers in both chambers have unsuccessfully introduced bills to loosenzoning requirements.
More recently, lawmakers from both parties have circulated proposals that echo some of the recommendations floated during the outreach for Shapiro’s housing plan. Republicans who control the state Senate say addressing the housing shortage will be a “key focus” for their caucus this year.
State Sen. Joe Picozzi (R., Philadelphia), chair of his chamber’s Urban Affairs and Housing Committee, plans to introduce legislation that would offer grants to local governments that work with developers to build housing near centers of employment. “To qualify, communities must show they are committed to smart housing policies — like updating zoning, faster permitting processes, or preparing development-ready land,” according to a legislative memo.
This year represents a real opportunity to make progress on the housing shortage, said State Rep. Jared Solomon, a Democrat representing Northeast Philadelphi,a who has sponsored several pieces of legislation aimed at adding more housing.
“We’re all seeing the same thing in our neighborhoods — we all know we have to be proactive about it,” Solomon said.
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The U.S. Senate passeda bill late Friday to fund the federal government, but a short-term shutdown still went into effect Saturday.
Senate Democratic leadership struck a deal earlier this week with President Donald Trump to separate Department of Homeland Security funding from the budget for other federal agencies after a national backlash to the ongoing ICE operation in Minnesota.
The agreement with the White House emerged late Thursday after every Democrat, including Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, and several Republicans voted down the original package.
Fetterman was among 23 Democrats to cross the aisle to vote for the compromise bill. With their support, the bill passed 71-29, despite five GOP defections.
Here’s how the senators from the Philadelphia area voted:
Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.): Yes.
Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.): Yes.
Sen. Andy Kim (D., N.J.): No.
Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.): No.
Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.): Yes.
Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester: (D., Del.): No.
Even with the Senate passage, a partial government shutdown took effect Saturday because the bill still needs to pass the House, which is not expected to take up the legislation until Monday.
It’s the second shutdown to begin since October when the federal government entered a 43-day shutdown, the longest in its history.
Democrats took issue with funding in the earlier bill for DHS, the department that oversees the two agencies involved in fatal shootings of civilians this month in Minnesota.
The Senate worked late Fridayas some Republicans objected to the deal. McCormick, the lone Republican senator in the region, voted for the measure as expected.
“I’m just not in favor of shutting down the government or stopping funding the government, and that’s the position that I’ve had through the last shutdown,” McCormick said Tuesday.
The affected departments include the Departments of Defense, State, Transportation, Education, Labor, Treasury, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development, in addition to DHS.
The deal struck with the White House would provide two weeks of funding for DHS, but funds the rest of the departments through September.
Democrats on Thursday halted the original package that would have provided long-term funding for DHS, which oversees ICE and the Border Patrol.
Fetterman had called for the DHS funding to be separated from the other departments as a compromise, which is ultimately what happened.
The DHS funding dispute came after the national furor over the killings of Renee Good, a poet and mother, and Alex Pretti, a nurse who worked at a VA hospital, both of whom protested the ongoing operation in Minnesota and were fatally shot by federal agents.
Democrats pushed for provisions to curb ICE’s immigration enforcement operations in order to fund DHS. Their demands include increased training for ICE agents, requiring warrants for immigration arrests and for agents to identify themselves, and for the Border Patrol to stay on the border instead of helping ICE elsewhere.
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Friday to fund most of the government through the end of September while carving out a temporary extension for Homeland Security funding, giving Congress two weeks to debate new restrictions on federal immigration raids across the country.
With a weekend shutdown looming, President Donald Trump struck the spending deal with Senate Democrats on Thursday in the wake of the deaths of two protesters at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis. Democrats said they would not vote for the larger spending bill unless Congress considers legislation to unmask agents, require more warrants and allow local authorities to help investigate any incidents.
“The nation is reaching a breaking point,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said after the vote. ”The American people are demanding that Congress step up and force change.”
As lawmakers in both parties called for investigations into the fatal shootings, Trump said he didn’t want a shutdown and negotiated the rare deal with Schumer, his frequent adversary. Trump then encouraged members of both parties to cast a “much needed Bipartisan ‘YES’ vote.”
The bill passed 71-29 and will now head to the House, which is not due back until Monday. That means the government could be in a partial shutdown temporarily over the weekend until they pass it.
Speaker Mike Johnson, who held a conference call Friday with GOP lawmakers, said he expects the House to vote Monday evening. But what is uncertain is how much support there will be for the package.
Johnson’s right flank has signaled opposition to limits on Homeland Security funds, leaving him reliant on Democrats who have their own objections to funding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement without immediate restraints.
Two-week debate over ICE
It was unclear how involved Trump will be in the negotiations over new restrictions on immigration arrests — or if Republicans and Democrats could find any points of compromise.
Senate Democrats will not support an extension of Homeland Security funding in two weeks “unless it reins in ICE and ends violence,” Schumer said. “If our colleagues are not willing to enact real change, they should not expect Democratic votes.”
Similarly, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters that any change in the homeland bill needs to be “meaningful and it needs to be transformative.”
Absent “dramatic change,” Jeffries said, “Republicans will get another shutdown.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said the two sides will “sit down in good faith,” but it will be “really, really hard to get anything done,” especially in such a short amount of time.
“We’ll stay hopeful, but there are some pretty significant differences of opinion,” Thune said.
Democrats demand change
Irate Democrats have asked the White House to “end roving patrols” in cities and coordinate with local law enforcement on immigration arrests, including requiring tighter rules for warrants.
They also want an enforceable code of conduct so agents are held accountable when they violate rules. Schumer said agents should be required to have “masks off, body cameras on” and carry proper identification, as is common practice in most law enforcement agencies.
The president’s concessions to Democrats prompted pushback from some Senate Republicans, delaying the final votes and providing a preview of the coming debate over the next two weeks. In a fiery floor speech, Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina warned that Republicans should not give away too much.
“To the Republican party, where have you been?” Graham said, adding that ICE agents and Border Patrol agents have been “slandered and smeared.”
Several Republicans have said that if Democrats are going to push for restrictions on ICE, they will push for restrictions on so-called “sanctuary cities” that they say do not do enough to enforce illegal immigration.
“There no way in hell we’re going to let Democrats knee cap law enforcement and stop deportations in exchange for funding DHS,” said Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., ahead of the vote.
Still, some Republicans said they believe that changes to ICE’s operations were necessary, even as they were unlikely to agree to all of the Democrats’ requests.
“I think the last couple of days have been an improvement,” said Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. “I think the rhetoric has been dialed down a little bit, in Minnesota.”
Last-minute promises
After Trump announced the deal with Democrats, Graham held the spending bills up for almost a day until Thune agreed to give him a vote on his sanctuary cities bill at a later date.
Separately, Graham was also protesting a repeal of a new law giving senators the ability to sue the government for millions of dollars if their personal or office data is accessed without their knowledge — as happened to him and other senators as part of the so-called Arctic Frost investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by Trump supporters at the Capitol.
The spending bill, which was passed by the House last week, would repeal that law. But Graham said Thune had agreed to consider a separate bill that would allow “groups and private citizens” who were caught up in Jack Smith’s probe to sue.
