THE LOOK AHEAD – September 2025

Produced By:

Bret Manley (bret@elevatega.com) and David Marten (david@elevatega.com)
Elevate Government Affairs (www.elevatega.com)

Balance of Power

Senate: 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats, 2 Independents Caucusing with Democrats
House: 219 Republicans*, 212 Democrats, 4 Vacancies

  • TX-18: Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-TX) passed away on March 5th after just arriving in Congress to fill the seat long held by former Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee until she passed away last year. A special election will be held November 4th, 2025. This is a safe Democratic seat.
  • AZ-07: Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) passed away from cancer on March 13th. Rep. Grijalva’s daughter Adelita won the July 15th primary and will almost certainly win the general election on September 23rd. This is a safe Democratic seat.
  • VA-11: Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) passed away from esophageal cancer on May 21st after serving in Congress since 2008. A special election was held June 28th, with Rep. Connolly’s former Chief of Staff James Walkinshaw winning the Democratic nomination. This is a safe Democratic seat. The special election is on September 9th.
  • TN-07: Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), currently the Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, abruptly resigned from Congress on July 20th. A special primary will be held on October 7th followed by a general election on December 2nd. This is a safe Republican seat.

Top Line Takeaways:

  • Do the Democrats Take the Shutdown Plunge?: Senate Democratic Leader Schumer took a lot of flak from the base—and many in his caucus—for his unwillingness to “fight harder” (whatever that means) and shut down the government the last go around. We won’t pretend to understand his internal politics as well as he does, but take a quick glance at Gallup’s latest voter satisfaction poll and you get an idea of where the base is. He’s in a lose-lose situation, assuming (big assumption!) that the House can get some sort of CR over to the Senate. Release his Members to provide cloture on a CR and the base flips out and he potentially earns himself a 2028 primary (we’re lukewarm on how serious the AOC rumors are), or shut the government down and hand Trump and Congressional Republicans the biggest political gift imaginable when voters are giving the Democratic party its lowest rating in 35 years. Not a great spot to be in! We bet he keeps the government open. Though, those of us around at the time said the same thing about John Boehner. The wildcard is if House Republicans attach something like a repeal of laws establishing Washington D.C. as a sanctuary city and allowing non-citizen residents to vote in local elections to the CR – or more rescissions of politically unpopular spending. A lot of Republicans are advocating for this. Something to watch.
    • Potential Wildcard: Trump has been known to pile on Congressional Republicans from time to time. It’s not out of the question (half of us expect it) for Trump to say at some point that he doesn’t care if the House GOP shuts down the government. Likely around the time the HFC is being difficult over something (so a normal Tuesday).
  • Redistricting Wars: Perhaps there is no greater sign of the times than a rush to redistrict mid-decade. We had a really pithy and snarky summation written here, but we don’t want to start an argument in the comments section*. The TL;DR is that the Republicans have more room to run here while California needs voter approval to “temporarily” amend the state constitution to undo what voters previously supported by ballot measure twice. I.e., it might fail.
  • RIFF and Reorg: Once upon a time (a couple of months aka years ago), there was a controversy over a memo published by OMB instructing federal agencies to significantly cut staff and reorganize. Those reorganization plans are due at the end of the month. Expect to see agencies that haven’t already begun to release their reorganization plans do so in September. Indeed, DOT just teased its plan last week.
  • The Ghost of Jeffery Epstein: The most online thing to happen to Congress since Al Gore invented the internet will continue to haunt Congressional Republicans as Democrats seek to fan the flames of what terminally online people insist is a political liability. Republicans have nobody to blame but themselves for this one, and in a fun twist, it’s the most conservative Members having to take “tough” votes. (Pssst….the actual voters you need to win an election don’t care about this at all). Lots of things can be true at once here, but we won’t mention them because we don’t want to incur the legal fees to prove we aren’t “part of the conspiracy.” Suffice it to say, Twitter (X) isn’t real life. Log off, touch some grass.
  • Are We Putting the “National” in National Guard?: One thing we know about Trump, when he has (or feels he has) the advantage, he turns the volume up to 11. Politically, Trump is in a good place here. We aren’t political experts (well…kinda we are), but it’s not good for someone with a 26% approval rating to pick a fight with the President over crime only to see 54 shot, 7 fatally, in a three-day span in your jurisdiction. You don’t want that guy on TV speaking for you. Legally, Trump’s DC maneuver is clear (see our Get Smart section for more). D.C. is a federal territory, and the feds essentially delegate responsibility for it to the locals under the Home Rule Act. Nationally, this is all governed under Title 10, but importantly a state or city (like Chicago) isn’t federal, so Trump can’t direct the police force. As long as crime goes down in D.C., and national Democrats don’t rally around an alternative approach to reducing crime (which really is political malpractice that this hasn’t happened), Trump will continue to press his advantage. In Chicago, it’s much more likely Trump pulls the other arrow from his quiver on which he has a positive political rating, immigration enforcement.
  • T is for Tariffs: The tariffs seesaw continues its on-again, off-again roller coaster until the Supreme Court (probably) is forced to act. We’ve lost track of where in the cycle of liberation we are, but one thing the media isn’t being clear about is that there are many different tariffs and Trump is using many different authorities and the decision last week concerns those under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Trump has been on much sturdier ground when imposing tariffs under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Sec. 232), Trade Act of 1974 (Sec. 301), Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934 (Reciprocal tariffs), and everyone’s favorite bill from AP U.S. History, the Smoot-Hawley Act (temporary tariffs). Regardless of where the Supreme Court lands, tariffs aren’t going away. There are numerous ways the Congress has ceded authority to the executive branch in this space, and Trump is more than willing to take advantage.

*We don’t have a comments section.

Legislative Action in September

In the Senate: The Senate will kick off September by immediately filing for cloture on NDAA, which will burn a fair amount of floor time as members push (mostly unsuccessfully) for votes on their bills that don’t clear four corners consideration. In between that and (maybe?) a CR, expect more nominations. We would guess it would really help Majority Leader John Thune if the President could stop firing nominees the Senate just spent valuable floor time clearing (see: the CDC).

In the House: The House comes back from the August break to deal with a handful of Congressional Review Act resolutions (we thought they were done with these) and some floor activity on Energy and Water Appropriations, which is probably more about killing time. The second and third weeks of September will be dedicated to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), possibly legislation related to College Football “Name, Image, and Likeness” (NIL) and very likely a crime bill targeting local DC laws and potentially other large cities. The President and the Republicans see crime (and the polling bears it out) as a winning issue so expect some legislative focus on it. Finally, of course, they’ll have to deal with a continuing resolution to keep the government running.

Committee Spotlight

House Agriculture: You may have missed it, but the “One Big Beautiful Bill” included a bunch of dough for farm programs ($60 billion) which eased the pressure to get a Farm Bill reauthorization done. The vast majority of Farm programs continue to operate without a reauthorization, but it’s still a priority for the Committee and Chairman GT Thompson wants to get a “skinny” version of a reauthorization through the Committee in September.

House Appropriations: House approps still has two more FY 2026 markups to get through (these poor people) before writing (and re-writing, and re-writing, and re-writing…) language for a CR that can pass the House. Over the break, leadership floated a plan where a CR could contain earmarks which — setting aside the painful math that would have to be done to appropriate a yearlong earmark in a short-term CR – has never been done before. This should be read as House leadership just wants to get something over to the Senate, where they can start daring the Democrats to shut down the government.

House Energy and Commerce: House Energy and Commerce is expected to take its long-anticipated foray into children’s online safety. The hearing is expected to focus on Education and Workforce Chairman Walberg’s soon to be released COPPA 2.0. As a reminder, Chairman Guthrie is going to go in a different direction than his predecessor for online safety, and we’re told he will try to get all of the Committee Republicans on the same page first.

House Transportation and Infrastructure: In addition to a markup (likely the bipartisan FEMA reform bill), FAA Administrator Bedford was expected to testify in front of the committee on ATC reform (what else?), but we’re told that may no longer be the case (scheduling). When he does testify, we’re taking bets on which member will ask him how he feels about moving (physically) down to the DOT HQ in Navy Yard. He feels great about this. There’s a coffee shop and ice cream shop next door! Also, have you been in the FAA building? The lobby is fine, and that’s about it. ICAO is at the end of September. Aviation Chairman Nehls will head there with some staff from the Hill, FAA, and DOT. Speaking of Nehls, he’ll have two more roundtables on the state of the Aviation industry, though technically those are not “official” committee activities.

House Oversight: Oversight has been consumed by the Epstein mess. We’ve lost track of how many subpoenas were issued but (in theory) DOJ turned over the docs they had to the Committee so they too could get to the bottom of it. At least they didn’t stand outside the WH portico waving binders around. Many people who should know better apparently don’t know that a lot of this stuff is already in the public domain. We predict the Twitterati will be left disappointed and demanding Chairman Comer resign (do any of these online people have jobs?).

Senate Appropriations: Chair Susan Collins broke ranks with Senate Republicans to oppose the President’s first rescissions package, focused on foreign aid and public media funding. Now? We’re back at it again, with the Administration sending up another $4.9 billion “pocket rescission” package, also focused on foreign aid, which is a personal priority for Collins. It’s a potential headache and conflict with the Administration Republican appropriators don’t need as they try to find a path forward on FY26 approps, and we think it only emboldens Dems to actually go through with a shutdown this time around.

Senate Commerce: Commerce kicks off the month with a hearing focused on U.S./China competition in space. Despite being dual hatted as NASA administrator in addition to DOT secretary since the President blew up at Elon Musk (hey remember that? That was somehow only three months ago.), Secretary/Administrator Duffy will not testify in favor of non-government witnesses. Also, memo to NASA comms: Duffy’s handle on X/Twitter, “SecDuffyNASA”, makes no sense because you guys are run by an administrator. Over in Hart, Ranking Member Cantwell has been laser focused on NIL and trying to kill the House SCORE Act, but we have yet to see an alternate proposal aside from what Sens. Booker and Blumenthal are working on.

Get Smart – What’s the Deal With D.C. Anyways? Home Rule Act 101.

OK, you might be wondering…don’t you guys always remind me that D.C. is a bubble as evidenced by the fact that there are zero Buc-ee’s within 100 miles of here? And now you’re gonna spend valuable (digital) real estate talking about D.C.? First of all, thank you for saying this real estate is valuable. Secondly, now that everyone online is a Russia, infectious disease, election, biology, immigration, democracy, crime/policing expert, we thought it apropos to go over the basic legal tenets of where the District of Columbia resides vis-a-vis the federal government.

OK, Where Does This Wild Wonderful Story Begin?: Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 (known as the Enclave Clause), is the constitutional basis that Washington, D.C. is a federal territory and not a state. The clause was inserted in the Constitution after the demise of the Articles of Confederation where the U.S. had no official fixed capitol but mostly was either Philadelphia or New York and the framers wanted a place that couldn’t be influenced by a particular state (which at the time were much more powerful, obviously, compared to the feds). What’s notable about the clause is it doesn’t say where the city must be located. For that, the Congress passed the Residence Act of 1790, which told President George Washington to pick a place somewhere in or around this place, not to exceed 100 square miles. He had a lot of flexibility. He picked here…possibly (at least in part) because it was financially beneficial to his estate at Mount Vernon.

What Were the Initial Boundaries?: Virginia and Maryland provided the land, and they gave up portions of Fairfax, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties (including Georgetown) respectively. It was a diamond shape with the Potomac River cutting through and roughly 100 square miles.

How Did D.C. Get Its Name?: Washington of course is an homage to George Washington and under the Residence Act the city was named “The City of Washington.” The land itself was designated as the Territory (aka “District”) of Columbia, which was a common way to refer to the United States in the 1700s (because of Christopher Columbus…).

Does The Flag Mean Anything?: D.C.’s “stars and bars” has gone through some revisionist history in what they stand for, but in 1938 a flag was adopted and its design was lifted directly from George Washington’s family coat of arms. Very little design work here.

How Did Virginia Get Their Portion Back?: They had better lobbyists.

Ok, Really: Economics and fears about slavery. Congress didn’t pay much attention to areas south of the Potomac so the economy was bad, and Virginia (and therefore Northern Virginia) benefited heavily from the slave trade and was worried D.C. was going to ban it. Residents of Virginia petitioned Congress to rejoin Virginia, and in 1846, Congress passed a retrocession bill returning Alexandria and Arlington to Virginia. Virginia residents also voted to support it.

When Did D.C. Residents Get To Vote for President?: It wasn’t until 1961 that residents of D.C. got an opportunity to vote for President and Vice President. The 23rd Amendment granted residents the ability to vote for President and Vice President and gave D.C. the same amount of electoral college votes as the least populated state (which has always been three).

Ok, How Did We Get To Home Rule?: Circumstances and political pressure for self-governance. D.C. had some form of self-government (including a stint as a territorial government!) until 1874 so there was precedence. By the 1970s, D.C. was pushing 700,000 residents, and all local decisions were still made by Congress. It became impossible to effectively manage the city while also managing the country. So, Congress passed and President Richard Nixon (!) signed the Home Rule Act.

What Does the Home Rule Act Do?: The Home Rule Act of 1973 created the office of Mayor, a 13 member city council, and the ability to pass local laws and manage the city budget, but Congress retained the power to review, approve, or overturn those decisions.

So The Home Rule Act Means Congress Can Reject Anything?: Basically. Under the Act, Congress has 30 days to review all civil laws and 60 to review changes to the criminal code. They can disapprove of these changes and send that disapproval to the President, which Congress did recently by rejecting the city’s loosening of criminal penalties. Then President Biden caught a lot of Congressional Democrats off-guard by signing the bill. The budget must also be approved by Congress, and there’s currently a big stand-off over this.

Is There Anything DC Council Can’t Legislate?: The Council cannot pass laws affecting the federal government generally (including buildings/property), the judiciary, taxes on federal property, or amending anything Congress passes that applies nationwide.

What Does It Say About the National Guard/Police?: Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Section 602(10)(b): “Nothing in this Act shall be construed as vesting in the District government any greater authority over …the National Guard of the District of Columbia…” and Section 740 “whenever the President of the United States determines that special conditions of an emergency nature exist which require the use of the Metropolitan Police force for Federal purposes, he may direct the Mayor to provide him, and the Mayor shall provide, such services of the Metropolitan Police force as the President may deem necessary and appropriate…” Basically the President controls the District’s National Guard, and the Mayor has to listen to the President if they ask for the police, at least for a set period of time.

So There’s Nothing The City Can Do?: Not really. The City’s authority to act is derived directly from Congress, vis-a-vis the Constitution. For the District’s authority to change, Congress would have to change it. That’s not happening any time soon.

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