THE LOOK AHEAD – JUNE 2026

Produced By:

Bret Manley (bret@elevatega.com) and David Marten (david@elevatega.com)

Balance of Power

Senate: 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats, 2 Independents Caucusing with Democrats

House: 217 Republicans, 212 Democrats, 1 “Independent”, 5 Vacancies

• CA-01: Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R) passed away unexpectedly on January 6th. The special election is set for August 4th but if a candidate receives 50%+1 today they will automatically win the seat. This is a safe Republican seat and the only Republican (currently) running is a personal friend/fraternity brother of one of your hosts, outgoing California House Republican Leader James Gallagher.
• CA-14: Rep. Eric Swalwell (D) resigned April 14th. Governor Newsom set the special election for August 18th. This is a safe Democratic seat.
• GA-13: Rep. David Scott (D) passed away on April 22nd. A special election will be held on July 28th. Under Georgia state law, all candidates will run on one ballot, with a runoff election scheduled for the two top candidates if none receive over 50% of the vote. This is a safe Democratic seat.
• TX-23: Rep. Tony Gonzales (R) resigned April 14th. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has not yet called a special election date. Texas law requires at least 36 days after the announcement of the special election and on the first “uniform” election day (a day where there is already a regular election). There is nothing requiring Abbott to schedule a special election before November’s election. The old TX-23 was a “swing” seat, but the newly drawn 23rd was carried by Trump by 14 points. Gonzales was likely headed to defeat in a primary run-off against gun rights activist Brandon Herrera. The new 23rd is a safe Republican seat, but it’s possible Abbott leaves it vacant until the regularly scheduled November election just in case.
• FL-20: Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D) resigned April 21st after the House Ethics Committee found her guilty of violating 25 House rules related to allegations that she stole and laundered $5 million in COVID aid that was sent to her nonprofit organization. Governor DeSantis (R) has yet to announce a special election, and it’s possible (likely?) that DeSantis does not do so since this district was eliminated under the new map passed into law on May 4th.

Driving the Month Ahead

• Shameless Self Promotion: With June, comes Father’s Day, and thus an opportunity for Bret to shamelessly offer to our readers that he wrote and self-published a children’s book. It was even reviewed! Scrambling for a last-minute gift for that Dad in your life? What If Daddy Were A Dinosaur? is here for you! You can buy it on Amazon here.

• • We should note that David is out on paternity leave with the birth of his first child. Wish him a hearty congratulations…possibly with a gift 😊?

• FISA is Still for Fighting: If you recall, the House managed the herculean task of passing a bipartisan FISA reauthorization, only to attach it to a digital currency bill the Senate roundly rejects. So…we get to do this whole thing over again. The deadline is June 12th but the test will come June 8th, when they need 60 votes to move the bill in time to meet the expiration date. The House is out of session the following week so if they don’t get it done they’ll need (another) short term extension. As of now, there is a tentative deal in place in the Senate. We’ll see if that holds.
• It Was So Good the First Time, Iran Back for Seconds: This will be a recurring monthly theme until some sort of deal is reached between the U.S. and Iran. Under the War Powers Act, the minority party can fairly easily force votes relating to the hostilities in the Middle East, something the Democrats have every incentive to do. The thing to watch is whether additional Republicans join them in a rebuke of the President. So far, it hasn’t really happened in a meaningful way. Certainly, we are a loooong way off from a veto proof majority (2/3 in both houses). What comes first?: Iran-U.S. Deal, War Powers Resolution gets to President’s desk, or Bret runs out of Iran puns?
• Reco…Reco…Reco….Reco…Reconciliation? Republicans had another record scratch moment, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and casting doubt on whether they’ll be able to get Reconciliation 2.0 to the President (who “imposed” a deadline of June 1st). This time it was the Trump “Weaponization Fund” that is causing headaches (whither Ballroom funding), and possibly a few Senators the President successfully primaried…At any rate they’re going to give it another go, and the Democrats are going to make it as painful as possible. Maybe Republicans are inspired by Milli Vanilli, who was announced as performing at the Great American State Fair, and then backing out, before backing back in. Girl, you know it…
• How Many Primaried Senators Does It Take for Your Majority to Collapse?: We’ve addressed the “lame duck” effect before, that once a President is a lame duck, he loses some amount of grip on his party in Congress, this isn’t to confuse you with a President’s appeal with voters (just ask Indiana Republicans), though often times they overlap, at least when the incentives are aligned. Trump has successfully primaried Sen. John Cassidy who chairs the Senate HELP Committee, and Sen. John Cornyn, who less than two years ago came 5 votes short of winning the race to succeed Mitch McConnell as Majority Leader. Add Trump’s very public sparring with Mitch McConnell, and the sometimes-open hostilities with retiring Sens. Thom Tillis and Joni Ernst (to say nothing of Sen. Susan Collins who needs to win in a blue state) and you have a situation where the Senate GOP could make life very difficult for the President. At the end of the day, politics is the business of trust and human relationships. Something to keep an eye on.

House and Senate Rumblings

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: House T&I passed their version of the highway reauthorization by a vote of 62-2, though that tally does not reflect the presence of significant headwinds for the bill going forward. There are three main items included in the bill that will receive the lion’s share of the attention as the bill moves forward. The Railway Safety Act, Truck Size and Weight, and fees on electric vehicles that compensate for the fact they don’t pay a gas tax. A Venn diagram of these issues probably has one or two handfuls of Members landing in the middle supporting/opposing all three. RSA will get the most attention because President Trump has weighed in heavily in supporting, even dispatching his leg affairs team to the House markup to whip votes…something your authors have never seen happen at a surface reauthorization. There’s a concern among opponents of the RSA that Trump will ask ultimately to attach it to an end of the year CR, but there are legitimate procedural issues with that approach. Because the Senate bill won’t go to the floor, the President and his team want a big House vote to anchor the debate on RSA. House Leadership had originally budgeted June for a floor markup on the reauthorization but there are other more high-profile issues demanding their attention so that can slip.

So that’s the House…what about the Senate? Well, they are leagues behind where the House is…we don’t have text on anything…i.e. they’re still in the “conversation” phase. Which means nothing is going on. EPW “hopes” to markup a bill this summer (psst…summer is here), but they have no plan to go to the floor so the goal for EPW is a successful markup. Still, on the three issued above (RSA/Weight/EV Fees) there are at least large groups of Senators willing to kill a bill to prevent them from happening. We predict there will be an extension come September. How these three issues are (or aren’t) resolved will predict whether or not a full reauthorization will move forward.

Online Safety Coming Online?: Commerce Chairman Ted Cruz would like to have a markup in June on a package of bills dealing with how tech platforms interact with children. The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) will anchor whatever markup comes together but this isn’t necessarily significant, the Senate passed KOSA 91-3 last Congress and it went nowhere. The Senate already UC’ed COPPA 2.0 so that issue is moot here leaving Age Verification and regulation of AI Chatbots. The big hang ups in all of these was, and still is, how far to go on the so called “duty of care” standard, federal pre-emption, and private right-of-action. House Leadership has said pretty clearly they believe the Senate approach thus far is unconstitutional as it pertains to “duty of care” while issues over pre-emption and private right-of-action have yet to be resolved. Chairman Guthrie on the House side, for his part, told us kids’ online safety legislation was the most likely vehicle for AI policy to hitch a ride on (which raised our eyebrows for sure), which is some insight into what they think the most effective use of limited time will be going forward. How, if at all, these items are addressed at a Commerce markup will determine whether a viable path forward exists for kids’ online safety legislation.

Blocking and Tackling: Two weeks ago, the House announced they’d move to the floor with its version of name, image, and likeness legislation (NIL) — the SCORE Act — regulating what has become an expansive pay-to-play landscape in college athletics. House Leadership looked primed to… score a big victory until the Congressional Black Caucus formally came out against the bill (3 of the 6 Democratic cosponsors are CBC Members), causing House Leadership to… er… punt once again. Last week, Sens. Cantwell and Cruz announced they’d reached a deal with the Protect College Sports Act. Senate Commerce… takes the ball and will host a hearing this week in advance of an expected markup – we’re told – later this month. There’s… still a lot of game left, and notably the Cruz/Cantwell bill makes changes to the Sports Broadcasting Act, allowing the NCAA to bundle their sports offerings without running afoul of antitrust laws. Watch to see if the broadcast networks decide to…um…suit up, in opposition.

The Opening Salvo on NDAA: House Armed Services will open up NDAA season this Thursday with its marathon markup of the annual defense authorization legislation. The Senate, a week later. In recent years NDAA has been the lone bright spot for Congress, though the House’s effort is typically a little more partisan than the Senate’s which is mostly a function of the different rules of each chamber. So bipartisan are final NDAA packages that it remains the only piece of legislation to have a veto successfully overturned in the last 10 years.

Get Smart – How Do Presidential Vetoes Work?

With all the chatter about War Powers Resolutions potentially reaching the President’s desk, and now the potential of a reconciliation bill containing language restricting the Department of Justice, there’s more chatter about Trump potentially issuing a veto if or when something reached his desk. Of all our Get Smart sections, this one is pretty straight forward, but it’s valuable nonetheless!

As Usual, You’re Going to Start with What It Says in the Constitution?: Right! And interestingly, it’s a Presidential power that’s actually located in Article 1. Article 1, Section 7, Clause 2 is kind of a long one:

Ok, Nobody Told Me There Was Reading: It says Congress passes laws, the President has 10 days (not including Sunday) to sign it or send it back. If he does nothing, it becomes law, unless Congress has adjourned, in which case doing nothing means it does NOT become law.

Wait, What? Doing Nothing Can Have Two Different Results?: Yes, the primary act of the veto is to return the bill back to the house that originated the legislation, but if Congress has adjourned sine die, that becomes impossible since the Congress that originated the legislation no longer exists. In such a case the President must affirmatively sign the bill for it to become law.

Is This the So Called “Pocket Veto”?: Precisely.

Does The Adjournment Have to Be Sine Die?: You would think so but the answer is no. Remember Congress didn’t used to be in session all year, it was common for it to adjourn in April and return (though not always) for a month or two in the fall. Long periods where both houses were adjourned used to be far more common. BUT… both houses need to be adjourned. In 1938, SCOTUS ruled on this in Wright v. United States. President Roosevelt vetoed a bill on the 10th day when the originating house was adjourned. But SCOTUS ruled the pocket veto clause required “the Congress” to be adjourned and thus, since the Senate was still in session, it was able to receive the veto. Importantly the House was only scheduled to be out a short time in this case.

This Is Where You Hit Me With a “But”?: BUT… the official definition of what constituted an “adjournment” had not been adjudicated at this point in history. We covered this when we went over Recess Appointments and SCOTUS’s decision that 10 days is what constitutes a recess for the purposes of Presidential appointments but that has not been tested against a veto, and with the modern Congressional practice of only adjourning 3 days at a time it’s unlikely to be tested in the near term.

Has The Supreme Court Ever Weighed In On the Pocket Veto? In fact it has! In the only other case SCOTUS has weighed in on, in 1929 in The Pocket Veto Case the Court ruled that because Congress had adjourned sine die fewer than 10 days after presenting the bill to the President, the President was not able to satisfy the Constitutional requirement that it be returned to the originating house and so the veto stood. Importantly, as noted above, the Court DID NOT limit the word “adjournment” to final adjournment (sine die). There is some space between this decision and the Wright case leaving some situational ambiguity but for our purposes the Pocket Veto is generally considered in play at the end of the 2nd Session of Congress.

You Haven’t Said Anything About Overriding: You’re right, but this is straight forward. Both Houses require a 2/3 majority to override a veto. So 289 votes in the House and 66 in the Senate (not 60). Because of this only around 4% (112) of all vetoes have been overridden.

Alright, Give Me Some Stats. Who Was the Chief Veto-er?: By far, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with 635 vetoes…263 of them were Pocket Vetoes! The modern Office of the President is a lot more powerful than it was 50 years ago, but somewhat paradoxically the use of the veto has dropped significantly.

Where Does El-Trumpo Stand?: Some may be surprised to learn Trump has used the veto pen sparingly, 10 times in his first term and twice thus far in his second. Fun fact, two of them were War Powers Resolutions (including one on Iran in 2020). Only one of Trump’s vetoes was overridden: if you can’t remember that far, Trump vetoed the NDAA because it didn’t allow him to use MilCon money to build a border wall or address Section 230 legal liability for social media companies, among other things.

You can check out where your favorite President ranks HERE.

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