Government Executive - Management

Federal agencies are looking beyond the usual sources for new ideas

John Breeden II — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 18:01:58 -0400

A few years ago, I tried to help a team of astronauts survive a Martian dust storm.

Fortunately, nobody was actually in danger. I was participating in the second NASA MarsXR Challenge, a government-sponsored competition hosted on the HeroX open-innovation platform. NASA wanted members of the public to design virtual reality scenarios that could someday help train astronauts for missions on Mars.

The first phase focused on storyboarding, so participants did not need to know how to program a VR simulation. They needed to imagine a realistic challenge, explain how astronauts would respond and take advantage of the immersive capabilities offered by virtual reality. My team designed a scenario in which astronauts left their rover behind while collecting rock samples in terrain too rough for a vehicle. When a surprise dust storm swept into the area and visibility began to collapse, they had to navigate back to the rover using digital waypoints and beacons they had placed along their route.

It seemed like a plausible worst-case scenario and, admittedly, a pretty exciting video game mission. The design required astronauts to think ahead, use the available technology and remain calm when conditions suddenly changed. Our entry earned an honorable mention in the first phase. We did not advance to the programming round, where winning concepts could be developed into functioning VR training missions, but the experience gave me a firsthand look at how seriously NASA approaches open-innovation competitions.

NASA has used HeroX and the NASA Tournament Lab to solicit outside ideas for everything from virtual reality astronaut training to building better lunar rover wheels. Some of the most visible government-sponsored challenges over the past several years have naturally focused on space exploration.

But one of the most consequential challenges open in 2026 is aimed at a problem that is far more Earth-bound and deeply human. The National Institutes of Health’s Office of AIDS Research is offering $1 million in prizes for ideas that could help more people gain access to long-acting HIV prevention and treatment. The competition, called the NIH ARISE-HIV LAUNCH Challenge, is open for first-round submissions through Aug. 6.

Federal government involvement goes well beyond an agency endorsement for the HIV Challenge. The Office of AIDS Research is the official sponsor and is providing the $1 million prize purse. The NIH Office of the Director is conducting the challenge under the federal prize authority established by the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act.

The challenge is also part of a broader program called Advancing Research in Implementation Science to End HIV, or ARISE-HIV. That effort involves all NIH institutes, centers and offices that award HIV funding or support related prevention, care and treatment research. HeroX provides the public competition platform, and the challenge appears through the NASA Tournament Lab’s wider open-innovation network.

To be clear, the current contest is not asking participants to invent a new HIV medication. Scientists have already developed long-acting products that can prevent or treat HIV without requiring patients to take a pill every day. Some are administered every two months, while others can provide protection for as long as six months. The challenge is getting those advances to the people who need them and making sure they remain connected to care.

In an August 2025 post reflecting on her appearance with NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya on The Director’s Desk podcast, Office of AIDS Research Director Geri R. Donenberg described the gap the new challenge is trying to address.

“We have effective, lifesaving interventions, but people are not benefiting equally,” she wrote.

Donenberg explained that implementation science can help determine how, where and by whom effective treatments should be delivered to reach different populations. An approach that works well for patients in one community may prove impractical in another because of transportation, cost, staffing, stigma, scheduling or limited access to health care.

That is where the LAUNCH Challenge comes in. NIH is asking participants to develop actionable ideas in at least one of four areas: access, delivery, engagement or retention.

An access proposal might explore how mobile clinics, home-based services, street medicine or pharmacists could bring long-acting products to people who are not well served by traditional health care systems. A delivery proposal could address the staffing or coordination needed to administer injections safely and reliably. That might include evening appointments, transportation assistance, child care support or better integration with mental health and substance-use services.

Engagement proposals could focus on building awareness, understanding and trust among patients and their families. Finally, retention ideas might help patients remain on schedule and connected to care during the months between appointments. But those are just a few suggestions. By all means, if you have better ideas, feel free to participate in this new challenge and earn a share of the prize money.

NIH is deliberately casting a wide net looking for precipitants. Individuals, informal teams, community organizations, health professionals, researchers, universities and companies can all participate. People and organizations that do not currently receive NIH funding are specifically encouraged to enter as the agency is looking for fresh and new ideas.

The first-round submission for the ARISE-HIV Challenge is pretty approachable. Participants need to complete an online concept submission totaling about three pages. Participants must also provide a short public abstract and identify whether their proposal addresses access, delivery, engagement, retention or some combination of those areas.

Judges will place the greatest weight on public health significance and impact, which accounts for 40% of the score. Innovation and novelty make up 35%, while the remaining 25% focuses on whether the idea is pragmatic enough to work outside a controlled research environment. HeroX and government officials explained the judging process and the importance of the challenge in a recent YouTube video.

Completed Phase 1 entries must be submitted through HeroX by 5 p.m. Eastern on Aug. 6. NIH expects to award as many as 35 first-round prizes of $10,000 each. Those winners will be invited into Phase 2, where they will develop more detailed implementation and evaluation plans. Up to 13 second-round winners could receive approximately $50,000 each.

And this is a busy time for government sponsored and federally focused challenges as the HIV event is not the only one being opened to outside solvers. The Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity recently launched the $500,000 Storage Design Strategies to Ease Production Prize, known as the Storage Design STEP Prize. It asks developers of emerging grid-scale storage technologies to identify manufacturing, material-sourcing and supply-chain obstacles before those problems prevent promising designs from reaching commercial production. Phase 1 entries are due Oct. 8.

Another active competition, the privately organized GoAERO Prize, is supported by NASA, RTX, Boeing, Honeywell, Iridium and other partners. Teams for that challenge are actually building compact, portable aircraft that could autonomously carry a person or emergency supplies into areas where conventional rescue vehicles cannot easily reach. Its final fly-off will take place at NASA’s Ames Research Center in April 2027. The best overall performer can earn $1 million, with additional prizes for missions involving rapid deployment, difficult conditions and precise maneuvering around obstacles.

The live challenges are radically different, but they share the same underlying idea. Agencies and other sponsors describe a difficult problem, establish rules and rewards, then open the door to people who may never have encountered the issue through a conventional grant, contract or government job.

My Mars scenario never became a functioning astronaut-training mission. But earning an honorable mention showed that someone outside NASA could still contribute an idea the agency considered useful. The next valuable idea may come from a community health worker who understands why patients miss appointments, an engineer trying to manufacture a new kind of battery or an aviation team that knows how to reach people stranded after a disaster.

For readers with a useful perspective, technical skill or firsthand understanding of one of these problems, the invitation is real: take a look, join a team or submit an idea. You may not win the top prize, but you could still contribute something that advances a technology, helps an agency or improves someone’s life.

John Breeden II is an award-winning journalist and reviewer with over 20 years of experience covering technology. He is the CEO of the Tech Writers Bureau, a group that creates technological thought leadership content for organizations of all sizes. Twitter: @LabGuys

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NTEU sets deadline for its members to resume paying dues

Jory Heckman — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 06:00:00 -0400

Amid the Trump administration’s rollback of collective bargaining rights across the federal workforce, the National Treasury Employees Union is setting a deadline for many of its members to resume paying dues.

According to three union officials, NTEU members who do not sign up for dues payments by Sept. 5 will lose access to the union’s benefits until they resume paying dues.

This includes eligibility for NTEU representation, either individually or as part of a group, the opportunity to receive remedies or settlements won through NTEU litigation, as well as member-only information and updates.

Last month, an independent arbitrator sided with NTEU and ordered the IRS to restore 2024-era telework agreements for its workforce. Meanwhile, a federal judge has barred IRS officials from confiscating and disposing of pro-NTEU flyers and other decorations from employees’ communal and personal workspaces.

NTEU's deadline will impact thousands of members who are currently not paying dues to the union.

“We have not imposed any specific requirements to pay dues for over a year, but we have to get the ball rolling again,” one union official told Government Executive.

NTEU did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Although NTEU represents federal employees at 38 departments and offices, about half of all NTEU members work at the IRS. The IRS terminated its collective bargaining agreement with NTEU in February.

In a pair of executive orders signed last year, President Donald Trump cited a seldom-used provision of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act to bar unions at nearly 40 agencies on national security grounds.

Those executive orders have stripped collective bargaining rights from roughly two-thirds of NTEU’s members. NTEU is challenging the executive orders, and the litigation remains pending.

Following the Trump administration executive orders, many agencies stopped automatic dues deductions from employees’ paychecks, dealing a significant blow to union revenue.

“This is going to have a lasting impact on the labor movement within the federal workforce,” a second union official said.

In a lawsuit challenging the executive orders, NTEU wrote that the administration’s actions will “immediately and drastically reduce the number of employees that NTEU represents and prevent NTEU from collecting dues from those members via payroll deduction.”

“This will threaten NTEU’s very existence and will severely diminish NTEU’s influence at the bargaining table,” the union wrote in its March 2025 complaint.

In fiscal 2024, member dues accounted for nearly 85% of NTEU's total revenue, the union wrote in its complaint. The unions received about 95% of those dues through payroll deductions.

The American Federation of Government Employees touted a surge in new dues-paying members in the early days of the second Trump administration. But the Associated Press reported in April 2025 that AFGE laid off more than half of their staff.

AFGE National President Everett Kelley said the union’s finances took a “very direct hit,” after the administration's executive orders removed over 200,000 of its dues-paying members.

Early in the Trump administration’s union crackdown, AFGE encouraged its members to pay their union dues directly to AFGE through regularly scheduled online payments.

In February 2026, NTEU began a phased rollout of its own online payment system, called “Dues Direct,” which allowed members who previously paid dues via automatic payroll deductions to send payments directly to NTEU. According to union officials, NTEU did not impose any deadline for members at impacted agencies to sign up for Dues Direct until it fully completed all phases of the system’s rollout.

The second union official said NTEU leadership has tried to avoid frustrating members who never stopped paying their dues because their agencies still recognize the union.

“Agencies that haven’t had their payroll deductions turned off have been putting pressure on NTEU leadership for over a year to take this action,” the second union official said.

NTEU’s second-largest agency, Customs and Border Protection, still allows its employees to pay union dues via payroll deductions. CBP employees make up about 25% of NTEU’s total membership.

But in several IRS chapters, NTEU leaders have only gotten a small percentage of their members to enroll in Dues Direct.

“I think it’s intentional on the part of the administration, to demoralize our workers, starve the union, and try to make it look like the union can’t help,” the second union official said. “I don’t know how we’re going to ever rebuild, if we win in court and retain our right to unionize.”

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Todd Blanche is officially the nation’s top law enforcement official

Sam Gauntt, States Newsroom — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 10:49:32 -0400

Todd Blanche took the oath of office as U.S. attorney general at a brief ceremony in the Oval Office Monday, following the Senate’s narrow vote to approve his nomination as the nation’s top law enforcement official over the weekend.

Blanche, who served as acting attorney general and was President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer before joining the government, succeeds Pam Bondi — whom Trump ousted in April — as head of the Justice Department. Trump announced Blanche as his pick to permanently lead the department in June.

U.S Circuit Judge Emil Bove, another of Trump’s former personal attorneys, administered the oath of office.

After the Senate voted, 50-49, to approve his nomination early Saturday morning, Blanche wrote on social media that he was “deeply honored by the trust and confidence President Trump has placed in me to lead the Department of Justice as our great nation’s 88th Attorney General.”

“To the dedicated public servants of the Department of Justice, thank you for your work each day to uphold the law and keep our country safe,” Blanche wrote.

Blanche’s nomination had drawn widespread concern and scrutiny from congressional Democrats, as well as some Republicans, over actions such as his role in establishing Trump’s “anti-weaponization fund.” The $1.8 billion Justice Department fund aimed to compensate those “who suffered weaponization and lawfare,” including many who faced prosecution related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Lawmakers of both parties have described it as a “slush fund,” and Blanche has stated that it will not move forward under his tenure as attorney general.

Asked if the fund has a future after an executive order signing ceremony Monday afternoon, Trump said that it “will be up to Todd Blanche.”

A contentious vote

In a vote early Saturday morning, every Senate Democrat voted against Blanche’s confirmation. Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, broke ranks from their party and voted against him.

Blanche ultimately won over several holdout Republicans, including Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who said Blanche had acknowledged his past “mistakes” and sought to halt the Justice Department fund. He also secured support from Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both of whom are set to leave office after their terms end this January.

Speaking on the floor Friday evening before Blanche was confirmed, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s chair, praised Blanche as a “tough, fair prosecutor dedicated to the rule of law.”

“Between his proven track record, his presentation in committee and the support he’s received from across the country, I am convinced that Mr. Blanche is the right choice to lead the Justice Department,” Grassley said. “A vote for Todd Blanche is a vote for the safety of the American people.”

Congressional Democrats quickly denounced Blanche officially taking over the department.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, blasted Blanche’s ascension as the nation’s top law enforcement official on social media earlier Monday afternoon.

“Republicans in Congress voted to turn Trump's personal attorney, Todd Blanche, into Trump's personal Attorney General,” Raskin wrote. “We need a DOJ committed to the rule of law, not the corrupt rule of a kleptocrat.”

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USPS seeks funding from Congress to address long-term financial issues

Jory Heckman — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 17:07:34 -0400

The largely self-funded Postal Service is asking for “modest” annual funding from Congress, at least in the short term, to help the agency pay its bills.

USPS told lawmakers that it would run out of cash in early 2027, if it kept meeting all of its financial obligations. But the agency now expects to avoid a cash crisis for another few years by suspending its contributions to one of its employee retirement plans.

Agency leaders warn these extraordinary measures are just buying USPS more time to deal with what they consider a broken business model.

Postmaster General David Steiner said last Friday that USPS will seek a “relatively modest appropriation” from Congress, adding that those funds would “create a large return for the American economy.”

“We don’t think that the investment made in the Postal Service will need to be a permanent investment, but a temporary one,” Steiner said at a quarterly meeting of the USPS Board of Governors.

USPS reported a $2.5 billion net loss for the third quarter of fiscal 2026 – an improvement from the $3.1 billion net loss it saw for the same period last year.

If Congress doesn’t act on a legislative package for USPS this year, Steiner said the mail agency will consider lowering service standards, raising prices and closing thousands of “unprofitable” post offices. Without help from Congress, Steiner said USPS would be forced to carry out these cost-cutting measures, but wouldn’t proceed with these plans before January 2027.

“The only thing that will doom the Postal Service is not making a choice,” Steiner said.

If Congress goes along with plans to partially fund USPS, Steiner suggested lawmakers periodically adjust annual appropriations to account for inflation and other factors.

“As we reduce costs and improve revenue, we believe we will become more profitable, and the appropriation could be reduced,” Steiner said.

USPS officials have yet to quantify the amount of funding they’re seeking from Congress. But according to the National Association of Postal Supervisors, USPS is authorized to request up to $460 million from Congress each year as “public service reimbursement.” The agency hasn’t requested or received any public service reimbursement since 1982.

The Postal Service is largely self-funded through its revenue, but does already receive modest funding from Congress to administer a program that allows people who are legally blind to send and receive certain items in the mail for free. Congress gave USPS more than $38 million to carry out this program in fiscal 2026.

If USPS does run out of cash, Steiner warned that it would jeopardize a nearly $2 trillion mailing and shipping industry that supports about 78 million jobs. Companies like Amazon and UPS compete with USPS in package delivery, but also serve as some of its biggest customers, paying the agency to deliver packages to often rural destinations that these companies deem unprofitable.

“We would prefer that rather than considering harming the Postal Service, that Congress consider making an investment in the Postal Service, which after all, is making an investment in America,” Steiner said.

Steiner told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in March that USPS would run out of cash in early 2027, as long as it continues to pay its bills on time. But USPS is relying on some emergency measures to conserve cash.

Postal officials told the Office of Personnel Management in April that it will hold off paying its contributions to the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), which covers federal and postal employees who started working after January 1987.

Steiner told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in June that with these extraordinary measures, USPS is now expected to run out of cash sometime between 2031 and 2034.

It’s not clear if lawmakers will make postal reform a legislative priority ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

Congress passed long-awaited reform legislation in April 2022 that saved USPS $107 billion in total costs. USPS warned lawmakers that it was on the verge of running out of cash at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and received $10 billion in pandemic relief funds.

Several House Republicans who played a critical role in passing the Postal Service Reform Act have told Steiner they are skeptical of providing further financial assistance to USPS.

USPS, in a wish list of possible legislative reforms, also proposed eliminating its regulatory agency — a move that would give USPS greater freedom to raise mail prices and strike deals with private-sector companies.

The Postal Regulatory Commission ruled earlier this year that USPS can only raise mail prices once a year through Sept. 30, 2030.USPS raised the price of a first-class Forever stamp to 82 cents in July. Steiner said USPS is looking to raise stamp prices once again in January 2027.

Steiner said USPS is “constantly handcuffed by the PRC when it comes to taking the most logical steps in revenue management and pricing," and that USPS will lose $700 million in annual revenue because of this limit on price hikes.

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Senate clears spending measure, leaves other major bills unfinished

Shauneen Miranda, States Newsroom — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 13:13:31 -0400

The Senate adjourned for its summer recess early Saturday after approving a stopgap spending bill but declining to advance legislation that would require photo ID for voting.

In a rare overnight session that began on Friday, senators trudged through a slew of measures, confirmed President Donald Trump’s nomination of Todd Blanche as attorney general and then departed the nation’s capital for the coveted August recess. The chamber is not expected to return to regular session until after Labor Day.

The Senate passed, 86-11, a major effort first proposed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that would impose sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin, along with the country’s oligarchs and military leaders.

A bipartisan education bill — championed by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo. — served as the vehicle for the Russia sanctions package.

Collins’ and Bennet’s bill would ensure that “early childhood educators can claim the same federal tax credit for out-of-pocket classroom supply purchases that is currently available to K-12 teachers,” per a press release.

Averting a shutdown

The Senate also passed a bipartisan measure on a 90-6 vote that would keep the federal government funded through Dec. 11. The House has passed a different version, so the two would have to be reconciled.

Earlier in the day, senators had advanced the legislation, known as a continuing resolution, toward a final vote on another strongly bipartisan vote of 91-6.

Senators did not vote on a proposed blueprint that would unlock the complex budget reconciliation process and allow Republicans to move ahead on their third party-line bill.

Attorney general vote

The upper chamber also confirmed Blanche, the acting attorney general, to be the next U.S. attorney general.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., marked the determinative vote amid GOP opposition from Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, over Blanche’s bid, as well as the absence of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who’s recovering from a health issue.

The Senate //, including Cameron Hamilton to serve as the next administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, 51-47.

Voting and photo ID

The Senate failed to advance on a 52-46 vote a bill that would require a photo ID to vote in an election to federal office.

Related to the separate SAVE America Act, it was sponsored by Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio. Sixty votes were required to move ahead on the measure, which was opposed by all Democrats voting.

Democrats have said in the past such a requirement would make it more difficult for all Americans to vote.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, a proponent of photo ID and the SAVE America Act who at one point had said he would hold up adjournment to obtain action, vowed afterward to continue pushing for it. “This fight’s not over. We’re just getting started,” he said.

Trump is an intense proponent of the SAVE America Act and urged the Senate to stay in town to pass it, though Republican leaders have said repeatedly there are not 60 votes to do so.

The SAVE America Act would require voters to show proof of citizenship when they register and a photo ID when they vote. Noncitizens are already barred from voting in state, federal and almost all local elections.

College sports

The Senate did not take a procedural vote before leaving town on a sweeping bipartisan bill that would set national standards for college athletes’ compensation.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. — the top members of the Senate Commerce panel, which has jurisdiction over the matter — introduced the bill, with Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., as original co-sponsors.

The bill underwent several changes after it was passed by the Commerce panel in June, and was able to ultimately garner the support of the formidable Big Ten and Southeastern conferences.

But the Congressional Black Caucus opposed the legislation in a statement earlier this week, noting that “at the very moment that Black political representation is under attack across the country, we will not be complicit in efforts to further exclude the interests of Black people by advancing legislation that will determine the economic future of Black athletes, their families, and their communities without their meaningful participation and engagement.”

Trump, who’s thrown his support behind the measure, urged the Senate earlier Friday evening to stay in town until the bill passes.

“Stop grandstanding, and try getting this done,” he wrote in a social media post.

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DOGE took credit for savings that never happened, watchdog finds

Christian Robles — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 16:50:52 -0400

The Trump administration should prominently display data quality issues and limitations on the Department of Government Efficiency’s website listing estimated savings, the Government Accountability Office recommended in a new report, finding the public tally heralding billions of dollars in estimated savings was rife with errors.

The watchdog found that the website’s estimated savings tracker — or “Wall of Receipts” — listed contracts that were not actually cancelled, took credit for leases that were in the process of termination before DOGE’s existence and did not adequately explain how savings were calculated. The findings cast doubt on DOGE’s claim that it saved taxpayers $215 billion by slashing contracts, grants, leases and other wasteful expenditures.

The report, requested by Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., analyzed the wall of receipts’ estimated savings of roughly $110.34 billion from supposedly terminated contracts, grants and leases.

GAO found that roughly $34.6 billion of the estimated $61 billion saved from cancelled contracts came from either contracts that were never actually terminated or could not be corroborated as terminated.

DOGE specifically reported it cancelled 13,476 contracts but “almost 2,000 contracts were not terminated,” according to GAO’s analysis of the Federal Procurement Data System. In one case, DOGE continued to estimate saving taxpayers more than $1.7 billion by cancelling a Defense Health Agency IT support contract after Defense Department officials got DOGE officials to agree the contract should not be terminated, GAO wrote. No action was ultimately taken on the contract.

Additionally, about 27.8% of contracts listed as terminated — including all contracts at the DOGE-dismantled United States Agency for International Development — did not include identifying information, GAO found. Because of this lack of information, the office could not find 1,856 supposedly terminated contracts on the Federal Procurement Data System even after taking additional steps to do so.

The watchdog added that DOGE did not consistently use its stated methodology for calculating estimated savings from terminated contracts. And even in cases where DOGE did use its stated methodology, it did not “account for many complexities and nuances of federal contracting or sufficiently identify limitations.” DOGE — whose operation formally ended as of July 4 — did not return GAO’s requests for interviews or clarifications.

DOGE did not provide sufficient information to verify about 96.2% — or $47.32 billion — of estimated grant savings, GAO found. But even for the small portion of grant savings GAO could replicate, “the amount of reported savings may not be realized,” according to the report.

DOGE reported that it terminated 264 leases, saving taxpayers about $113 million. But the General Services Administration told GAO that 108 out of those 264 leases were identified for termination before DOGE was established. Because of that discrepancy and other inaccuracies, GAO estimated DOGE overstated how much it saved on terminated leases by $81.1 million.

DOGE also further overstated lease savings by not considering other factors, such as relocation costs and potential early termination fees, according to the report.

The White House did not return a request for comment by the time of publication.

“This GAO report underscores the need for increased transparency and accountability from the Trump Administration so the American public can better understand DOGE’s activities as the organization guts vital government programs,” Blumenthal said in a press release.

The GAO released a separate report Wednesday where it said it could not verify if DOGE employees completed required ethics training designed to avoid conflicts of interest.

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What history tells us about the potential government shutdown

Frank Konkel — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 13:22:29 -0400

The Senate is working to pass a bipartisan funding bill before a summer recess that would fund the federal government through Dec. 11, prevent a potential government shutdown during November’s midterm elections and avoid a repeat of last year, when agencies began the fiscal year with a record 43-day shutdown.

Senators easily cleared the first in a series of procedural motions Monday by a vote of 89-4, fast-tracking the bill for final vote before the Senate recesses for five weeks. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., all but promised Wednesday that senators would delay the recess—scheduled for Friday—until they navigate a “train wreck” of legislation that includes the spending bill.

The bill has several key differences from the one the House passed on July 21—which Senate Democrats declared dead on arrival—including no new funding for immigration agencies and language temporarily blocking the Trump administration from putting political appointees in charge of federal grant approvals. Unlike the House bill, the Senate bill does not include $1 billion for the Trump-class battleship program, and it would provide government funding one week longer than the House bill, which would fund agencies through Dec. 4.

To be signed into law and avoid a shutdown, one chamber would have to adopt the other’s bill, or appropriators will need to develop a compromise bill that both chambers pass and President Trump signs.

On its face, Congress’ unusual early efforts to avoid a shutdown dramatically decreased the odds of a shutdown—at least in October. On prediction market Kalshi, odds of an Oct. 1 shutdown now sit at 25%, down from 64% last month.

“It’s good they’re getting ahead of it. I cannot recall a time when a CR was introduced in July,” said David Berteau, a longtime budget expert and former high-ranking Pentagon appointee in both the Reagan and Obama administrations. “I don’t really know what the parties want, but the members want to not have a shutdown.”

That should alleviate some angst for federal employees and government contractors who’ve dealt with three partial or full government shutdowns in the past year. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees missed several consecutive pay periods, forcing many to take odd jobs or seek loans to pay bills. Many contractors, meanwhile, weren’t paid at all during the shutdown, since they are not legally entitled to backpay. Millions of Americans suffered too, with fewer domestic flights and hours-long security lines at airports, disruptions to public services and tens of billions of dollars in lost economic output.

In decades past, chances of a shutdown with a government and presidency under the same party—during a critical midterm election—would have been exceedingly low. Lately, though, there are no sure bets.

What history says

Given recent history, Berteau said it’s anything but a done deal.

Until 2018, every government shutdown for the previous four decades occurred under a divided government, when either the majority in the House or Senate was held by a different political party than the presidency.

“Until 2018, the last time we had a shutdown with unified government was under Jimmy Carter in 1980,” Berteau said. “That trend broke briefly in 2018, which started under unified gov’t and ended under a divided government. Then we had no shutdowns until last year, and all three of those were under a unified government.”

“Normally, I would say don’t worry about it, but it’s not normal anymore,” Berteau added.Neither House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., nor the White House has weighed in yet on the Senate’s spending bill. Once Congress returns from summer recess, they’ll be under a time crunch, with only 16 working days in the legislative calendar to advance a stopgap before the fiscal year ends Sept. 30. Other competing priorities, including a reconciliation bill and the SAVE Act, may take some oxygen during those proceedings.

“The possibility of an October shutdown, even in an election year, even in a unified government, that possibility is not zero,” Berteau said.

Even with apparent momentum in the Senate, government executives would be wise to dust off their shutdown plans, while government contractors who serve the government should prepare their pipelines and communication strategy for a possible shutdown. That’s because even if an October shutdown is avoided through a stopgap measure, the federal government faces the prospect of running out of money during a lame-duck Congress—midnight on Dec. 12 in the Senate’s current bill—wherein at least one of the House or Senate is favored to flip into Democratic control.

The scenario is eerily similar to the 2018 shutdown, which until last year held the record for the longest shutdown at 35 days. The 2018 shutdown began Dec. 22 when government funding ran out in President Trump’s first term, with Republicans in charge of the House and Senate. The crux of that shutdown was Senate Democrats’ opposition to more than $5 billion in funding for Trump’s border wall. That shutdown finally ended Jan. 25, 2019, three weeks after Democrats took control of the House under new Speaker Nancy Pelosi, following their successful flip of the chamber in November.

With three months to go until elections, most polls give Democrats better than an 80% chance to take the House in November, with Democrats only slight underdogs to take the Senate. There is a very real possibility that Republicans lose control of either the House or Senate in November, leaving a lame-duck Congress the responsibility of passing another budget bill to avoid a holiday shutdown.

“History says that when one House or both change hands in the midterms, they wait until a new Congress is seated before any final spending deals,” Berteau said.

That doesn’t mean a deal couldn’t happen. Both parties may have incentives to negotiate.

John Weiler, cofounder and executive director the IT Acquisition Advisory Council, said, “If Republicans lose the House as is expected, they will be moving to pass appropriations bills and a budget reconciliation package before the new Congress is sworn in, so they’ll be looking to make a deal with the Democrats on appropriations.”

Similarly, Weiler said, “Democrats should also be looking to strike a deal on appropriations because the Trump administration is happy to operate under a continuing resolution since it gives them more leverage and might be the last chance they have to set new spending levels versus ongoing CRs and budget showdowns.”

Until the president’s signature is dry on a spending bill, all bets are off.

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CDC gets a new chief as agency faces questions over its direction

Shauneen Miranda, States Newsroom — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 16:36:28 -0400

Dr. Erica Schwartz will be the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, after the Senate confirmed her nomination Wednesday.

The Senate confirmed, 51-44, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the national public health agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, which has taken heat over the vaccine-skeptical agenda pursued by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

That agenda marked a central theme of Schwartz’s tense confirmation hearing in July before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where lawmakers on both sides of the aisle pressed her on how she would deal with any political interference from the Trump administration when it comes to vaccine policy.

Schwartz ultimately scored the backing of the panel’s chair, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who had appeared dissatisfied with her responses at her confirmation hearing.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., was the only Democrat who voted to confirm Schwartz’s bid.

Schwartz worked as an occupational medicine physician in the U.S. Navy. She transferred to the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, where she achieved the rank of rear admiral.

Schwartz also served as the chief medical officer of the U.S Coast Guard and later as deputy surgeon general of the United States.

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Critics argue Education's latest restructuring risks something harder to replace than staff

Shauneen Miranda, States Newsroom — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 12:48:04 -0400

Senate Democrats on Tuesday rebuked the Department of Education’s efforts to transfer its special education programs and civil rights enforcement to other agencies.

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, convened a panel of advocates and former department officials in Republican and Democratic administrations to blast the department’s moves, which represent a key step in President Donald Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Education Department.

Education announced in June that the Department of Health and Human Services would administer programs under Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, or OSERS, while civil rights enforcement under its Office for Civil Rights would be transferred to the Justice Department.

Democrats have been highly critical of the moves since they were announced.

Families of students with disabilities “deserve an educational system that is going to provide their kids with the education services that (are) required under IDEA,” Hirono said Tuesday.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, guarantees a free public education for students with disabilities. OSERS is responsible for managing and supporting IDEA. The umbrella unit includes the Office of the Assistant Secretary, Office of Special Education Programs and the Rehabilitation Services Administration.

Meanwhile, Education’s Office for Civil Rights is tasked with investigating discrimination complaints from students and families.

Lacking expertise

Democratic critics of the interagency agreements say the Education Department is best equipped to deal with special education programs and civil rights enforcement.

“In my view, neither of these other agencies or departments have the expertise to really be able to handle their piece of this,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen said.

The Maryland Democrat noted that he’d “much rather be in a position where we’re trying to make good things happen than trying to prevent harm to the Department of Education and the effort to make sure that we address the civil rights of students and make sure that people have the special education opportunity that the law requires, but here we are.”

The Education Department announced 10 earlier interagency agreements with HHS, Labor, Interior, State and Treasury in an effort to shift several of its major functions to those agencies.

"One consistent answer"

Valerie C. Williams, who served as director of the Office of Special Education Programs, or OSEP, under the Biden administration, said the deteriorating quality of special education may not be immediately noticed, but would have significant consequences for students.

“Here’s what worries me most, as someone who ran this office: The damage does not announce itself,” she said. “The erosion of enforcement and support does not show up the week it happens. It shows up months later, as a state that quietly stops getting monitored, a complaint that just sits, or a phone call that never gets answered.”

Laurie VanderPloeg, associate executive director for professional affairs at the Council for Exceptional Children, called on members of Congress across the aisle to “stand up for infants, toddlers, children and youth with disabilities by preserving the Department of Education and protecting special education programs from being transferred to another agency.”

VanderPloeg served as director of OSEP during the first Trump administration.

“We must resist the urge to make the fate of children with disabilities political, and urgently remain focused on supporting outcomes for all children,” she said.

Seth Galanter, a senior fellow at the Edley Center on Law and Democracy at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, said “there’s a reason that Congress kept OCR and OSERS in the same building.”

Galanter, who served as the principal deputy assistant secretary for civil rights during the Obama and Biden administrations, said “school districts need one consistent answer on disability rights, not two agencies pulling in different directions.”

Administration defends transfer

Tuesday’s forum came just days after a Senate education panel advanced a bipartisan bill to rein in Trump’s efforts to dismantle the Education Department. The bill would block interagency agreements that transfer programs regarding special education, elementary and secondary education, postsecondary education and Native American education.

That legislation notably would not apply to the administration’s efforts to shift civil rights enforcement under OCR to the Justice Department.

Savannah Newhouse, a spokesperson for the Education Department, doubled down on the administration’s efforts in a statement shared with States Newsroom on Tuesday.

Newhouse said Hirono and her Democratic colleagues “are either completely ignorant to the collapse of American education, or they are actively rooting for the bureaucracy over our children,” adding that “their desperate fearmongering, claiming students will lose guaranteed federal support, is flatly false.”

Newhouse added that under Education’s partnership with Justice, “families retain the exact same direct line to staff for civil rights complaints.”

Regarding Education’s agreement with HHS surrounding special education programs, Newhouse said “OSERS staff remain fully committed to protecting the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) with bolstered support from HHS — an agency that already successfully manages grants and programs that serve individuals with disabilities.”

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Blanche clears key hurdle in bid to lead Justice Department

Ashley Murray, States Newsroom — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 14:42:30 -0400

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche moved one step closer to permanently leading the Justice Department Tuesday after two skeptical Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans voted to advance his nomination, following Blanche’s signed promise that President Donald Trump’s nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund is dead.

Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who had been withholding support for Blanche, voted with other members of the committee along party lines, 12-10, to send Blanche’s nomination to the full Senate. It is unclear how soon the Senate will vote on the confirmation.

Blanche, Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer, issued a brief signed statement on social media Sunday night promising the fund is “rescinded.” An attached unsigned memo stated the tax immunity deal for Trump, his sons and the Trump Organization only applies “retroactively.”

Trump did not sign the documents, and the president has defended the fund in recent days.

Cornyn said ahead of the vote Tuesday that he and Tillis came to an agreement with Justice Department officials on an “agency interpretive guidance document” that reaffirms what Blanche said in his sworn testimony: the tax audit immunity is limited to the parties and subject matter in Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against his administration’s own IRS.

Trump voluntarily dropped the lawsuit in May in exchange for tax enforcement immunity for him, his sons Eric and Don Jr. and the Trump Organization. The agreement also created a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund that could potentially pay out to violent, but now pardoned, Jan. 6 rioters who assaulted police.

“Given this agreement with Mr. Blanche, I expect the department to live up to this in future litigation, and I will vote to advance him out of the committee today,” Cornyn said at the opening of Tuesday’s meeting.

Tillis said the question over the “payout pot for punks” was settled.

“I've never liked this 1776 fund. It made no sense to me, and I thought it was an insult to the police officers and the people that defended us on January the 6th. It's done, it's been rescinded, and I am satisfied,” Tillis said.

Tillis argued “both (sides) have a problem,” and he hopes Blanche will attempt “a bending of the curve of this absurdity.”

“If you want to talk about weaponization, take a look at the Biden administration … Maybe it's a little bit more intense in this administration than the last one, and that a little bit more intense than the prior administration, and so on and so forth. But folks, we've got to end this stuff,” he said.

He added the “bonehead” DOJ official in North Carolina who is prosecuting former FBI Director James Comey for a social media post of seashells on a beach spelling out “8647” — a nod to a restaurant kitchen term to get rid of something — “better damn sure have information to back it up because if all it is is a picture, that person should lose his or her job.”

Democrats united in opposition

All committee Democrats followed ranking member Dick Durbin of Illinois in delivering remarks opposing Blanche’s nomination.

The panel’s minority members raised concerns about Blanche’s handling of the Epstein files, his meeting with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, federal lawsuits involving states’ voter records and a promise to faith leaders that the DOJ will make the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn federal abortion protections “permanent in every single state.”

The Department of Justice did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment about the criticisms.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., chastised his Republican counterparts for comparing the Trump administration’s actions to the Biden administration, including President Joe Biden’s pardons of his son Hunter and other officials just hours before leaving office.

“That is like being obsessed and using a magnifying glass to study the stain on the living room carpet when behind you is a mountain of excrement covering the living room couch and coffee table,” Booker said.

He added that Trump’s recent financial disclosure revealed he made nearly $2 billion in crypto and foreign investments, and pointed to his sons Eric and Don Jr.’s backing of defense tech business ventures.

“The lack of proportionality going on (by) my colleagues, it is laughable,” he said.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., described Blanche’s two-paragraph signed statement and unsigned memo in response to Cornyn and Tillis’ concerns as “decorative.”

Whitehouse said the Trump administration could reverse course and create a similar fund.

“Nothing in this document prevents anything like that from happening,” he added.

Durbin accused Blanche of lying under oath when he denied during his confirmation hearing a comment he made about the “anti-weaponization” fund during a pre-hearing meeting with Durbin.

“Mr. Blanche told me he made, quote, ‘a mistake,’ end quote, by creating the January 6th slush fund. Where did he say it? In my office, with witnesses on my staff to what I'm about to say. When I asked him about this under oath, Mr. Blanche falsely claimed that he never made this statement,” Durbin said.

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., criticized Trump for suing the Internal Revenue Service in the first place. The contractor who leaked Trump’s and his sons’ and organization’s tax information to reporters in 2019 was sentenced for the crime in 2024.

“He waits til he’s president. He sues the IRS for $10 billion. In a stunning act of self-dealing, he purports to settle with himself. He's represented by his personal lawyers on the one hand, and by his other lawyers at the Department of Justice on the other hand,” Schiff said, highlighting the Florida federal judge’s order that Trump used his presidency to “manipulate” the court for his benefit.

“Now there was an effort, and I appreciate my colleagues from Texas and North Carolina making an effort to try to rein in this tax settlement. But what they attempted to achieve has not been achieved,” Schiff said.

Epstein survivors disappointed

Blanche’s nomination vote drew criticism from outside the committee as well.

In an open letter Tuesday, 18 survivors of abuse by the now-deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and convicted sex trafficker Maxwell called the vote “a profound disappointment.”

Survivors have criticized Blanche’s handling of the Epstein files release, which unmasked several survivors’ names and images in the process “while he concealed the identities of alleged abusers and others connected to Epstein’s trafficking network,” the letter stated.

“When we met with Blanche (after his confirmation hearing), he interrupted us. He told us to ‘get to the point.’ He told us to report what happened to us to the FBI. We already have. Some of us have been reporting these crimes for decades,” the survivors wrote.

In another line of criticism, the legal advocacy organization Democracy Forward said in a letter to the Justice Department Monday that Blanche has refused to provide a sworn statement in federal court that the “anti-weaponization” fund will not accept and pay out claims.

Democracy Forward is representing several plaintiffs in a lawsuit over the fund, including a former federal prosecutor who alleges he was fired in June 2025 for his involvement in Jan. 6 prosecutions.

“The American people are not fooled by this latest move, and neither are we. The Trump-Vance administration cannot ask the public or our clients to accept a late-night social media post in place of legally binding action,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, in a statement Monday.

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Funding deal could spare agencies another shutdown fight

Jacob Fischler, States Newsroom — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 14:32:22 -0400

Leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee announced a bipartisan deal over the weekend that would keep the federal government funded through Dec. 11 and pause the Trump administration’s effort to add controversial new criteria for federal grants.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OMB proposal paused

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Road funding extended

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

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

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

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

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

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

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OPM breach victims could get identity protection for life

David DiMolfetta — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 11:00:00 -0400

Federal employees and contractors whose sensitive personal data was stolen in the massive Office of Personnel Management breaches disclosed a decade ago would receive identity protection for the rest of their lives under new bicameral legislation.

Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner, D-Va., and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., plan to introduce the RECOVER PII Act on Monday, aiming to prevent the federal government’s identity-protection program for victims from expiring Sept. 30, according to bill text first seen by Nextgov/FCW. Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va.; Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md.; and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., are also Senate cosponsors.

Just over 10 years after the OPM breaches compromised personal information belonging to roughly 22 million people, the identity-protection services provided to affected federal workers, contractors and their families have begun expiring. People who enrolled in OPM’s MyIDCare program are receiving notices that their complimentary coverage will end 10 years after their individual enrollment date. Some notices began arriving late last year and will continue through September, when OPM plans to conclude the services at the end of the federal fiscal year.

“More than ten years after the OPM data breach exposed the personal information of millions of federal employees, the threat remains,” Warner said in the statement. “The data stolen included workers’ most sensitive and personal information — from Social Security numbers to security clearance records — and once that information is in the hands of a bad actor, you don’t get it back.”

The two breaches compromised information belonging to some 22.1 million current, former and prospective federal employees, contractors and others. One intrusion exposed personnel records for roughly 4.2 million people, while a second compromised 21.5 million background-investigation records. About 3.6 million people were affected in both incidents, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Foreign intelligence services can hold onto these OPM records for years, combine them with information from other cyber intrusions and use the fuller picture to identify or target government personnel and their families.

Those risks can also grow over time. Data stolen from a lower-level employee in 2015 could become far more valuable if that person later moves into a more sensitive national security role. GAO warned last year that adversaries can combine publicly available data to identify military personnel and their families or disrupt Defense Department operations.

Congress responded to the breach in a 2017 appropriations law by requiring OPM to provide victims with at least 10 years of complimentary identity protection and no less than $5 million in identity-theft insurance. The new bill would replace that limit with coverage lasting for the remainder of each affected person’s life while retaining the insurance requirement.

“We have a responsibility to stand by the federal workers who were put at risk through no fault of their own,” Warner said. “This legislation will ensure those affected continue to receive the identity protection they need, while helping better safeguard personal information from future exploitation.”

The bill would also allow agencies to reimburse federal employees and contractors for privacy tools and services, such as those that remove or limit their personal information online. Agencies would decide whether to offer the reimbursements, which would not be limited to OPM breach victims and would come from their salary-and-expense budgets.

Norton has introduced legislation in the past seeking lifetime protection for OPM victims, beginning after the breaches were disclosed. Similar bills introduced over the years have not become law.

“Lifetime identity protection is the only solution that will give the workers whose data was compromised the peace of mind they deserve,” Norton said in a statement. “Because there is no limit on how long personal information can be exploited, Congress must protect these federal employees and contractors in perpetuity. Thank you to Senator Warner for working with me to secure this vital protection for those affected.”

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Education reorganization faces bipartisan pushback, as lawmakers push to disclose price tag

Jory Heckman — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 15:44:49 -0400

The Education Department’s plans to transfer its core functions to other agencies, part of the Trump administration’s effort to shutter the department, are facing bipartisan opposition.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee advanced legislation Thursday that would reverse more than a quarter of the Education Department’s interagency agreements that undergirded those moves.

The bill would unwind the Education Department’s plans to move its Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services to the Health and Human Services Department, its Office of Postsecondary Education and Office of Elementary and Secondary Education to the Labor Department and its Office of Indian Education to the Interior Department.

The Education Department has signed 14 interagency agreements to move its employees and programs to other agencies on a temporary basis.

The Trump administration can’t close down the Education Department without approval from Congress. Education Secretary Linda McMahon told employees last fall that implementing these interagency agreements would give the department a proof-of-concept to show to lawmakers and convince them that the department is no longer needed.

Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy, R-La., said it “would be a mistake” to transfer the Education Department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) to the Department of Health and Human Services – but voted against the bill, adding that he’s not opposed to all of the department’s reorganization plans.

“I don't oppose all these IAAs. I do think the administration should be allowed to pilot how to address inefficiencies and the potential for efficiencies by operationalizing these IAAs,” he said.

Cassidy added that he would support Education moving OSERS to the Labor Department, rather than folding it into the “tremendous bureaucracy of HHS, in which we read every day about some crisis or another.”

“Is the Department of Ed staff that will be transferred there empowered and prioritized? I have my doubts,” he said.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the Education Department’s plan to transfer OSERS to HHS “fundamentally misunderstands the history and intent of the special education program.”

“These transfers are misaligned with their program purposes,” she said.

Collins said the bill “keeps the administration of important landmark education programs at the Department of Education, where Congress specifically put them and where they belong.”

Chad Rummel, the chief executive officer of the Council for Exceptional Children, a special education organization, told Government Executive that the committee sent a "bipartisan, clear message that we are not okay with putting support for students with disabilities at risk.”

“This might throw some sand in the gears of this movement, but this administration is hellbent on bringing down the department,” Rummel said.

McMahon asked congressional leaders to support the department’s reorganization efforts in a letter Thursday.

“Misconceptions have circulated” about the interagency agreements, she wrote, but “have demonstrated measurable results by driving stronger grant competitions, streamlining government operations, and producing better outcomes for Americans.”

Savannah Newhouse, the department’s press secretary, said in a statement that it was “downright malpractice” for lawmakers to reject the department’s reorganization efforts before giving them a chance to demonstrate results.

“Secretary McMahon promised Congress a proof of concept that is currently underway and delivering results across our partner agencies, and it is entirely premature to sabotage this effort before it has the chance to eliminate bureaucratic barriers and fully deliver the results that our students, families, and educators deserve,” Newhouse said.

The committee advanced the bill with an amendment from Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., that would require the Education Department to publicly disclose the costs associated with each of these interagency agreements.

“Secretary McMahon is duplicating the work the department was already working by asking other agencies to do it instead, and then claiming that somehow this makes government more efficient. Fine, prove it. Show us the receipts,” Murray said.

In internal documents, Education officials have raised concerns about offloading work to other agencies and predicted significant challenges along the way. Murray said that in one of the interagency agreements, Education is paying the Labor Department more than a million dollars “to do its job.”

Congress fully funded the Education Department in its spending package for fiscal 2026, rejecting both the Trump administration’s plans for deep budget cuts and transferring programs to other agencies.

Lawmakers wrote in the spending deal that agencies taking on Education Department programs do not have the “experience, expertise or capacity” to carry out the work or properly communicate with stakeholders. The Education Department, however, continues to reassign its work to other agencies.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the Education Department is transferring its Office of Indian Education to the Interior Department without consultation from impacted tribes.

Murkowski voted for the bill, but said she doesn’t oppose all of the Education Department plans to reassign programs.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said the Education Department under the Trump administration has “changed for the better.”

“When we stop the government from streamlining operations, it doesn't help students. It simply preserves bureaucracy,” he added.

Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), who has a special needs son, said special education programs at the Education Department have “expanded opportunities not just for my son, but for all sorts of young people who were written off when they should not have been.”

“I appreciate that there are reforms necessary at the Department of Education. There are reforms necessary in the special education system, to be sure, but I don't want us to lose sight of the purpose of this particular unit within the Department of Education and the difference it has made to millions of lives,” Hassan said.

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IRS could be required to publicly report wait times and backlogs

Jory Heckman — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 17:17:55 -0400

A bipartisan bill focused on improving customer service at the IRS is headed for a full Senate vote.

The Senate Finance Committee advanced the Taxpayer Assistance and Service Act in a 26-1 vote during a Thursday markup hearing. The bill contains over 60 IRS reforms proposed by Republicans and Democrats on the committee and the agency’s National Taxpayer Advocate.

IRS leadership touted the agency’s performance during this year's filing season, despite the agency shedding more than a quarter of its employees. Agency watchdogs, however, have raised concerns with the agency’s level of responsiveness to taxpayers.

Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said some provisions in the bill would “slash wait times” for Americans who may otherwise “spend an afternoon on hold” with the IRS.

“This bipartisan bill modernizes and streamlines IRS operations, strengthens taxpayer rights, and delivers a more taxpayer-first system,” Crapo said. “It reflects years of bipartisan efforts to translate stories of casework frustrations and tangible fixes designed to make the IRS work more efficiently for the American people.”

Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said many of the bill’s provisions “will help ensure that refunds get out the door on time.”

“They're going to improve customer service. They're going to make it easier for taxpayers to get help during filing season,” Wyden said.

The bill would require the IRS to create a public dashboard on its website featuring metrics on its call volume, backlogs, wait times and the availability of callbacks. It would require the IRS to offer a callback option for all of its phone lines by 2028 whenever calls are not answered within five minutes.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who included these provisions, said the bill would provide added transparency whenever the IRS falls behind on processing returns or correspondence, “eliminating guessing games for taxpayers wondering why their refunds haven't arrived.”

IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank Bisignano told IRS employees just before the start of the filing season that the agency would adopt new customer service metrics, scrapping its level-of-service phone metric that had been in use for about 20 years.

The IRS shed about 27% of its workforce last year largely through voluntary separation incentives. Bisignano told lawmakers in April that the agency saw its “most successful filing season in IRS history,” demonstrating that the IRS can have both “less people and better results.”

National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins, in a report to Congress submitted last month, wrote that “for most taxpayers, the filing season went smoothly,” but that for millions of taxpayers requiring assistance, the filing season was “frustrating, confusing, and financially disruptive.”

Collins wrote that taxpayers in some cases could not reach an IRS employee over the phone despite multiple calls, and taxpayers whose returns were erroneously flagged by identity theft filters had to wait weeks or months to receive their tax refunds.

“With fewer employees and even fewer experienced employees, personal service was harder to come by. That translated to longer waits for assistance, fewer experienced employees available to work on complex account issues, delayed responses to correspondence and, as a result, longer case resolution times,” she wrote.

The bill would require the IRS to accept and process all returns electronically, and to digitize returns and taxpayer correspondence.

The agency, through its Zero Paper Initiative, is trying to digitize incoming paper tax returns and correspondence to reduce processing times. As of December 2025, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that four contractors hired by the IRS to digitize paper tax returns processed about 379,000 of the agency’s 10.7 million paper returns — about 4% of its inventory.

The bill would also take steps to ensure the IRS pays whistleblowers more quickly. The IRS Whistleblower Office, since 2007, has helped the agency recover nearly $8 billion in taxes owed. Whistleblowers are entitled to a portion of the funds the IRS recovers, but they typically wait for more than decade to get paid.

The bill requires the IRS to pay interest on delayed whistleblower awards. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said these reforms “will lead to even greater collections moving forward.”

Several lawmakers raised concerns that the bill doesn’t do anything to address the agency’s widespread staffing losses.

Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said the bill doesn’t do anything to address the agency’s staffing losses or a growing “tax gap” between what taxpayers owe and what the IRS is able to collect.

“Making sure that the IRS is funded and staffed is essential to having a fair system,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. “We look at the cuts that came through earlier this year. It means we're eliminating trained and experienced revenue agents who can audit and do complex returns.”

The Yale Budget Lab estimated that last year’s staffing cuts resulted a $861 billion decrease in revenue collected by the IRS.

“Those cuts won't produce savings. They just actually cost money," Cantwell said.

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CDC nominee clears key Senate hurdle despite vaccine scrutiny

Shauneen Miranda, States Newsroom — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 14:56:05 -0400

Dr. Erica Schwartz got a step closer in her bid to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after a key U.S. Senate panel propelled her nomination to the Senate floor Thursday.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions voted, 13-10, to advance Schwartz’s nomination with all GOP members backing her bid. President Donald Trump nominated Schwartz in April.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., was the only Democrat on the panel who voted to move her nomination forward.

Thursday’s vote followed a tense confirmation hearing this month, during which members from both parties grilled Schwartz over how she would deal with any political interference from the Trump administration when it comes to vaccine policy.

The panel’s chair, Sen. Bill Cassidy, appeared dissatisfied with Schwartz’s responses at her confirmation hearing, but ultimately moved to advance her bid.

“After speaking with Dr. Schwartz again after the hearing, reviewing the transcript and speaking to those who have served with her and know her well, I’m confident that she knows what she is doing and will stand against those who do not,” the Louisiana Republican said July 23, the day the committee had initially scheduled the vote before a postponement.

If confirmed, Schwartz would be responsible for the national public health agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, which has taken heat over the vaccine-skeptical agenda pursued by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Susan Monarez, the former CDC director, told the Senate panel in September she was fired for resisting Kennedy’s orders regarding vaccines.

Schwartz worked as an occupational medicine physician in the U.S. Navy. She transferred to the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, where she achieved the rank of rear admiral.

Schwartz also served as the chief medical officer of the U.S Coast Guard and later as deputy surgeon general of the United States.

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DOJ nominee faces confirmation hurdle over agency commitments

Gabby Birenbaum, The Texas Tribune — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 18:53:12 -0400

Todd Blanche’s path to permanent confirmation as U.S. attorney general appears endangered amid concerns from Sen. John Cornyn, who says the Department of Justice has not provided him with the assurances he needs to vote Blanche’s nomination through the Judiciary Committee.

Blanche, who was formerly President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, has led the Justice Department on an acting basis since April. Cornyn, unburdened by the usual political pressures after losing his Republican primary in May, has been a key undecided vote on putting Blanche permanently in charge of the agency, maintaining his opposition to a nearly $1.8 billion settlement agreement that the DOJ, under Blanche, reached with Trump to pay out victims of alleged DOJ weaponization.

Critics have voiced unease over the possibility that the fund could be used to compensate rioters who assaulted police officers when they stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Though the DOJ backtracked and declared the fund dead, Cornyn has insisted that Blanche pen a written agreement nullifying it and assuring that it will not be revived in lawsuits. The outgoing Texas senator also wants the DOJ to modify, in writing, an audit immunity shield that the agency extended to Trump and his associates as part of the settlement agreement.

Cornyn and Blanche were set to meet Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s committee vote, but the senator said the meeting was called off. He told reporters the DOJ has not come through with the written guarantees he’s requested, and that if his demands were unsatisfied by Wednesday afternoon, the Judiciary Committee may need to pull tomorrow’s vote.

Less than two hours before the deadline, Cornyn said the DOJ had not followed up with him after he had sent over a “redline strikeout of what we need.”

“We’ve tried to make it easy for them,” Cornyn said. “They won’t take the help.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, after the deadline Cornyn laid out, the Senate Judiciary Committee had not made any changes to its schedule, keeping the Blanche vote on tap for Thursday morning.

The Blanche episode is the most prominent example yet of how Cornyn — long a team player and steady hand within the Republican conference — is using his leverage over the administration in the final months of his Senate career. Republicans control 12 of 22 seats on the Judiciary Committee that is deciding whether to advance Blanche’s nomination to the full chamber, meaning a defection from Cornyn would leave the committee deadlocked in a tie.

Cornyn ran for a fifth term but lost the Republican nomination to Attorney General Ken Paxton in a May runoff. The senior senator was the Senate’s second-in-command during Trump’s first term and pushed heavily for the president’s endorsement in his primary, even filing a bill to rename a section of highway after the president. After holding out for months, Trump endorsed Paxton, a longtime ally who tried to overturn the 2020 election results in key battleground states.

In the months since his runoff loss, Cornyn has played hardball.

“Maybe they think I’m just going to give up or go along,” Cornyn told reporters Wednesday morning. “But they’re mistaken.”

He successfully urged the Trump administration to move faster in releasing funds that Congress appropriated last year to reimburse states for border spending during the Biden administration, much of which is expected to go to Texas. And he threatened to vote against diplomatic nominations unless he received assurances that the Trump administration would distribute unspent funds on a global program combating HIV that began during George W. Bush’s presidency.

Meanwhile, Trump said he expected Blanche’s confirmation to be routine — and offered his own interpretation of Cornyn’s position.

“Maybe John Cornyn’s upset with me because I didn’t endorse him,” Trump said Wednesday afternoon in the Oval Office. “I don’t know what it is. But I haven’t heard that there’s a problem. I heard he’s going through quite nicely.”

Blanche did not answer questions from reporters Wednesday about his discussions with Cornyn or what he’s offered the senator.

At issue in Blanche’s nomination is whether Trump, or others, will be able to access taxpayer money over claims that the government was weaponized against them, and whether certain guardrails will be placed on the immunity from tax audits. Cornyn wants a guarantee in writing that the audit protection applies only to people who were parties to the lawsuit, and that it does not provide immunity for would-be future cases nor prevent other federal agencies from pursuing audits.

“They know what they need to do,” Cornyn said Wednesday morning. “But they simply refuse to do it.”

He added that he is “not prepared to vote yes” on Blanche’s nomination.

Could Trump’s potential support of the fund and the audit shield be the obstacle?

“I can see why he wants it, because it provides immunity from audits that no other taxpayer could possibly get,” Cornyn said. “That’s why we need to conform the actual document to what Todd Blanche testified to under oath.”

In a highly unusual move, Trump sued his own government in January, bringing a case against the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of the Treasury over the unauthorized release of his tax returns in 2019 and 2020. As part of the May settlement between Trump and the DOJ, which represented the IRS, Blanche issued an order barring the tax agency from auditing or examining the tax returns of the president, his family and his businesses.

The agreement was met with widespread criticism and allegations of corruption. Blanche eventually agreed to terminate the “anti-weaponization fund.” At his nomination hearing in mid-July, he called the issue moot and assured Cornyn that the fund was dead.

The verbal commitment proved insufficient for Cornyn, who has remained set on establishing concrete assurances that the fund cannot be brought back to life in any form and that the audit immunity will be as narrow as Blanche said he intends it to be during his Judiciary hearing. At Blanche’s nomination hearing, Cornyn pressed him on the potential for the fund to be resurrected by end-runs such as future breach of contract lawsuits from Trump or others in his orbit. Blanche continued to state that the fund was dead but conceded that, absent a written agreement or addendum, a plaintiff could sue.

The question-and-answer period between Cornyn and Blanche was, in typical Cornyn fashion, a polite exchange. But the former Texas attorney general and Supreme Court justice pointed out that Blanche’s promises were not reflected in the text of the agreement, and he has been unwilling to budge on his quest for the settlement agreement to be changed in writing.

Leading up to the nomination vote, Cornyn reiterated to reporters that this remained the key sticking point for whether he would support advancing Blanche to the Senate floor. He suggested Thursday’s vote could be postponed in order to get a termination clause on paper.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who, like Cornyn, sits on the Judiciary Committee and is in his final term, has expressed similar reservations about confirming Blanche.

Cornyn and Tillis’ opposition has left Blanche’s nomination at serious risk, a rare occurrence in a GOP-led Senate that has shown significant deference to the White House on nominees. The Senate has yet to formally reject any of Trump’s picks, and the White House has only had to withdraw a handful of picks.

Beyond the anti-weaponization fund, a group of Jeffrey Epstein survivors has also pushed senators to block Blanche’s nomination based on his handling of the late child sex trafficker’s case and alleged treatment of them. They met with Cornyn’s staff Wednesday morning.

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.

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How TSA passenger screening became an immigration enforcement tool

Ariana Figueroa, States Newsroom — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 14:47:27 -0400

The Trump administration has for more than a year used personal information airline passengers provide to the Transportation Security Administration for immigration enforcement, according to documents obtained by a government watchdog group.

The documents, collected by the government accountability organization American Oversight, show for the first time a formal data-sharing agreement between TSA and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that has been in place since May 2025.

The agreement contradicts congressional testimony from a TSA official who told lawmakers passenger data was not being collected for the purpose of immigration enforcement.

American Oversight obtained the records in a federal lawsuit to compel their release through a Freedom of Information Act request. The group posted the documents online Tuesday with a cover letter showing they were obtained July 23.

The New York Times first reported on the agreement between TSA and ICE.

As the Trump administration continues its aggressive deportation campaign in the country's interior, access to passenger information opens a larger group of people to immigration enforcement. It is unclear from the documents how many deportations or other immigration enforcement actions the agreement has generated.

Any noncitizen who has an expired visa, is awaiting a legal status renewal or is not authorized to be in the country could have their passenger information handed over to immigration officials under the agreement.

American Oversight Executive Director Chioma Chukwu said in a statement the agreement sets "a dangerous precedent with consequences far beyond immigration."

"Americans provide their personal information to board a plane safely, not to become part of an immigration enforcement system or a government surveillance network," Chukwu said. "Once the government begins expanding how it uses Americans' personal information, it raises profound concerns about privacy, civil liberties, and public trust."

TSA and ICE are both within the Department of Homeland Security. The agreement between the agencies will remain in effect until officials terminate it. It will be reviewed every five years to determine whether it should continue, according to the agreement.

Testimony to Congress

In January, acting TSA Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill told lawmakers on the House Homeland Security Committee that the agency shares some information with ICE but does not "send the information to ICE."

Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., asked McNeill about an agreement with ICE to share information for the purpose of checking whether passengers have a deportation order.

"That is not what is occurring," she said. "We don't send the information to ICE, we help ICE check against information."

Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., also asked McNeill what passenger information TSA was sharing with ICE.

McNeill did not detail the information TSA shares with ICE but said her agency was "within our authorities to share information within the Department of Homeland Security to further the national security mission."

In the newly released documents, TSA cites the 2008 Secure Flight Final Rule as its authority to share data with ICE. The TSA regulation lays out federal procedures for using passenger information for aviation safety.

David Cummins, the president's pick to be TSA administrator, did not detail the information TSA and ICE share when pressed by Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters during his Senate confirmation hearing this month.

Cummins said he would "try to provide as much as we can within our bounds" but said he could not commit to sharing details.

TSA and DHS did not respond to States Newsroom's request for comment.

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Senate confirms Clayton as Trump’s next intelligence director

David DiMolfetta — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 10:00:17 -0400

The Senate on Tuesday night confirmed Jay Clayton to serve as President Donald Trump’s second permanent national intelligence director, replacing an acting chief whose leadership alarmed Democrats and disrupted efforts to renew a major foreign surveillance program.

Clayton was confirmed in a 51-47 vote. He will oversee the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which coordinates the work of the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies and serves as the president’s principal intelligence adviser.

His confirmation ends Bill Pulte’s roughly six-week tenure as acting director, during which the Trump loyalist presided over repeated personnel cuts and faced accusations that he was politicizing the intelligence community. Pulte said Tuesday that ODNI had completed a fifth round of cuts without disclosing details of who was affected.

Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman during Trump’s first term, was initially viewed by some Democrats as a stabilizing alternative to Pulte. Democrats had pushed the White House to nominate a permanent intelligence director and agreed with Senate Republicans to move Clayton’s confirmation process quickly, hoping to curtail Pulte’s time in the role.

But Clayton shed much of that prospective support during his confirmation hearing this month, when he repeatedly declined to say directly that former President Joe Biden won the 2020 election. The Senate Intelligence Committee advanced Clayton’s nomination last week in a 9-8 party-line vote, with every Democrat and Democratic-aligned independent on the panel opposing him.

Clayton also faced scrutiny over subpoenas his office issued to New York Times journalists in an effort to identify the sources behind reporting on security shortcomings of Trump’s new, Qatari-donated Air Force One.

During his hearing, Clayton defended the Justice Department’s handling of the investigation and said he was comfortable that prosecutors had followed the proper process. The department withdrew the subpoenas days later, however, after a federal judge sharply questioned government attorneys about how they had obtained reporters’ phone records and whether they had complied with legal safeguards intended to protect journalists.

Clayton also signaled that he wants the intelligence community to devote more attention to the connections between economic competition and national security, an emphasis informed by his time overseeing U.S. financial markets.

“National security and economic security are synonymous,” Clayton told lawmakers. Understanding the economic consequences of major events and their broader effects, he added, should be a larger part of what the intelligence community provides policymakers.

His arrival could also revive negotiations over Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the government to collect the electronic communications of non-U.S. citizens located abroad without a warrant.

The authority statutorily lapsed in June after Democrats joined other lawmakers in blocking a largely unchanged renewal package, citing Pulte’s installation as acting intelligence director. Democrats had argued that they would reconsider an extension once the Senate confirmed a permanent official to lead the intelligence community.

Intelligence collection under Section 702 has continued despite the expiration, with providers still complying with government requests to furnish communications for spy agencies, House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., told Nextgov/FCW last week, but he added that, at any moment, “they can decide to challenge the validity of the request” and he is “very concerned” by that possibility.

Asked whether a Clayton confirmation would help get votes necessary to legislatively reauthorize Section 702, Himes said “I think that certainly helps.”

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Pulte announces 30% ODNI staff reduction hours before Clayton vote

David DiMolfetta — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 17:51:13 -0400

Acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte announced another round of sweeping personnel cuts at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Tuesday, hours before the Senate was expected to confirm his permanent replacement.

Pulte wrote on X that "we are, this morning, Executing a 5th and Near Final Round of TERMINATIONS, an approximately 30% Staff Reduction from Weeks Ago."

“The Intelligence Community must protect the American people, NOT the political whims of the bloated and corrupt elite class,” he added.

He did not disclose the number of workers affected, what parts of ODNI were targeted or whether the terminations involved employees being dismissed from federal service or intelligence officers being returned to their home agencies. A significant part of ODNI’s workforce consists of personnel detailed from other parts of the intelligence community.

It was also unclear what baseline Pulte used to calculate the 30% reduction. ODNI had already undergone substantial downsizing before he took over, including workforce reductions launched under former intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard.

The announcement came just two days after Pulte said ODNI had completed a fourth round of layoffs, which he characterized as “thoughtful” and “measured.”

Pulte has moved rapidly to shrink the office since becoming acting director in June. His earliest changes included the departure of six career and political employees and the return of roughly 50 intelligence officers to their home agencies. Affected officials have included the deputy director of national intelligence for mission integration.

President Donald Trump selected Pulte, who also leads the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to temporarily oversee the nation’s 18 intelligence organizations after Gabbard stepped down earlier this year, citing her husband’s cancer diagnosis.

Pulte’s appointment drew criticism over his lack of intelligence experience and his use of the housing agency to pursue mortgage-fraud allegations involving perceived Trump adversaries, including Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. In his brief tenure leading ODNI, he has been involved in a sweeping document declassification spree tied to Trump’s insecurities about U.S. election security.

The Senate is scheduled to vote on Tuesday night on the nomination of Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former Securities and Exchange Commission chair, to permanently serve as director of national intelligence, removing Pulte from the acting role. Clayton is expected to be confirmed after his nomination cleared a procedural vote Monday in a 51-43 party-line tally.

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As presidents gain power, who keeps government accountable?

James-Christian Blockwood — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 12:08:08 -0400

The Supreme Court ruling in Trump v. Slaughter, a 6-3 decision that overturned Humphrey's Executor, significantly limits statutory protections that prevent the president from removing certain independent agency heads without cause. This marks a major shift from longstanding precedent in the American administrative state and paves the way for broader changes in the relationship between the executive branch and independent agencies.

Good government has never depended solely on a president. Like many important elements of our democracy, responsibility is distributed across an engaged electorate, principled leaders, effective oversight bodies and individual public servants committed to the Constitution. As presidential powers expand and the balance of authority evolves, the strength of American government will increasingly rely on its institutions, particularly the people entrusted to lead them.

Civil servants and institutional leaders must act with integrity and stand firm in their principles of leadership, especially when facing potential political pressure.

Supporters of the Slaughter ruling argue that it restores constitutional accountability and will allow future presidents to more effectively implement the policy agendas on which they were elected and better fulfill the promises made to voters. Critics caution that reducing the independence of agencies is likely to increase politicization and weaken important institutional safeguards. Regardless of where one stands, the decision places greater importance on democratic accountability.

Congress has an increasingly important role to play. Congressional leaders should fully embrace their oversight responsibilities and reinvigorate the legislative branch's role as an essential constitutional check on executive power.

The decision also places renewed emphasis on whom we elect as president, whom we send to Congress and whom the Senate confirms to lead our nation's institutions. We the people, particularly civil servants, should recommit ourselves to strengthening the institutions that nurture and preserve accountability, transparency and the rule of law. We should also want, expect and empower our duly elected president to lead within these boundaries.

Our institutions are resilient and purpose-built. We should not lose faith in our system of governance because of the outcomes it sometimes produces.

We rely heavily on the judgment, courage and ethical leadership of individuals. Laws and institutions are important, but they have always depended on people willing to uphold and enforce them.

Independent agency heads have significant discretion. They can risk termination and demonstrate strength by resigning when circumstances require it. Some already have. These institutional leaders must be able to manage their agencies in unbiased and apolitical ways.

Throughout our history, politically appointed leaders and career civil servants alike have spoken truth to power, upheld the public trust and reminded us that leadership is an act of character.

While presidents wield enormous constitutional authority, that authority remains subject to our system of separated powers. Congress possesses immense oversight and accountability powers, provided it chooses to exercise them. Our elected and appointed leaders must possess both a strong moral compass and a steadfast commitment to the Constitution and the public they serve.

Presidential actions depend on leaders to implement them and are subject to oversight by Congress, review by the courts and accountability to the American public. Ultimately, the integrity of agency leadership will continue to shape our independent institutions. Likewise, the reach of executive authority will continue to be influenced by Congress, the judiciary and what the American people are willing to accept through the democratic process.

Whether one celebrates this decision or views it with concern, we should carefully monitor what happens next, mindful of personal responsibility and institutional accountability.

The strength of our constitutional republic has never rested with one branch or one individual. It is kept by principled leaders, institutions worthy of public trust and citizens who are willing to exercise both their rights and their responsibilities in defense of good government.

James-Christian Blockwood is president and chief executive officer of the National Academy of Public Administration, a congressionally chartered nonprofit that helps leaders build more effective, efficient, accountable and transparent organizations. He previously held roles at the Partnership for Public Service and the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Government Accountability Office, and is a career member of the Senior Executive Service. He is an adjunct professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

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Government service delivery needs standard definitions, former government tech leaders say

Christian Robles — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 16:33:23 -0400

Tech Viaduct, a group of technologists and public servants drafting a day one playbook for the next administration, is urging Congress to standardize the definition of common terms — such as disability, homelessness and income — to make government service delivery more efficient.

“Simplifying definitions is necessary and the sensible first step to making technological solutions possible. The next administration should come prepared with legislation that would simplify the laws governing the safety net,” the Tech Viaduct paper reads.

With standard definitions, creating software that can serve as a single front door for government benefits becomes possible, Arabella Crawford, a former U.S. Digital Service employee and paper co-author, told Nextgov/FCW.

The paper, which is the first Tech Viaduct has released since the project launched in January, details how federal and state agencies rely on vastly different definitions for disability, homelessness and income. Those differences, dubbed “administrative homographs,” mean “Americans miss out on benefits they are eligible to receive while agencies are forced to be less efficient,” the paper claims.

For example, the paper notes that the the Department of Housing and Urban Development defines homelessness as “an individual or family who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence” and includes people who stay in places not meant for habitation.

But the Department of Education uses a similar definition for homeless children while also counting people sharing housing due to hardship, living in motels, camping and similar circumstances as homeless.

In practical terms, the discrepancy means that a couch-surfing veteran staying at a friend’s house would not be considered homeless under HUD’s definition but their children staying at the same place would be considered homeless under Education’s definition, the paper explains.

A community-based service organization tasked with supporting the veteran and their children would then have to “track and differentiate its services based on these separate definitions. This level of complexity impedes the efficiency and scope of service delivery when Americans need assistance most,” the paper claims.

Further adding to the complexity is that foster care systems and the federal Runaway and Homeless Youth Act rely on additional definitions of homelessness, the paper adds.

Similar complexities exist between SNAP, Medicaid, Section 8 housing and other programs, which all count income in different ways. The result of those differences is that income data collected for one program likely does not apply to another program even though both try to support the same population.

Congress should reconcile differences with legislation that mandates and provides “funding to develop a common glossary of federally regulated definitions across programs, highlight when these terms differ, and provide guidance on how to reconcile the differences,” the paper urges.

“Even if Congress can’t decide on a single common definition for terms, lawmakers should consolidate where they can and ensure differences are clearly defined and straightforward for agencies to reconcile. In tandem, Congress should instruct the Office of Management and Budget to harmonize program definitions and map out where they conflict in order to identify further changes needed to reduce administrative burden,” the paper adds.

Tech Viaduct is working on additional papers and resources around government procurement, workforce and data management, Christopher Whitaker, paper co-author and executive director of the Alliance of Civic Technologists, told Nextgov/FCW.

Technologists who previously served in the federal government started Tech Viaduct earlier this year, in part as a reaction to the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency.

The group, which is a project of the Democratic think tank Searchlight Institute, wants the next “friendly administration” to adopt plans to make tech-enabled government service delivery thrive, Nextgov/FCW previously reported. Those plans will include structural reform objectives, day-one executive orders, memoranda and more.

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Suit alleges DHS targeted people observing and protesting immigration agents

Jacob Fischler, States Newsroom — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 10:26:39 -0400

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Driven home by ICE"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chilling rights

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

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

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

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

DHS response

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

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

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

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

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

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Attorney general nomination faces another week of scrutiny

Ashley Murray, States Newsroom — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 06:00:00 -0400

Members of the Senate tasked with advancing acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination to be the nation’s top law enforcer on Thursday pushed the vote back one week.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s delayed vote to send the controversial nominee to the full Senate is “per standard committee practice,” according to a spokesperson for Chairman Chuck Grassley.

The Iowa Republican and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., used the time that had been allocated for the vote to comment at length on Blanche’s nomination. Grassley then recessed the session because too many Republicans were absent, which he described as “kind of rude.”

Grassley praised the selection of Blanche and said the Justice Department under his leadership as deputy and acting attorney general “has protected Americans at every turn,” but that committee Democrats “like clockwork, sought to defame him.”

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., led a forum Wednesday featuring former Justice Department officials and a survivor of abuse by the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.

The witnesses questioned Blanche’s fitness to lead the Justice Department following his handling of the Epstein files release, during which several victims’ identities were unmasked, and his role in establishing a nearly $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund as part of President Donald Trump’s settlement with his own administration’s IRS.

Durbin said Thursday he and fellow Democrats oppose Blanche, who worked as Trump’s personal defense lawyer prior to his appointment to the Justice Department, because he "will continue to serve the interests of Donald Trump, not the American people."

Sen. Darline Graham joins committee

Committee members were scheduled to address other business, including voting on federal judicial nominees in Ohio and Oklahoma and approving subcommittee roles for Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham. She was sworn in July 14 following the sudden death of her brother.

The committee meeting marked the first for Graham, who was not yet part of the panel when members questioned Blanche for nearly five hours during a confirmation hearing July 15. Her arrival on the GOP-led committee brings the split among members back to 12 Republicans and 10 Democrats and is likely a positive development for Blanche.

Nominations require a majority vote to advance to the Senate floor. All eyes are on whether committee Republicans Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who announced his retirement last year, and John Cornyn of Texas will support Blanche after Trump effectively ended both of their Senate careers.

Trump subjected Tillis to intense criticism for opposing the Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025 and said he would find candidates to oppose Tillis in his primary. Trump endorsed Cornyn’s primary opponent earlier this year.

Both Tillis and Cornyn pressed Blanche during his confirmation hearing about formally ending the "anti-weaponization" fund.

While Cornyn attended Thursday morning’s Judiciary Committee meeting, Tillis was one of several members absent. Grassley’s spokesperson attributed Tillis’ absence to a Senate Banking Committee meeting that convened just a half-hour before the scheduled Judiciary Committee meeting. Tillis’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about his absence.

Blanche was a prosecutor in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from 2006 to 2014.

He later left the Justice Department for private practice and represented Trump as his personal defense attorney in three criminal cases in 2023 and 2024.

Trump, with Senate Republican approval, installed Blanche as deputy attorney general in March 2025.

Trump announced Blanche as his pick for attorney general in early June, just over two months after former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s departure.

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USPS nominations test the future of bipartisan boards

Erich Wagner and Jory Heckman — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 17:42:47 -0400

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gary Peters, D-Mich, asked Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., this week to put a hold on the current slate of USPS nominees until the administration identifies Democratic nominees to also serve on the board.

The USPS Board of Governors, which currently has two Democratic members, one Republican member and one independent member. The board has five vacancies, and Trump has submitted four Republican nominees. By law, no more than five members of the USPS board can belong to the same political party.

“This imbalance in representation would be unprecedented and would undermine public confidence in the Board’s ability to serve the public interest above any partisan political aims,” Peters wrote.

Trump submitted a mix of Democratic and Republican nominees to the USPS board during his first administration and consulted with congressional leaders from both political parties, keeping with the tradition of prior administrations.

“Unfortunately, President Trump has departed from this long-standing practice and has not engaged in any consultation with the Senate Minority Leader or the Ranking Member of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs,” Peters wrote.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and the top Democrats on several Senate committees sent a letter to the White House last month pushing back on the administration’s broader lack of Democratic nominees for independent agenices.

Peters’ letter comes less than a month after the Supreme Court’s decision in Slaughter v. Federal Trade Commission stripped removal protections from members of independent boards and commissions. Though that decision does not explicitly address instances when Congress has required the president nominate members of the other political party, Chief Justice John Roberts said Congress may not “saddle him with those with whom he cannot work.”

Trump has been more personally involved in USPS operations than his recent predecessors. He signed an executive order in March directing states to send USPS a list of voters who vote by mail, and to refuse to mail ballots to unlisted voters. State governments have the primary responsibility of carrying out elections.

Early in Trump’s second term, USPS agreed to work with Census Bureau this year on a test of the upcoming decennial count. Trump also considered merging USPS with the Commerce Department.

In his first term, Trump threatened to withhold pandemic relief funds from USPS unless it agreed to charge Amazon higher rates to deliver its packages. A Treasury Department task force also recommended privatizing some postal operations.

Paul Steidler, a senior fellow at the Lexington Institute, said it’s important to consider the nominations “in the broader context of the Trump administration’s views about Democratic appointments” and the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that gave the administration sweeping authority to fire members of independent agencies.

“It’s important to see the president’s actions in light of the Slaughter decision, and in light of the fact that the Supreme Court has backed up his ability to remove board members that he doesn’t want to have in place,” Steidler said.

Steidler said the postmaster general “has a ton of power, relative to the board,” and that the board’s political composition shouldn’t distract from the broader issue of postal reform and keeping USPS from running out of cash.

“Whether you like it or not, this gives Trump and the Republicans ownership of fixing the Postal Service,” Steidler said. “The focus has to be in reengineering the Postal Service. Part of that should be having a stronger, independent board that can look into what’s going on, and raise the alarm bells when there are serious issues that should be of concern to the American people.”

A spokesman for the American Postal Workers Union told Government Executive that the union is concerned the Trump administration has submitted nominees without any postal or logistics background. APWU will hold a national day of action outside post offices next Tuesday urging senators to reject these nominees.

“None of the current nominees have any experience in the Postal Service, or even in the wider logistics and delivery industry. Instead, what they share in common is experience in big business, finance, and management consulting,” APWU wrote in a fact sheet.

It’s not unusual for lawmakers to scrutinize the political makeup of the USPS board. In 2014, when the USPS board lacked enough members to hold a quorum, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., put a hold on two of the Obama administration’s Republican nominees for the USPS board, who were already serving on the board and were tapped to serve another term.

Republicans, in turn, placed holds on the administration’s Democratic nominees to serve on the USPS board.

A USPS official who spoke on condition of anonymity said “it’s never good to not confirm nominees,” and that any attempts to hold up confirmations would be “counterproductive.”

“Is the Postal Service going to be any better or worse if we don’t approve these nominees? I know it’ll be worse off if they don’t. Because we’ll end up directionless again, which is what got us in this malaise in the first place,” the official said.

Experts warned that if the Senate moves forward on the USPS nominees, the maneuver may be just an opening salvo in a broader push to clear out Democrats from bipartisan boards. Many positions previously held by Democratic appointees before their 2025 firings remain vacant, such as at the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Slaughter decision could spur renewed purges of those that remain, such as the recent termination of members of the Election Assistance Commission.

“It’s more than a trial balloon, I think,” said Don Kettl, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland and former dean of its School of Public Policy. “This is a broader, conscious effort brick by brick and step by step to expand presidential power. They’ll continue to do it until the courts say stop . . . This is about much more than the Postal Service just as Slaughter was about much more than the FTC.”

Michael Fallings, managing partner at Tully Rinckey PLLC, a law firm specializing in federal employment issues, said one-party rule over quasi-judicial boards like the MSPB and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission would hurt not just those appealing adverse actions, but the case law these agencies produce.

“If you have just one line of thinking, then those decisions have the potential not to be correct, not to look at the full facts, and generally be one-sided,” he said. “Even if it’s just through a dissent to a decision, that can be reviewed and evaluated for future cases as well.”

Jay Lerner, an adjunct professorial lecturer at American University’s School of Public Affairs and former inspector general of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, said that while Slaughter has effectively short-circuited many of the laws aimed at insulating agencies from presidential power, a Congress looking to reassert its authority could establish new ways of influencing who the president can nominate for multi-member agency boards and commissions. One avenue could be strengthening often vague language requiring nominees to be “qualified” for their posts.

“Congress, depending on how strong it is now or in the next session, could voice objections and apply political pressure. It could pass different laws—not so much focusing on removal authorities, but on how appointees actually perform while in office. I think that Congress could enact laws requiring experts to identify performance standards for individuals holding a particular position. If there’s more specificity to those standards, then at least there are some concrete elements by which to assess an official's performance.”

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Trump appointees confirmed by the Senate are exiting their jobs in record numbers, report finds

Sean Michael Newhouse — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 15:05:00 -0400

Updated at 4:50 p.m. ET July 23

Senate-confirmed officials in the second Trump administration are leaving their positions at record rates, a good government nonprofit found in an analysis published Wednesday that warns the trend could hurt congressional input on who runs agencies.

“Though his first term was seen as turbulent regarding personnel, Trump has seen nearly two and a half times as many departures this administration as his first,” wrote Chris Piper of the Partnership for Public Service.

In total, 27 Senate-confirmed officials, 11.4%, have left the administration to date. That number includes three Cabinet secretaries as well as the heads of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and IRS.

To compare, 11 Senate-approved officials departed their jobs by this point in Trump’s first term. The average across the first 18 months of the Bush, Obama and Biden administrations was 4.3 departures.

The Partnership reported that the former officials’ average tenure was eight months. Researchers also noted that these individuals waited an average of nearly five months to be confirmed, and 30% spent more time going through the Senate approval process than they did in their positions.

“These departures also squander the time and resources it takes to find, vet and confirm officials,” Piper wrote.

In addition to the record exits, the Partnership found that Trump is making fewer nominations — the lowest since Reagan. Researchers posited that this might be because the administration appears to have relatively fewer White House staffers focused on personnel.

But the result is an increase in acting officials who are not subject to Senate approval.

“Turnover on this scale does not just thin the government’s leadership ranks — it concentrates power in the president,” Piper wrote. “Each seat left to an acting official is one the president can fill on his own terms without the Senate’s advice and consent: no vetting, no confirmation hearing, no vote.”

Piper further cautioned that, because interim agency leadership is not always announced, it can obfuscate who is running agencies. And he warned that a reliance on temporary officials can impede long-term planning.

In response to a request for comment, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said: "The president and his entire administration will continue to tirelessly implement the Trump agenda and achieve tremendous results for the American people.”

This story has been updated with a statement from the White House.

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