1. News From Us
2. Legislative Recap

Back in Business

Sept. 5, 2025 · by Amy West

Ongoing Business

Rep. Massie’s (R-KY4) discharge petition to force a vote on releasing all of the Department of Justice’s files on Jeffrey Epstein now has 215 co-sponsors. It needs 218. Only three other Republicans have signed on and they can always remove their names if they think it’s in their interest. There’s no time limit on gathering co-sponsors for a discharge petition, so now it’s just a question of whether Republican voters remain interested enough in the topic to force any of their representatives to sign on or whether the Administration succeeds in preventing any more Republicans from signing on.

Senate Votes

There were two procedural votes on the Senate’s version of the S. 2296: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 (aka NDAA). Because we were asked about “the filibuster” for our August Mailbag and we elided some detail, this is a good and short opportunity to show the detail in action.

This bill is nowhere near becoming law. The actual bill has yet to be voted on in the Senate and there’s a competing version in the House (also not yet voted on). These votes were just moving along the process to get to the vote on the bill.

• Vote 1 on Sept. 2: “Motion to Invoke Cloture: Motion to Proceed to S. 2296”. Because this was a cloture vote, it required 60 votes in support to pass, which it got easily with 84-14. A yes vote meant “yes, I would like to end debate on whether we will move to the motion to proceed”. Successful cloture votes have a practical effect of a two business day wait for the next vote in the process. You can read much more about it from the Congressional Research Service.
• Vote 2 on Sept. 4: “Motion to Proceed on S. 2296: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026”. This vote required only a simple majority, which it exceeded significantly: 83-13. A yes vote in this case meant “yes, I would like to proceed to debate”.

Of these two, Vote 1 was a filibuster vote because it required a 3/5ths majority or 60 votes to pass.

What’s next for the Senate’s FY26 NDAA? Very probably a cloture vote on the bill itself, so another round of 60 votes required, at least a two day wait and then a vote on the bill itself which will need only a simple majority. There may well be lots more interim procedural votes too. It depends on how much negotiation is needed to get to a final product the chamber is willing to vote on. But they will likely follow the same pattern: a higher passage threshold to get going on {X} and a lower passage threshold to pass {X}.

House Votes

These bills are not near passage. Having passed the House, they would need to pass the Senate in identical form. The ones repealing Biden Administration regulations may get through the Senate fairly soon based on the Senate’s actions on previous similar bills, but there’s no timeline for the rest.

• H.R. 747: Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act of 2025, which would place sanctions on Chinese producers of fentanyl and , passed 407-4
• H.R. 4216: Made-in-America Defense Act, which would, according to Quiver Quantitative, streamline and enhance the process for selling defense articles and services to foreign entities, passed 395-20
• H.R. 4553: Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026 passed 214-213
• H.J.Res. 105 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “North Dakota Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan”’ passed 215-211
• H.J.Res. 106 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Central Yukon Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan”” passed 215-210
• H.J.Res. 104 “Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to “Miles City Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment”” passed 211-208

Notable Failure

Normally we don’t cover bills/resolutions that don’t pass. However, as the use of censure has become much more frequent in the last few years, we were surprised to see that the attempt to censure Rep. McIver (D-NJ10) failed this week thanks to support for a motion to table (aka kill) the censure resolution from a small number of Republicans.

Rep. McIver has been charged with assaulting law enforcement when ICE officers attempted to arrest the Mayor of Newark after three members of Congress had inspected an ICE facility in Newark and the members of Congress attempted to prevent ICE from doing so. The mayor was briefly detained and then released. The other Congress members were neither detained nor charged. Only McIver was charged. Her case has yet to be resolved.

Then, Rep. Higgins (R-LA3) introduced a resolution censuring McIver for being charged with assault and thus “not reflecting creditably on the House“. According to Axios, Republicans voting for the motion to table included members of the Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee, as is required whenever a member is indicted, has an open investigation into the incident.

Continue/Read Original Article: https://www.govtrack.us/posts/536/2025-09-05_back-in-business