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Social Security Fairness Act to get a vote in the Senate, Chuck Schumer says
A House-passed bill that would expand Social Security benefits to millions of Americans just got a lifeline in the Senate.
Senate Majority Chuck Schumer said Thursday he would start the process for a final vote on the Social Security Fairness Act, which would get rid of two federal policies that keep a portion of Americans from getting their full Social Security benefits, including cops, fire fighters and teachers.
One living-and-breathing example is Terry Hoover, a firefighter in Louisville, Kentucky, for more than 20 years. Now retired, he says these two provisions cost his family more than $1,000 a month.
“My Social Security is reduced due to my pension,” Hoover, told fellow first responders at a rally earlier in the week, as reported by a local CBS affiliate. “And then my wife, she was a nurse for 41 years and paid into the Social Security system, you know, and I cannot draw one penny off of her because of my pension.”
Schumer, a Democrat and co-sponsor of the legislation, tweeted the bill would “ensure Americans are not erroneously denied their well-earned Social Security benefits simply because they chose at some point to work in their careers in public service.” As majority leader, he can invoke a Senate rule that would skip a committee hearing and send the bill directly to a floor vote by the full Senate.
That’s important, as the clock is ticking as to its fate, with only days left in the current session of Congress.
Decades in the making, the bill would repeal two federal policies — the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO) — that broadly reduce payments to nearly 3 million retirees.
That includes those who also collect pensions from state and federal jobs that aren’t covered by Social Security, including teachers, police officers and U.S. postal workers. The bill would also end a second provision that reduces Social Security benefits for those workers’ surviving spouses and family members. The WEP impacts about 2 million Social Security beneficiaries and the GPO nearly 800,000 retirees.
Various forms of the measure have been introduced over the years, but like many legislative proposals, they had failed to get enacted.
“I’ve been working at the league 25 years, and I don’t remember ever not having a version,” Shannon Benton executive director of The Senior Citizens League, or TSCL, an advocacy group devoted to protecting retirement benefits, said of the proposal, which the league supports. “We’re guardedly optimistic,” she told CBS MoneyWatch earlier in the month.
The bill had 62 cosponsors when the Senate version was introduced last year, and would now need at least 60 votes to pass Congress and then head to President Biden.
In a speech earlier this month, Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy took to the Senate floor to call for a vote in the chamber. “If Schumer brings it up, it’ll pass,” said Cassidy, among its Republican sponsors.
Will the Senate pass the Social Security Fairness Act?
At least one GOP senator who signed onto similar legislation last year, Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana, said he was still “weighing” whether to vote for the bill next week. “Nothing ever gets paid for, so it’s further indebtedness, I don’t know,” Braun said, according to the Associated Press.
Opposition includes the Committee for a Responsible Budget, a nonpartisan organization committed to educating the public on issues with significant fiscal policy impact. In a statement responding to Schumer’s announcement, the group’s president, Maya MacGuineas, said it was “truly astonishing” that lawmakers would consider speeding up the trust fund’s demise.
The measure would increase the burden on Social Security’s trust funds, which are already estimated to not be able to pay the full amount of scheduled benefits starting in 2035. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the proposed legislation would add a projected $195 billion to federal deficits over a decade.
“The Senate should reject WEP and GPO repeal. Instead, they should come together to try to fix the issues with WEP and GPO as part of a comprehensive package to strengthen Social Security, prevent insolvency and make the program’s finances sustainable over the long term,” MacGuineas urged.
Introduced by Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., and Garret Graves, R-La., the bill was passed by the House in a vote of 327-75 last month.
If the Senate does not act, the measure “dies December 31, at the end of the second session of Congress,” Benton said. “Not only would this bill have to start from scratch, but a new person would have to introduce it.”
The U.S. Supreme Court
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The U.S. Supreme Court refused Friday to allow Virginia to use a new congressional map that favored Democrats in all but one of the state’s U.S. House seats. The map was a key part of Democrats’ effort to counter the Republican redistricting wave set off by President Trump.
The new map was drawn by Democrats and approved by Virginia voters in an April referendum. But on May 8, the Supreme Court of Virginia in a 4-to-3 vote declared the referendum, and by extension the new map, null and void because lawmakers failed to follow the proper procedures to get the issue on the ballot, violating the state constitution.
Virginia Democrats and the state’s attorney general then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to put into effect the map approved by the voters, which yields four more likely Democratic congressional seats. In their emergency application, they argued the Virginia Supreme Court was “deeply mistaken” in its decision on “critical issues of federal law with profound practical importance to the Nation.” Further, they asserted the decision “overrode the will of the people” by ordering Virginia to “conduct its election with the congressional districts that the people rejected.”
Republican legislators countered that it would be improper for the U.S. Supreme Court to wade into a purely state law controversy — especially since the Democrats had not raised any federal claims in the lower court.
Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Republicans without explanation leaving in place the state court ruling that voided the Democratic-friendly maps.
The court’s decision not to intervene was its latest in emergency requests for intervention on redistricting issues. In December, the high court OK’d Texas using a gerrymandered map that could help the GOP win five more seats in the U.S. House. In February, the court allowed California to use a voter-approved, Democratic-friendly map, adopted to offset Texas’s map. Then in March, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the redrawing of a New York map expected to flip a Republican congressional district Democratic.
And perhaps most importantly, in April, the high court ruled that a Louisiana congressional map was a racial gerrymander and must be redrawn. That decision immediately set off a flurry of redistricting efforts, particularly in the South, where Republican legislators immediately began redrawing congressional maps to eliminate long established majority Black and Hispanic districts.
An explosion and fire drew a large emergency response on Friday to a lumber mill in the Midcoast region of Maine, officials said.
The State Police and fire marshal’s investigators responded to Robbins Lumber in Searsmont, about 72 miles northeast of Portland, said Shannon Moss, a spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Mike Larrivee, the director of the Waldo County Regional Communications Center, said the number of victims was unknown, cautioning that “the information we’re getting from the scene is very vague.”
“We’ve sent every resource in the county to that area, plus surrounding counties,” he said.
Footage from the scene shared by WABI-TV showed flames burning through the roof of a large structure as heavy, dark smoke billowed skyward.
The Associated Press reported that at least five people were injured, and that county officials were considering the incident a “mass casualty event.”
Catherine Robbins-Halsted, an owner and vice president at Robbins Lumber, told reporters at the scene that all of the company’s employees had been accounted for.
Gov. Janet T. Mills of Maine said on social media that she had been briefed on the situation and urged people to avoid the area.
“I ask Maine people to join me in keeping all those affected in their thoughts,” she said.
Representative Jared Golden, Democrat of Maine, said on social media that he was aware of the fire and explosion.
“As my team and I seek out more information, I am praying for the safety and well-being of first responders and everyone else on-site,” he said.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Crime scene tape surrounds a bicycle in front of St. Lukes Episcopal Church in Atlanta on May 14, 2026. (SKYFOX 5)
ATLANTA – The woman stabbed to death on the Beltline has been identified as 23-year-old Alyssa Paige, according to the Fulton County Medical Examiner.
The backstory:
Paige was killed by a 21-year-old man Thursday afternoon while she was on the Beltline. Officials confirmed to FOX 5 that the stabbing happened near the 1700 block of Flagler Avenue NE.
Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said the department was alerted around 12:10 p.m. that a woman had been stabbed just north of the Montgomery Ferry Drive overpass. She was rushed to Grady Memorial Hospital where she later died. Another person was also stabbed during the incident, but their condition remains unknown.
According to officers, the man responsible attacked a U.S. Postal worker prior to the stabbing before getting away on a bike. He then used that bike to flee the scene of the stabbing as well.
The suspect was arrested near St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on Peachtree Street in Midtown around 5:25 p.m.
What we don’t know:
While officials haven’t released an official motive, they noted the man may have been suffering a mental health crisis.
The Source: Information in this article came from the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office and previous FOX 5 reporting.
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