Politics
Present and Accounted For: House Republicans' small majority could make attendance a priority
It’s long been said that Congress is a lot like school.
What’s the first thing they do in school? Take attendance.
That is one thing which they usually don’t do in Congress.
But they might next year.
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Figuring out who is present and accounted for and who is out will emerge as one of the most dramatic daily events on Capitol Hill.
It is always about the math on Capitol Hill.
But the 119th Congress will really be about the math.
Every day in the House will hinge on who’s sick. Who has a parent/teacher conference. Whose plane was delayed due to snow. Who is just playing hooky and isn’t reliable. Who was giving a speech downtown, got caught in traffic and just didn’t make it back in time. Whose kid is starring in the school play. Whose aunt died.
President Trump and House Republicans have big plans for their 2025 legislative agenda. But the miniscule size of the GOP majority could temper those expectations on a daily basis.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) speaks during a press conference along with other House Republican leaders at the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC, United States on November 19, 2024. (Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
It will be interesting to see what Republicans can execute.
Republicans will likely begin the new year with a 219-215 majority. So 434 seats. There is one vacancy as former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., resigned. That’s a margin of four seats. But it in reality, it means the GOP majority can only tolerate one Republican defector on each roll call vote without needing help from the other side. One Republican “nay” is 218-216. But two Republican rebels produces a 217-217 tie. By rule, ties lose in the House.
But the beginning of the new Congress on January 3 could represent the Halycon days for the House Republican Conference.
Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Michael Waltz, R-Fla., intend to resign in January to join the Trump Administration. Stefanik is up for United Nations Ambassador and requires confirmation for that post. The President-elect tapped Waltz to serve as National Security Advisor. That position is not subject to Senate confirmation. So the Republican majority will dwindle to 217-215. At that point, Republicans can’t lose any votes to pass their agenda.
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That is a problem for House Republicans who regularly had a squadron of defectors – ranging from keeping the government open to even impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. This could even spell problems for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., returning to the Speaker’s suite. Johnson must win an outright majority of all House members voting when the new Congress convenes on January 3 to become Speaker. He’ll have a bit of a cushion when the new Congress starts. But it won’t be much. House Republicans still suffer from political PTSD after the 15 rounds it took to elect former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., early last year.
Yes. There will be special elections to fill the seats of Gaetz, Stefanik and Waltz. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has already called a special election for the Gaetz seat for April 1.
You can’t make this stuff up.
U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) waves on stage on the third day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 17, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)
The other special elections are months away because Stefanik and Waltz haven’t resigned yet. In fact, if Stefanik is confirmed and resigns in late January, it may be May before there’s a special election in her seat – based on New York law and discretion afforded New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D).
The results in special elections sometimes produce “special” results. The usual electorate periodically stays home and the opposite party captures those seats in off-cycle elections. So, even though these are “Republican” seats, there’s no guarantee that Republicans will automatically prevail.
But if things go according to plan, Republicans will have those seats back in a few months, with a comparatively robust 220-215 majority. That means Republicans can lose up to two votes on any major issue.
But there are always absences. Always resignations.
And this isn’t limited to the Republican side of the aisle.
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There have long been concerns about the health and attendance of 79-year-old Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee. Scott faced criticism earlier this year over a lack of public appearances and interviews.
76-year-old Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., is the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee. Grijalva vowed that this term would be his last after suffering from cancer. The illness sidelined Grijalva for months. He missed more than 300 roll call votes on the floor between February and this fall and did not conduct interviews.
Late Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Tex., Bill Pascrell, D-N.J. and Donald Payne Jr., D-N.J., were all in office when they passed away this year. Late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., died in 2023.
Democrats make a lot of noise right now about the agenda of President-elect Trump. It will be incumbent on Democrats to have full attendance to oppose Republicans and generally make life miserable for the majority. But Democrats can only do that if they show up. All the time.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., conducts his weekly news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center on Thursday, May 23, 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Such was the case when House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., had the votes of every House Democrat on each roll call for Speaker in January and October of last year. Only Rep. David Trone, D-Md., missed a couple of votes because he underwent a surgical procedure. But Trone returned to Capitol Hill later that evening to vote.
Rep. Al Green, D-Tex., was hospitalized this past February. But Green came to the Capitol in a wheelchair in February to help torpedo the initial effort to impeach Mayorkas. Republicans had three defectors on their side. Green’s vote fresh from a hospital gurney forced the GOP effort to fail on the floor and try again.
One factor which was a challenge for the GOP was the health of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La. Scalise was diagnosed with cancer last year and was out the first part of 2023. Scalise has now recovered. But his absence hamstrung the GOP on big votes like the initial Mayorkas impeachment.
Unfortunately – and inevitably – there will be absences due to health. And God forbid, death. Rarely does a Congress pass without the death of a lawmaker – sometimes unforeseen. Late Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., and two aides died in a traffic accident during the summer of 2022.
So listen for the attendance bells in the House next year. Check the weather forecast and the flight schedule at Reagan National Airport. Better look at Waze if they’re flying into Dulles. See if the flu or another round of COVID burns through Congress.
Yes. Understanding whether someone is for or against a given bill or amendment is always important in Congress. But what supersedes that is whether they’re actually present.
WASHINGTON — Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger met privately with President Trump and administration officials Wednesday to press for federal support and yet-unpaid wildfire recovery funding as the region continues to rebuild from the 2025 fires.
“This afternoon we met with President Trump and Administration officials to advocate for families who lost everything,” Bass and Barger said in a statement. “We had a very positive discussion about FEMA and other rebuilding funds as well as the support of the President to continue joining us in pressuring the insurance companies to pay what they owe — and for the big banks to step up to ease the financial pressure on L.A. families.”
Barger said the two leaders had a “high-level discussion” with the president in the Oval Office, sharing stories about what fire survivors are experiencing day to day. She added that “we left details behind with the President,” but did not specify whether Trump made any funding or policy promises during the meeting.
“First and foremost, today’s meeting was to thank the President for his initial support of infusing federal resources to expedite debris removal, as well as his recent tweet about insurance companies, which have already proven fruitful,” she said in a statement provided to The Times.
Bass was similarly reserved about the discussions, telling reporters that “we will follow up with the details,” but signaled progress is being made on federal support.
“I think what’s important is that we certainly got the president’s support in terms of, you know, what is needed, and then the appropriate people were in the room for us to follow up. And that was Russ Vought, who is the head of the Office of Management and budget,” Bass told KNX on Wednesday.
The meeting comes on the heels of a yearlong standoff between California leaders and the Trump administration over wildfire recovery funding, disaster response and whether the federal government should have a say in local rebuilding permitting.
California leaders, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, have accused the Trump administration of withholding billions in critical wildfire aid, prompting a lawsuit over stalled recovery funds. Officials allege political bias in the delay of billions of dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Newsom visited Washington in December. When he made his rounds on Capitol Hill, he met with five lawmakers, including three who serve on the Senate and House appropriations committees, to renew calls for $33.9 billion in federal aid for Los Angeles County fire recovery.
But the governor said he was denied a meeting with FEMA and would not say whether he had attempted to meet with Trump to discuss the issue.
Bass, meanwhile, appears to have found a path to the president on a subject that has been paramount for her community.
The fruitful meeting comes after Trump lobbed insults at the mayor at a news conference earlier this year, where he called her “incompetent” for how she handled last year’s wildfire recovery efforts. He alleged that under Bass’ leadership, the city’s delay in issuing local building permits will take years when it should have taken “two or three days.”
California officials, including Newsom, have urged the Trump administration to send Congress a formal request for the $33.9 billion in recovery aid needed to rebuild homes, schools, utilities and other critical infrastructure destroyed or damaged when the fires tore through neighborhoods more than 15 months ago.
What Bass and Barger’s meeting with the president ultimately produces remains to be seen.
The billions in recovery aid have not yet materialized, but the meeting could potentially give those discussions new momentum.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment about the meeting.
Earlier this month, Trump criticized insurance provider State Farm on Truth Social for its handling of the devastating Los Angeles County wildfires. He accused the insurance giant of abandoning its policyholders when tragedy struck.
“It was brought to my attention that the Insurance Companies, in particular, State Farm, have been absolutely horrible to people that have been paying them large Premiums for years, only to find that when tragedy struck, these horrendous Companies were not there to help!” Trump wrote.
But the rebuke didn’t come out of the blue. It stemmed from a controversial February visit to Los Angeles by Trump administration officials.
Trump tapped Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin in an effort to strip California state and local governments of their authority to permit the rebuilding of homes destroyed in the Eaton and Palisades fires.
Within the week, Zeldin was in Los Angeles, bashing Newsom and Los Angeles officials at a roundtable with fire victims and reporters, saying that residents were suffering from “bureaucratic, red tape delays and incompetency” and that leadership was “denying them … the ability to rebuild their lives”.
During the trip, officials heard direct complaints from local leaders and fire victims about insurers being slow, restrictive and insufficient with their claim payouts.
After these meetings, Trump directed Zeldin to investigate the insurers’ responses. State Farm, facing roughly $7 billion in fire-related claims, is also under formal investigation by California’s insurance commissioner over its handling of the crisis.
Despite tensions with the administration, Bass and Barger appeared confident that progress was being made on the insurance and funding issues.
“Our job is to fight for our communities,” their joint statement concluded. “When it comes to this recovery, our federal partners are essential, and we are grateful for the support of the President.”
Navy Secretary John Phelan was fired on Wednesday after months of infighting with senior Pentagon leaders and disagreements over how to revive the Navy’s struggling shipbuilding program.
Mr. Phelan is leaving the Pentagon and the Trump administration effective immediately, wrote Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, in a terse statement.
In his role leading the Navy, Mr. Phelan had championed the “Golden Fleet,” a major investment in new ships including a “Trump-class” battleship. But Mr. Phelan’s leadership was marred by feuds with senior leaders in the Pentagon, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, Pentagon and congressional officials said.
Mr. Phelan is the first service secretary to leave the administration, though he is the second one to clash with the defense secretary. Mr. Hegseth also has butted heads with Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll over promotions and a host of other issues. Mr. Hegseth fired the Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, earlier this month.
The Navy secretary has no role overseeing deployed forces, and Mr. Phelan’s firing is not likely to have significant implications for the conduct of the Iran war or U.S. Navy operations to blockade Iranian ports or open the Strait of Hormuz. As the Navy’s top civilian leader, his main responsibility is to oversee the building of the future naval and Marine Corps force.
But the tumult could make it harder for the Navy to replenish its stock of Tomahawk missiles and high-end air defense systems, which have been in heavy use in Iran.
Tensions had been simmering for months between Mr. Phelan and his two bosses — Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Feinberg — over management style, personnel issues and other matters.
Mr. Feinberg, in particular, had grown increasingly dissatisfied with Mr. Phelan’s handling of the Navy’s major new shipbuilding initiative, and had been siphoning off responsibility for the project from him, said the congressional official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
Mr. Phelan, a White House appointee, also had a contentious relationship with his deputy, Under Secretary Hung Cao, who is more aligned with Mr. Hegseth, especially on some of the social and cultural battles that have defined the defense secretary’s tenure, the officials said.
A senior administration official said that Mr. Hegseth informed Mr. Phelan before the Pentagon’s official announcement that he and President Trump had decided that the Navy needed new leadership.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Phelan referred all questions on Wednesday evening to the Defense Department.
Last fall, Mr. Hegseth fired Mr. Phelan’s chief of staff, Jon Harrison, who had clashed with senior officials throughout the Pentagon. The unusual move highlighted the broader tensions between Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Phelan.
Still, the timing of Mr. Phelan’s firing caught some Pentagon and congressional officials off guard. On Wednesday, Mr. Phelan was making the rounds on Capitol Hill, talking to senators about his upcoming annual hearing with lawmakers to discuss the Navy’s budget request and other priorities.
“Secretary Phelan’s abrupt dismissal is troubling,” Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement Wednesday night. “In the midst of President Trump’s war of choice in Iran, at a moment when our naval forces are stretched thin across multiple theaters, this kind of disruption at the top sends the wrong signal to our sailors and Marines, to our allies, and to our adversaries.”
Mr. Phelan also had a close relationship with Mr. Trump. In December, Mr. Phelan appeared alongside Mr. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort to announce the “Golden Fleet” and the new class of battleships bearing Mr. Trump’s name.
“John Phelan is one of the most successful businessmen in the country — in our country,” Mr. Trump said. “He’s been a tremendous success.”
Before joining the Trump administration, Mr. Phelan ran a private investment fund based in Florida.
“He’s taken probably the largest salary cut in history, but he wanted to do it,” Mr. Trump said at the December press conference. “He wants to rebuild our Navy. And you needed that kind of a brain to do it properly.”
But Mr. Trump’s effusive praise masked deeper tensions with Mr. Phelan’s Pentagon bosses.
Bryan Clark, a naval analyst at the Hudson Institute, said that Mr. Phelan was “driving the Navy in a different direction” than what Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Feinberg wanted.
“He was championing initiatives like the battleship and frigate that don’t align with where the D.O.W. leadership is taking the military, which is toward submarines, stealth aircraft, unmanned systems and software-driven capabilities like electronic warfare and cyber,” Mr. Clark said in an email, using the abbreviation for Department of War, as the administration calls the Defense Department.
Mr. Phelan also clashed with Mr. Hegseth over personnel issues in the Navy and Marine Corps, a former senior military official said. Mr. Hegseth has directed service secretaries to scrub the social media accounts of general- and admiral-level promotion candidates to ensure they are not deemed too “woke” by Mr. Hegseth’s standards, the official said.
Maggie Haberman and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
Politics
Manhattan DA’s office employee charged with sexual abuse after alleged incident on Queens subway
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An analyst with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office was arrested Tuesday on allegations that he sexually abused a woman while off duty, police told Fox News Digital Wednesday.
Tauhid Dewan, 28, is accused of inappropriately touching a 40-year-old woman’s private area during a late-afternoon rush-hour subway ride in Queens, according to local outlet PIX11.
The victim was reportedly a random woman, the outlet added, citing sources who said she and the suspect were strangers.
A spokeswoman for the office told Fox News Digital that the staffer has since been suspended.
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Tauhid Dewan, 28, was arrested in New York City Tuesday following allegations that the Manhattan DA staffer innapropriately touched a woman during a subway ride (LinkedIn)
According to the New York Police Department, Dewan was arrested around 5 p.m., possibly after returning from work.
PIX11 added that the arrest occurred minutes after the incident, which allegedly took place on a No. 7 train near the Junction Boulevard station.
He was subsequently arrested by the NYPD Transit Bureau and is facing multiple charges, including forcible touching on a bus or train, third-degree sexual abuse, and second-degree harassment involving physical contact.
He was also charged with acting in a manner injurious to a child under the age of 17, suggesting a minor may have been nearby and either witnessed the alleged conduct or was placed at risk by it.
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Tauhid Dewan is an employee of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, which is led by DA Alvin Bragg. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Law enforcement sources said Dewan has no prior arrests, local outlets reported.
According to city records, Dewan has worked at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as a senior investigative analyst for nearly four years, since July 10, 2022.
People board a train at a subway station in New York City on Aug. 1, 2025. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)
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His arraignment in Queens Criminal Court was scheduled for Wednesday, according to state records.
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