Supreme Court allows California to move forward with new congressional map favoring Democrats
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a bid by California Republicans to block a newly redrawn congressional map backed by Democrats and endorsed by voters ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The move allows the state to move forward with a map enacted by Proposition 50, approved in November, that could potentially allow Democrats to flip five seats currently held by Republicans.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday flatly rejected the Senate’s bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and parts of Customs and Border Protection.
Johnson said House Republicans will instead plow ahead with an alternative proposal: a short-term bill to fund the entire department for 60 days, until May 22.
“This gambit that was done last night is a joke,” Johnson told reporters in a news conference.
Johnson said the House would vote on the stop-gap proposal “as soon as possible.” Lawmakers were notified that votes are expected on Friday night, though the exact timing remains unclear.
If the House succeeds, the measure will head back to the Senate, where Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has vowed that it is “dead on arrival.”
All this means the partial government shutdown, now in its 42nd day, is likely to continue.
Amid the gridlock on Capitol Hill, President Donald Trump on Friday signed a presidential memorandum directing Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to pay TSA employees. DHS said that workers will start seeing paychecks on Monday.
President Trump, in a phone interview with Fox News on Friday afternoon, said the Senate deal on DHS “wasn’t good” and “wasn’t appropriate.”
The Senate, at 2 a.m. on Friday morning, approved a funding bill that included TSA, Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Coast Guard and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
The package did not include money for ICE or parts of CBP, though those agencies continue to receive funds due to an influx of cash provided in the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill passed by Congress last summer.
Also absent from the Senate bill are any of the reforms to ICE’s operating procedures that Democrats have been repeatedly demanding following the fatal shootings of two American citizens in Minneapolis by federal agents earlier this year.
Still, Schumer said he was proud of Democrats who “held the line” on their objection to funding ICE and CBP without reforms.
“Democrats held firm in our position that Donald Trump’s rogue and deadly militia should not get more funding without serious reforms and we will continue to fight for those reforms,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune lambasted Democrats on the floor for what he framed as their refusal to negotiate in good faith. He said Democrats could have secured some of their desired reforms if they hadn’t complicated negotiations.
“We could be standing here right now passing a funding bill with a list of reforms if the Democrats had made the smallest effort to actually reach an agreement. But they didn’t, because it’s now clear to everyone, Democrats didn’t actually want a solution, they wanted an issue, politics over policy, self-interest over reform, pandering to their base over actually solving a problem,” Thune said.
Senate Republicans vowed to work on a package later this year to approve even more funding for ICE and CBP, saying they aim to do it using reconciliation — a budget tool that, if successful, would allow them to sidestep Democratic objection and pass the bill without any Democratic support.
Republicans are already warning that that bill will be a much harsher and Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., vowed it would “supercharge deportations.”
ABC News’ Allison Pecorin and Lalee Ibssa contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Friday delivered a major blow to President Donald Trump by invalidating most of global tariffs, a cornerstone of his economic policy in his second term.
In a 6-3 decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court deemed that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not give Trump the power to unilaterally impose tariffs.
“We claim no special competence in matters of economics or foreign affairs. We claim only, as we must, the limited role assigned to us by Article III of the Constitution,” Roberts wrote. “Fulfilling that role, we hold that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.”
The Trump administration attempted to justify the tariffs by arguing that IEEPA says the president has the power to regulate “importation,” but Roberts said their read of the law was a stretch.
“Based on two words separated by 16 others in Section 1702(a)(1)(B) of IEEPA—‘regulate’ and ‘importation’—the President asserts the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time,” Roberts wrote. “Those words cannot bear such weight.”
Roberts said the court was highly skeptical of the claim that Congress had delegated to the president a “birth-right power to tax” though the passage of the 1977 law. Congress, not the president, has the power to impose tariffs and taxes, the majority concluded.
“The Framers did not vest any part of the taxing power in the Executive Branch,” the ruling said.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito dissented from the majority, arguing that Trump should have the power to impose tariffs during national emergencies.
“The tariffs at issue here may or may not be wise policy. But as a matter of text, history, and precedent, they are clearly lawful,” Kavanaugh wrote.
Trump had publicly lobbied for months for the court to rule in his favor, including in remarks he delivered on Thursday about in Georgia. Trump, speaking on the economy, said “without tariffs, this country would be in such trouble right now.”
The White House has said it is prepared to present alternative avenues for imposing the tariffs under different legal authorities.
The Supreme Court’s ruling strikes down 70% of Trump’s global tariffs after they have collected more than $142 billion through December, according to the Yale Budget Lab.
While the Supreme Court rejected President Trump’s sweeping tariff power under IEEPA, the tariffs Trump imposed using Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 — such as tariffs on steel and aluminum — remain in place. Trump has also suggested in the past that he might attempt to reframe the tariffs as “licenses,” though such a move would likely be challenged in court.
Companies ranging from Costco to small businesses have sued the Trump administration to effectively “get in line” for refunds if the court deemed them unconstitutional.
The court’s majority did not explicitly address the issue of refunds or how that process would work.
Kavanaugh noted such in his dissent.
“Refunds of billions of dollars would have significant consequences for the U.S. Treasury. The Court says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the Government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers. But that process is likely to be a ‘mess,’ as was acknowledged at oral argument,” Kavanaugh wrote.
ABC News’ Elizabeth Schulze and Zunaira Zaki contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune announced on Wednesday the Republican-controlled Congress “in the coming days” will fully fund the Department of Homeland Security through both the appropriations process and reconciliation process.
“In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited,” the top Republicans said in a statement.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
