There were several bills with significant bipartisan support coming to the floor this past week and if they weren’t derailed by internal House Republican conflicts over their own priorities, would likely pass. Most passed by voice vote, except two by roll call.
H.R. 7128: TRIA Program Reauthorization Act of 2026, passed 373-15, to extend the Terrorism Risk Insurance program.
H.R. 7757: KIDS Act, passed 267-117. If it passes the Senate, this bill will decrease ALL users’ privacy online and lead to online speech being curtailed in the name of protecting children. Per Roll Call, most of the Congressional conflict is about whether it does those things enough. From the perspective of privacy advocates, any version of this legislation does too much. The Electronic Frontier Foundation provides an explanation of how the KIDS Act, even without the stronger Senate provisions, would do so.
There were also two votes on bills put forward via personal privilege, a mechanism that forces a bill to the floor regardless of whether House leadership wants it there or not. One passed; one failed: H.R. 1399: Directing the Committee on Ethics, passed unanimously 420-0, to preserve and publicly release records relating to monetary settlements involving acts of sexual harassment. On July 2, the Committee on Ethics published a statement saying they don’t have this information and therefore cannot release it.
H.Con.Res. 108: Directing the President pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities in Lebanon; failed 189-235.
Of the four bills that were to go through the Rules Committee, a path reserved for legislation, expected to get only Republican support (or maybe a very small number of Democratic votes; but not enough to pass via suspension), all are on hold. One is an appropriations bill for national security, the Department of State and related programs, one is about disabled workers, one is a self-congratulatory resolution for last year’s reconciliation bill anniversary and the last is the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The small group of Republican holdouts demanded that the SAVE America Act be added to the NDAA, and it was, then they voted against it.
The stated reason is that SAVE could just be stripped out by the Senate, because there is no way for the House to structure a bill such that the Senate cannot amend it. When the rule to govern debate on the Republican priority bills came to the floor, it was voted down, taking the other bills with it.
As of July 2, Rep. Luna (R-FL13), who has been the main House spokesperson for trying to force Senate passage of SAVE, said the House must attach SAVE to everything though she continues to vote against procedural rules that would advance these bills in the House.
Both the House and Senate return to work on July 13.