With only a few weeks left until the end of the year, Democrats are facing a long legislative to-do list.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer outlined the party's priorities in a "Dear Colleague" letter sent to his caucus on Sunday. While celebrating the passage of the infrastructure bill, Schumer acknowledged the "considerable" work left to do this month and in December.
Among the top agenda items are the Democrats' two major electoral reform bills: the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Both have been blocked from debate by GOP filibusters, but Schumer and his fellow Democrats appear determined to push forward.
The Freedom to Vote Act was introduced in the Senate in September as a compromise to the For the People Act. While the newer bill contains many of the same provisions as its predecessor, it was slimmed down to appease moderate Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who was the sole Democratic holdout on the For the People Act.
If enacted, the Freedom to Vote Act would ease access to the ballot box by expanding no-excuse absentee voting and automatic voter registration. It would also implement new minimum standards for states with voter ID laws. In addition to voting rights provisions, the bill would also strengthen protections for election workers, curb partisan gerrymandering and improve campaign finance transparency.
The Voting Rights Advancement Act, named after the late civil and voting rights icon John Lewis, would restore voting protections struck down by the Supreme Court. In 2013, the court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder eliminated the preclearance requirement, which mandated certain states with histories of racial discrimination receive advanced approval from the Justice Department before enacting new voting laws. The court's decision this summer in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee made it harder to challenge potentially discriminatory laws in court.
Earlier this month, GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Manchin signed on to a revised version of the VRAA that modified which factors courts can take into account for cases of potential voting rights violations. These changes were proposed in an attempt to garner more GOP support for the bill.
However, except for Murkowski supporting the VRAA, Republicans remained staunchly opposed to both bills and voted to block them from debate in the Senate. The GOP's stonewalling has only fueled the call by voting rights advocates to reform or eliminate the filibuster.
And Schumer appears more willing than ever to consider such a move.
"Just because Republicans will not join us doesn't mean Democrats should stop fighting," Schumer wrote in the letter. "This is too important. Even if it means going at it alone, we will continue to fight for voting rights and work to find an alternative path forward to defend the most fundamental liberty we have as citizens."
Although the filibuster was not mentioned explicitly in the letter, Schumer did say that he and his colleagues have been discussing ideas for how to "restore the Senate to protect our democracy" and that these conversations will continue this week.
In addition to the electoral reform legislation, Schumer said the Senate will focus on clean energy investment through the Build Back Better Act. Also on the agenda is the National Defense Authorization Act, which approves Defense Department policies and funding. A measure that, among other things, would bolster domestic manufacturing and supply chains may be attached to the NDAA.
Another critical agenda item is approving the fiscal 2022 appropriations bill by Dec. 3 to avoid a government shutdown. Congress narrowly dodged this disaster earlier this fall by passing stopgap funding. Schumer noted in the letter that it is likely another continuing resolution will be necessary to delay the issue.
Lastly, the Senate will consider and vote on the dozens of individuals President Biden has nominated for various administrative roles and judgeships.
Schumer concluded his letter by saying, "I am confident we can get each of these important items done this year, but it will likely take some long nights and weekends."
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.