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Nearly 40% of Maryland newspapers question whether they will be able to operate without more funding within the next two years.
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MD Bill To Support Local News Appears Unlikely To Pass This Session
Apr 24, 2026
As Maryland’s legislative session winds down, a bill in the General Assembly intended to support local newspapers across the state appears unlikely to pass.
The Local Newspapers for Maryland Communities Act would have required the state government to spend 50% of their print and digital advertising budget on local outlets in the state. The bill does not favor any particular news outlets, rather stipulating that organizations must produce original local content and have at least one reporter in or around Maryland.
Daniel Trielli, an assistant professor of media and democracy at the University of Maryland, said that type of support has been done in many communities.
"It might seem like a weird mechanism to support local news," he said, "but the reality is that this is a very traditional way that societies and communities have found, throughout history and throughout many countries, to support local news."
Maryland counties each have at least one newspaper, according to a 2025 report by the Northwestern University Local News Initiative. Nine Maryland counties, though, only have one news outlet covering their respective regions.
Trielli said the financial outlook for local newspapers across the state and country is dire. A 2024 report from the University of Maryland at College Park found nearly 40% of local publications in the state weren’t confident they could continue operating in two years without increased revenue.
"Often it is the case that local news is surviving by very little day by day," he said. "Just a little boost in their finances can make a real big difference in the survival of these news organizations."
Similar policies have been tried at the municipal level in major cities. New York City allocated more than $70 million over the first five years of its program.
MD Bill To Support Local News Appears Unlikely To Pass This Session was originally published by The Public News Service and is republished with permission.
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Expert witnesses testify on the issues facing federal benefits programs run by states at a House Government Operations hearing on Wednesday, April 15, 2026.
(Photo by Naisha Roy | Medill News Service)
House Bill Pushes Bipartisan Effort to Tackle Federal Benefits Fraud, Refocusing from Immigration
Apr 18, 2026
WASHINGTON — Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, introduced a bill Wednesday morning that would create a permanent U.S. Treasury Inspector General position for fraud accountability as part of a broader effort to crack down on the misuse of federal benefits.
The bill would offer an alternative, bipartisan way to prevent federal benefits fraud, after several months of politically charged congressional hearings.
The bill, titled the “Fraud Prevention and Accountability Act,” was introduced at a House Subcommittee on Government Operations hearing. This hearing follows larger, committee-wide hearings investigating the misuse of federal funds in Minnesota after a scandal involving Somali immigrants, which broke late last year. However, Sessions stressed that his bill addresses a nationwide problem that isn’t limited to immigration.
“While we are fresh off the heels of the full committee’s investigation and hearings into fraud, this isn’t about one state,” he said. “This is not about Minnesota, it is not about any one particular area.”
In 2025, the government estimated nearly $29 billion in improper Medicaid payments, but it was unclear how much of that was fraud rather than paperwork errors and administrative mistakes. For similar reasons, the government does not have clear estimates of fraud in other benefit programs.
But Rep. Emily Randall, D-W.A., worried that the crackdown on fraud could result in eligible people receiving delayed or missing benefits.
“I had a sister with really complex disabilities who relied on Washington State's Medicaid program, and I can think of a number of times where my mom didn't submit paperwork in time,” she said. “Maybe Olivia was in the hospital, or had any number of health complications that meant her stack of paperwork kept getting bigger and bigger. Those improper payments sometimes are just a struggling family trying to keep their kid or family member alive and healthy.”
Subcommittee member Rep. Eleanor Norton, D-D.C., criticized President Trump for contributing to the fraud problem by firing or demoting over 20 inspectors general since the beginning of his term.
“Inspectors general are a key part of detecting and preventing fraud,” she said.
The bill focused on the many issues plaguing Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families disbursements at the state level. For instance, states often do not share eligibility data across assistance programs or with the federal government. States also use outdated user interface systems to track eligibility.
To combat this, the bill would make the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee's operations a permanent part of the Treasury. The committee was created in 2020 to track how states were spending pandemic relief funds, but Sessions’ bill would expand its responsibilities to all federal awards over $50,000.
Sessions’ legislation marks a shift away from previous fraud accountability efforts focused on immigration. Last month, an executive order created a Task Force to Eliminate Fraud led by Vice President J.D. Vance. The order blamed many of the benefits issues on “lax immigration policy and immigration fraud.” Soon after, the House passed “Deporting Fraudsters Act,” which would make benefits fraud a deportable offense. While Sessions voted for the Deporting Fraudsters Act, he said his new bill would be a separate, preventive effort.
“What we're trying to do is to take the mechanisms of data and information and make them permanent,” Sessions said. “[The Deporting Fraudsters Act] deals with when you're caught, and you've committed fraud, that you can be deported.”
O.J. Oleka, a witness from the State Financial Officers Foundation, suggested an “instant verification system” that would cross-check applicants’ income, residency, and citizenship status before payments are issued. However, experts said this would not be feasible, at least for Medicaid, given the current distribution of those funds.
“It’s completely infeasible to implement,” Andy Schneider, a Georgetown professor who has written extensively on Medicaid policy, said in an interview. “The data systems are not in place, and the effect of a rule like that would be to disenfranchise millions of Americans from access to health insurance coverage.”
The bill would add the responsibility of negotiating data-sharing agreements with states to the Treasury Secretary’s role. However, this raised concerns about privacy, especially in the current political climate.
“When it comes to providing information to the federal government, in an ideal world, you would want sharing of information to make systems flow better,” said Valerie Lacarte, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, in an interview.
Non-citizens do not qualify for many benefits, and those who do use benefits do so at lower rates than citizens. Unfortunately, she said, many immigrants fear that if they provide their personal information to states, the federal government will use that information for immigration enforcement.
“Because of the use of federal agencies basically using information from different agencies for the purposes of immigration enforcement, that is now putting a lot of states and local governments in an awkward position with their communities,” she said.
Naisha Roy is a graduate journalism student at Northwestern University reporting on the immigration beat on Capitol Hill.
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white concrete building under cloudy sky during daytime
Photo by Harold Mendoza on Unsplash
Experts Say Heavy Use of Reconciliation Bills Could Backfire
Apr 17, 2026
WASHINGTON, DC—As midterm elections take place across the country, Senate Republicans are using the tactic known as “reconciliation” to bypass bipartisan agreements, all before a new Congress takes office.
In the latest example, the GOP-backed reconciliation bill to supplement funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents is expected to hit President Donald Trump’s desk no later than June first.
This bill will bypass the need for any input from Senate Democrats.
David Bateman, a professor of government at Cornell University, said that reconciliation incentivizes partisan rather than bipartisan legislation.
“But remember, the reason people use reconciliation is that it is the only way that majorities can deliver on the promises on which they ran,” Bateman said in an email interview.
Although the congressional tool is permissible, experts say it is being used incorrectly.
“In order to do this, they have had to distort the purpose: the tax cuts, for example, significantly increased the deficit. In a sense, all of these reconciliation bills were all ‘abuses’ of the process,” Bateman said. “[...] They deviated from its purpose.”
Using the process of reconciliation to bypass negotiations regarding ICE, Border Patrol, and the overall Department of Homeland Security is not a new idea. In fact, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-NC), who is also the Senate Budget Committee Chairman, discussed using the bill to fund DHS-related expenses almost a year and a half ago.
“The Senate Budget Committee – through the reconciliation process – will aggressively push the most transformational border security bill in American history and revitalize our military,” Graham said in a 2024 statement.
Graham included in this statement that there would be funds to finish the wall, build additional technology at the border, and hire more ICE agents. In the same statement, however, he said this would be done within weeks or months.
“If the Republicans go forward with this reconciliation bill, they are saying to an out-of-control President that he can continue to do whatever he wants,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, in an interview with Fulcrum. “[...] All Democrats are asking for is that ICE agents follow the same basic procedures as pretty much all police officers all across the country.”
While the reconciliation bill will benefit Senate Republicans and bypass Senate Democrats’ list of demands now, it may come to their detriment in the future.
SoRelle Wyckoff, an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Virginia, said that if the bill passes, both parties could face various disadvantages.
“They [Democrats] would be totally shut out of the conversation and lose their ability to negotiate in the short term, but I don’t know how popular that would be among voters for Republicans to do that,” Wyckoff, who works at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy said. “[...] It's not good policy making for Democrats, but I do wonder if long-term it gave them a little more leverage.”
Now, as Republican senators craft the current reconciliation bill for ICE and Border Patrol funding, their stance on the issue extends beyond the budget—it’s a political battle with Senate Democrats pushing for reforms within the agencies.
Rather than the bipartisan negotiations seen within Congress prior to the spring recess, where both sides of the aisle voted to partially end the DHS shutdown by agreeing on a budget to fund TSA workers, Senate Republicans are taking the opportunity to fight against Senate Democrats and their request for reforms.
Steven Smith, a professor of political science at Arizona State University, said the use of the reconciliation bill has shifted since its inception in 1974. He added that its modern context wasn’t established till 2001.
“This budget process was designed to reduce the deficit, but here [in 2001,] the Republicans wanted to cut taxes, reduce revenues, all of which would have the effect of increasing the deficit,” said Smith in a phone interview. The second Bush administration tax cut was enacted as a reconciliation bill. The next year, there was another one. So that broke open thinking about what could go into a reconciliation bill.”
Smith said that since 2001, a reconciliation bill has only needed to address revenues, and in turn, has made the deficit worse.
University of Virginia Professor Wyckoff said the GOP strategy will likely continue using reconciliation bills to bypass bipartisan negotiations, just as they did with the Big Beautiful Bill. However, Wyckoff warns that this could have negative consequences for the institution of Congress.
“Using reconciliation in this way, and saying out loud, ‘We’re going to use reconciliation to bypass bipartisan negotiations,’ goes beyond political parties,” Wyckoff said. “It’s really bad for the institution; this isn’t how Congress is supposed to work.”
Jaylyn Preslicka is a reporter for Medill News Services.
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Senate votes increasingly pass with support from senators representing a minority of Americans, raising questions about representation, rules, and democracy.
Getty Images, ANDREY DENISYUK
Record Number of Bills and Nominations Passed With Senators Representing a Population Minority
Apr 17, 2026
From taxes to the environment to public broadcasting like PBS and NPR, the Senate has recently passed record levels of legislation and confirmed record numbers of nominations with senators representing less than half the people.
Using historical data, GovTrack found 56 examples of Senate votes on legislation that passed with senators representing a “population minority.” 26 of those 56 examples, nearly half, have occurred since President Donald Trump’s current term began.
How did GovTrack calculate this?
GovTrack includes a feature on all its Senate vote listings, displaying both the “official” roll call – how many senators voted yes or no – alongside the percentage of the contemporaneous population those senators represent. (When each of a state’s two senators vote differently, half of the state’s population is apportioned to each senator.)
For example, take the very first bill the Senate voted on in 2025: the Laken Riley Act. A top priority for Trump, the bill mandated detention of undocumented immigrants arrested for theft or burglary.
The Republican-led Senate passed it with 65% support. GovTrack’s data shows those senators represented 60% of the U.S. population – still a majority, but a bit less so.
Other Senate votes, though, win a majority of the senators while only representing a minority of the population.
In this article, we look at these votes.
What were they?
Here are two of those most notable “population minority” Senate votes on bills enacted in the current Congress:
- One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Republicans’ main legislation for tax cuts, funding immigration enforcement, and deregulation. President Trump signed it into law July 4, on Independence Day. It passed with senators representing 44% of the U.S. population.
- Rescissions Act, ending federal taxpayer money for CPB (the Corporation for Public Broadcasting), a major funder of PBS television and public radio stations. It passed with senators representing 46% of the U.S. population. (The Corporation for Public Broadcasting voted to dissolve itself in January 2026. PBS and NPR continue to exist, funded through a combination of individuals and philanthropy.)
| Bill | Date | Senate vote | Population % |
|---|---|---|---|
| One Big Beautiful Bill Act | July 1, 2025 | 50%* | 44% |
| Rescissions Act | July 17, 2025 | 52% | 46% |
* Vice President J.D. Vance broke the Senate tie in favor.
Most of the Senate’s other recent “population minority” votes overturned Biden-era rules and regulations, particularly regarding the environment and energy.
By GovTrack’s count, six such Senate votes were about the Environmental Protection Agency, another six were about the Bureau of Land Management, and four were for the Department of Energy.
Also for nominations
Several of the second Trump administration’s most prominent members were confirmed by Senate “population minority” votes – including RFK Jr. (Secretary of Health and Human Services), Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Tulsi Gabbard.
| Nominee | Position | Senate vote | Population % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. | Secretary of Health and Human Services | 52% | 46% |
| Pete Hegseth | Secretary of Defense | 50%* | 46% |
| Pam Bondi | (Former) Attorney General | 54% | 49% |
| Kash Patel | FBI Director | 51% | 46% |
| Tulsi Gabbard | Director of National Intelligence | 52% | 46% |
* Vice President J.D. Vance broke the Senate tie in favor.
The Supreme Court
The oldest example GovTrack found of a “population minority” Senate vote is actually famous: Clarence Thomas’s 1991 Supreme Court nomination by President George H. W. Bush. The Senate approved Thomas with 52% support, but 49% of the population.
He still serves on the Court today.
GovTrack found three other “population minority” Senate confirmations for Supreme Court justices, totalling four: Thomas plus Trump’s three first-term nominees. All four still serve on the Court.
| Supreme Court nominee | Year | Senate vote | Population % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clarence Thomas | 1991 | 52% | 49% |
| Neil Gorsuch | 2017 | 55% | 46% |
| Brett Kavanaugh | 2018 | 51% | 44% |
| Amy Coney Barrett | 2020 | 52% | 48% |
Unprecedented levels for legislation
The earliest example GovTrack could find for legislation was the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, a banking deregulation law. The Republican-led Senate passed it with 55% support, representing 48% of the population.
Yet such examples proved rare. According to GovTrack’s data, starting from that 1999 vote through 2016, such Senate “population minority” votes on legislation only occurred 12 times. That’s not even once per year.
That changed in Trump’s first term, though, when the Republican-led Senate of his first two years passed 17 “population minority” votes.
But it’s really zoomed to another level now. The current Republican-led Senate has already passed an unprecedented 26 “population minority” votes on legislation.
Unprecedented levels for nominations
The numbers similarly reveal how unprecedented this current Senate is for nominations.
After Thomas in 1991, a Senate “population minority” nominee confirmation vote – whether for the Supreme Court or otherwise – only occurred once in the next decade. In 1994, the Senate voted to retire Navy Adm. Frank Kelso while retaining his four-star rank, after sexual harassment allegations, with 56% support but 45% of the population.
According to GovTrack’s historical analysis of votes over the last century, the Senate has confirmed 293 nominees with “population minority” votes. 133 of those 293, almost half, have occurred since Trump took office again in 2025.
Although bills must also pass the House, which has proportional representation, nominations are only voted on in the Senate.
How is this possible?
Wait, why is this even able to occur at all?
Currently, Republicans hold a Senate majority: 53 to 47. However, based on the Census Bureau’s current estimates, it’s actually the other way around by population: Democratic senators represent a 53% majority of the states’ population, versus Republicans with 47%.
How is this possible? Because while the U.S. House is apportioned based on population, with larger states receiving more representatives, the U.S. Senate guarantees each state two senators regardless of size.
This was baked into the American system from the beginning, creating what political scientists call a “counter-majoritarian” institution.
In 2025, according to Census Bureau estimates, the most populous state (California) had about 67x the population as the least populous: Wyoming. Today, a Senate voting majority could be cobbled together from senators representing just 17% of the population.
But that’s actually been the same for a while. Going back to 1900, a Senate voting majority could be cobbled together with senators representing 16% to 20% of the population.
Instead, small states may be more politically aligned than they used to be and are voting together more often as a bloc.
The Senate’s vote threshold
Senators have recently taken advantage of old rules, and also changed some rules, to use lower vote thresholds. This means votes are more often succeeding with less support.
Both parties contributed to this.
In 2013, under President Obama, Senate Democrats changed the threshold for most nominations from three-fifths to a simple majority. They left it at three-fifths for the Supreme Court, though.
Then in 2017 during Trump’s first term, Senate Republicans changed the threshold for the Supreme Court, too, to confirm Justice Gorsuch by a simple majority. (This rule applied to all subsequent justices, too.)
As for legislation, many of the recent “population minority” Senate votes used the Congressional Review Act of 1996, which lowered the usual Senate vote threshold from three-fifths to a simple majority for certain deregulation bills. The One Big Beautiful Act and the Rescissions Act were both voted on under other rules, which lower the vote threshold for certain spending-related bills.
So the three-fifths threshold is now gone for nominations and some types of legislation.
It might not stop there. Trump has called for the Senate to end the three-fifths threshold for all legislation, in order to enact certain Republican policies – particularly regarding election rules. If that happens, “population minority” Senate votes could become even more frequent.
Why does this usually benefit Republicans?
This discrepancy usually benefits the GOP, since they tend to represent smaller states.
Take those two states we just mentioned, for example. Tens of millions of mostly-progressive Californians are represented by the same number of senators as the less than one million mostly-MAGA Wyomingites.
So although their population sizes are apples and oranges, in the Senate, the Golden State’s two Democrats and the Cowboy State’s two Republicans essentially “tie.”
The consequences of this discrepancy become even more obvious in aggregate.
The top half of states by population, from California through Louisiana, actually have a Democratic Senate majority: 28 to 22. However, the bottom half of states by population, from Kentucky through Wyoming, are majority Republican: 31 to 19.
(In particular, note that the bottom half of states lean “more” Republican than how much the top half of states lean Democratic.)
This small-state Republican benefit also holds true at the presidential level. Indeed, two presidents in living memory won election despite losing the national popular vote, both Republicans: George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016.
The Congressional Review Act, which makes it easier for Congress to deregulate – and the rules for rescissions bills, which makes it easier to cut funding – also are more aligned with Republican goals than Democratic goals.
Is this good or bad?
To be clear: all this doesn’t necessarily mean these counter-majoritarian policy outcomes are “better” or “worse.” That depends on your political ideology, and that’s a completely separate discussion.
But for better or for worse, it’s clear that the Senate is diverging from popular opinion far more than ever before, at least in recent memory. Even if one believes the Senate is, in fact, “right” while popular opinion is “wrong.”
Jesse Rifkin's writings about politics and Congress have been published in the Washington Post, Politico, Roll Call, Los Angeles Times, CNN Opinion, GovTrack, and USA Today.
Record Number of Bills and Nominations Passed With Senators Representing a Population Minority was originally published by GovTrack and is republished with permission.
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