Legislation Trump opposes needs Republican votes to pass
Democratic leaders are turning a large midterm victory into a post-election affordability agenda for the new Congress, and the first steps are documented: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has issued a 75-page list of 200 policy proposals for Congress’s “day one agenda,” Columbia professor Tim Wu is pushing an “affordability bill,” Texas’s new Sen. James Talarico is promising universal health care for all, an 181-page investigation memo is circulating, and moderate Democrats are arguing for more incremental steps.
A Publix grocery store in Miami Beach, Florida, on 31 January. Photograph: Jeff Greenberg/Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group/Getty Images.
At a press conference last week celebrating Democrats’ “massive midterms win,” Sen. Chuck Schumer told cash-strapped Americans “Don’t worry” and promised that “relief is on the way.” Winning candidates promised to cut food and health care costs, restrain corporations that burden consumers and workers, curb billionaire power and make the world’s biggest economy better serve the working class. The report described broad agreement on those goals and on some short-term steps, while the victory brought decades-old battles to the fore over how the federal government should fund safety nets and check health care and food costs.
Likely House leader Hakeem Jeffries set up five “affordability working groups” in 2026 on issues including grocery and gas prices and child care, and he has asked House members to try to link every investigation they do back to one of those affordability issues. Already, sitting congressional Democrats have sent “target” letters to oil companies, airlines, technology companies, banks, grocery stores and others, asking about practices that have made life more difficult or expensive for the American consumer. They are planning to question CEOs in public hearings about algorithmic pricing, executive compensation and corporate profits before introducing bills to change corporate behavior.
Trump’s veto power means legislation he does not like needs a group of Republicans to pass, complicating enactment. The report expects a mix of affordability bills Trump will back, including curbs on private equity and credit card interest rates, and bills he will veto. The report also expects Democrats to put vetoed bills before Trump and campaign on them with messaging critical of Republicans.
The planning is unfolding during the lame-duck period between the election and the new Congress’s swearing-in in early January, a stretch typically filled with lobbying and public positioning as corporate lobbyists, think tanks, voter groups and big donors try to influence the agenda.
On health care, Democrats have promised to immediately roll back cuts to Affordable Care Act subsidies and Medicaid work requirements that were part of the $1tn in Medicaid cuts in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Passing those changes will have to be negotiated with Trump or Republicans, and could come as part of a bigger spending package.
Many Democrats, including Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed and South Carolina’s Annie Andrews, ran on pledges to upend an expensive, ineffective health-care system that they said leaves millions with crushing medical debt, and they are pushing universal health care. The report said the what and the how remain unclear.
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez will head a House “working group” on health care to work out what to do next, Jeffries said Wednesday in response to questions. “We’ll be having conversations as a House Democratic family,” Jeffries said. On the Senate side, the HELP committee on health, education, labor and pensions, chaired by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, is expected to take a leading role. Sanders is calling for Medicare for All, immediately lowering the Medicare age to 55 and adding vision and dental care.
The Guardian expects revivals of the bipartisan Patients Before Monopolies Act, which promises to break up big health-care conglomerates, and of bills to curb private equity’s health-care acquisitions. Republican states including Arkansas and Tennessee have already passed laws banning companies from owning pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers. CVS Health CEO David Joyner said Wednesday that the monopolies bill was a reason the company decided to break up.
On corporate oversight, Democrats will scrutinize “the extent to which corporations engaged with the Trump administration,” said Ronak D Desai, who heads the congressional investigations practice at global law firm Paul Hastings. They will look for evidence that companies helped Trump or his allies “in unethical ways” and then seek to tie any such conduct to affordability, he said.
Many of the target letters are not yet public, but there are public clues as to how the links could work. As one example, the report said Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin last week asked the White House to provide details about tariff carveouts for Apple and other companies. The report described those companies as having given Trump gifts.
The Trump administration has fired or pushed out hundreds of workers at agencies that regulate air, water and consumer safety. Congress cannot order the workers reinstated, but public hearings are likely to examine the firings and their effects on consumers’ health, safety and pocketbooks, with budget chief Russ Vought and other Trump officials in the spotlight.
Elizabeth Warren, who will run the Senate banking committee in January, created the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau after the housing meltdown of 2008 to protect consumers from financial scams. The agency’s funding has been slashed, and orders punishing companies for mistreating consumers were scrapped. Desai predicted: “Congress will investigate both the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the CFPB and whether companies previously subject to enforcement were now the beneficiary of any sweetheart deal.”
Some argue Congress should, right now, “swing for the fences.” Joe Van Wye, a senior adviser on public policy and legislation at Washington law firm Cuneo Gilbert Flannery and LaDuca, said Democrats need to take on “the corporate power that has hollowed out the American dream.” He warned: “I don’t think nibbling around the edges, only passing bills Trump is going to pass, is going to cut it.”
On tariffs and the Iran war, Schumer and other Democrats have pledged to end the war, which has pushed up heating oil and other costs, and to end Trump’s tariffs, which cost the average household $1,110 this year.
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who is exploring a 2028 presidential bid, insisted Democrats should move immediately by refusing to vote for a continuing resolution that expires in mid-December. “Democrats should not advance spending to continue to fund this war,” he told The Lever. “The Vietnam war ended only when Congress defunded it,” he added.
The path to ending Trump’s tariffs remains unclear; the report said he and his cabinet have ignored links between the tariffs and high costs. Some congressional Republicans are now criticizing the tariffs, making the two-thirds majority needed to pass a bill without Trump a possibility. Earlier this year, Democrats including Vermont Sen. Peter Welch introduced a bill to end tariffs on Canadian goods, but Republicans blocked it. Welch told CBC that in the new Congress the bill is headed to the White House: “We can’t force the president to sign the legislation we put on his desk, but we can pass it in good faith.”
On voter priorities, a recent Equal Rights Advocates Action Fund survey found that most voters want Congress to protect Social Security, raise wages and lower the costs of basic necessities, health care and family care, a finding the report described as echoing many others. The report said voters’ support for anyone in office is conditional.
Carrie Joy Grimes, founder of the nonprofit WorkMoney, which advocates for lower costs and higher wages for U.S. workers, said of Tuesday’s election results: “Everyone’s on notice now. This is probation and not a mandate.” She added: “People have not suddenly become Democrats. People are very clear that they want something different.” Grimes said she was telling the group’s millions of members: “It’s incumbent on everyday people to take what just happened and keep thumping on both parties.”
Democrats say voters are concerned about the high cost of living, but also about corruption in the Trump administration and the administration’s handling of foreign policy. Democrats hope to tie those concerns together.