Week Ending October 3, 2026
Most of us only hear about Congress through screaming cable news segments or social media clips designed to make us mad before we’re informed. The People’s Ledger is different. It’s a quick, clear look at what lawmakers are actually debating, funding, and changing – minus the political theater.
Congress Shuts It Down – But Not Before A Reminder That a Majority Isn’t Always Enough
And that, as they say, is a wrap.
The House skipped town mid-September, but the Senate stayed through Wednesday night before holding a quick pro-forma check-in on Thursday. Then they left town for the remainder of October – not scheduled to return until November 9th.
But before locking the dead bolt, Senators squeezed in one last burst of legislation, confirmations and procedural votes.
And two of those votes show us a textbook look at how Washington really functions:
53 senators voted to advance a congressional stock-trading bill. It failed.
57 senators voted to advance a ratepayer-protection bill. It also failed.
Welcome to the United States Senate – where 60 is usually the only number that matters.
1. The Big One – The Senate Joins the House on Election Recess
What happened
The Senate spent its final three days in D.C. moving a surprisingly broad collection of bills and nominations.
Collegiate Athletics: On Monday, the Senate gave final approval to the Protect College Sports Act (77–22) after weeks of debate over athlete compensation, Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) rights, transfers, and health protections. The bill now heads to the House, which isn’t around to vote on it.
Cabinet Confirmation: Confirmed Keith Sonderling as Secretary of Labor in a tight 47–41 vote.
Public Safety & Health: Passed the Safe Access to Cash Act and the Health Care Cybersecurity and Resiliency Act.
Diplomatic & Local Bills: Approved a batch of U.S. ambassador nominations and cleared several land, infrastructure, and public-safety measures by unanimous consent.
Then the Senate closed up shop. The Senate held its final pro-forma session on Thursday morning with the next regular session scheduled for November 9th.
What changed
Both chambers are now effectively off the field until after the elections. The House’s last vote was recorded on September 16th and the Senate’s was September 30th. Technically, periodic pro-forma sessions will keep the lights on so the chambers remain legally open, but no action work will happen.
Why it matters
There’s nothing inherently wrong with Congress taking an election-season state work period. Representatives and senators should spend time meeting with the people they represent.
But both houses left a massive stack of unfinished business on the desk:
Unfinished Funding: Fiscal Year 2027 started October 1st without a full-year budget in place.
Stranded Legislation: Measures passed by one chamber – like the Senate’s college sports bill – are completely frozen until the other chamber returns.
Open Nominations: Dozens of executive and judicial nominations remain unconfirmed.
Winners & Losers
Likely Winners: Incumbents running for reelection now get uninterrupted time in their states and districts and campaigns now have a fixed pre-election record to argue about.
Likely Losers: Legislation caught in limbo, and taxpayers watching lawmakers leave town without finishing their work.
What to Watch For Next
Nothing, unless Congress is unexpectedly recalled. Which may be the most honest “What to Watch” section I’ve written yet.
2. Quietly Moving Bills
The Senate’s Last-Minute Cleanup
While headlines focused on campaigns, the Senate quietly cleared two noteworthy bills before leaving.
S.3798 – Safe Access to Cash Act
What It Does: Expands federal criminal law to cover robberies and violent acts targeting workers servicing or transporting cash to network-connected ATMs, even if the machine isn’t physically attached to a bank building.
Why It Matters: As ATMs have expanded into standalone kiosks, convenience stores, and retail centers, criminal targets have shifted outside traditional bank vaults. This bill closes a loophole in federal jurisdiction.
S.3315 - Health Care Cybersecurity and Resiliency Act
What It Does: Mandates formal coordination between the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to protect hospitals and health providers from cyberattacks.
Why It Matters: Ransomware attacks against regional hospital systems have increasingly crippled medical care across the country. This legislation focuses on protecting critical healthcare infrastructure before a crisis hits.
3. Money & Spending
Happy New Fiscal Year. Congress Still Hasn’t Finished Funding It.
October 1 marked the beginning of Fiscal Year 2027.
And once again, Congress started a new fiscal year without finishing the previous one.
Our government is instead operating under the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027, which generally keeps existing programs operating at prior-year rates through December 11th.
The law specifically directs agencies to take only the limited funding actions necessary to continue ongoing programs while Congress decides final funding levels.
Why it matters
A Continuing Resolution (CR) avoids the immediate chaos of a government shutdown, but it puts governance into a holding pattern. Strategic planning gets stalled, defense and domestic agencies operate on auto-pilot, and the real decisions get kicked into a high-pressure post-election “lame-duck” session.
Expect another high-stakes showdown – and likely another stopgap extension – when lawmakers return in November.
Winners & Losers
Likely Winners: Federal agencies and employees avoided a shutdown. And Congress bought itself more time.
Likely Losers: The American people, long-term planners, budget discipline and anyone hoping Congress would finish one fiscal year’s appropriations before beginning the next one.
4. Coming to the House Floor This Week
Nothing.
Pro-forma sessions in both chambers with members not scheduled to return until after the elections.
So for the next several weeks:
No House floor agenda.
No normal Senate floor agenda.
Election season.
5. Civil Liberties & Constitutional Power
53–47 Can Still Mean “No”
This past week gave Americans a quick class in Senate procedural mechanics.
On Wednesday, the Senate considered whether to move forward on H.R. 7008, the Stop Insider Trading Act, which would restrict individual stock ownership and trading by members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children.
The vote was 53-47 in favor, but the bill still failed to move forward.
Shortly after, senators voted on the Ratepayer Protection Act, a House-passed bill (417–3) that requires massive electricity users – like commercial AI data centers – to cover the cost of electrical grid upgrades required to power them, rather than shifting those costs onto local households.
The vote was 57–43 in favor. It also failed to move forward.
You might be wondering why?
Translating Washington’s Procedural Gymnastics
Both votes were cloture motions on a motion to proceed. And that sentence is exactly the sort of Washington language I started the Ledger to translate.
In plain English: senators weren’t voting on final passage of the bills. They were voting on whether to end debate and allow the bills onto the floor for consideration.
Under Senate Rule XXII (the filibuster rule), it takes 60 votes to end debate and move most legislation forward.
A Key Distinction: A 53–47 vote wasn’t a rejection of banning congressional stock trading, and a 57–43 vote wasn’t a rejection of protecting utility ratepayers. A clear majority voted “yes” on both. But under Senate rules, a simple majority isn’t enough to break a filibuster.
The Filibuster Debate
The Case for It: Supporters argue the 60-vote threshold forces bipartisan compromise, protects the minority party’s voice, and prevents rapid, swinging policy shifts every time control of the Senate flips.
The Case Against It: Critics argue it creates an unconstitutional supermajority requirement for standard legislation, enabling a minority of senators to block policies supported by a clear majority of the public and the chamber.
These bills aren’t dead, they’re stalled. Senate leadership can bring them back up during the lame-duck session, but they will still need to find the votes to reach 60.
6. Publius Take
The Ledger Closes – The Record Remains.
For the past several weeks, I’ve examined the congressional calendar with a critical eye.
Members should go home. They should hold town halls, explain their decisions to constituents, and face tough questions from people who disagree with them. Representative government doesn’t mean hiding in a committee room in Washington every day of the year.
But now the pre-election legislative record is officially locked, and we need to look at where things stand:
Congress started FY2027 without passing a full budget, kicking the deadline to December 11th.
American forces remain engaged in military actions against Iran without an explicit statutory authorization from Congress.
Bipartisan popular measures – from stock-trading bans to energy grid protections – sit stalled behind procedural rules.
Over the next few weeks, candidates from both parties will hit the trail with polished speeches about what they plan to do if we give them another term.
That’s fine. Campaigns are usually about the future.
But representative governance is about the record.
When candidates ask for your vote, don’t just evaluate their promises. Look at the ledger:
What bills did they actually vote on?
Which major deadlines were met, and which were kicked down the road?
Where did Congress stand up as an independent branch of government, and where did it surrender its power to the executive branch?
Those aren’t political questions. They’re Article I questions.
Congress is the branch of government closest to the people because its members have to stand in front of those people every two years and justify their record.
The Ledger is closed until after the election.
The record stays open.
7. The Bottom Line
The House left weeks ago and the Senate finished its cleanup work on Wednesday. Now, Washington is officially quiet until November 9th.
Congress leaves behind an unfinished budget, stalled legislation, and major unresolved constitutional questions over war and spending.
As lawmakers head home to ask for another term, voters don’t need to guess where Congress stands.
Open the record, look at the votes, and decide for yourself whether the job was done.
8. Sources & Further Reading
U.S. Senate — Floor Activity, September 28, 2026.
U.S. Senate — Floor Activity, September 30, 2026.
U.S. Senate — 119th Congress Cloture Motions.
U.S. Senate Daily Press — October recess and November 9 return schedule.
U.S. House Clerk — 2026 Roll-Call Votes.
GovInfo — H.R. 7008, Stop Insider Trading Act.
CRS — Proposals to Limit Member of Congress Stock Trading.
GovInfo — H.R. 9340, Ratepayer Protection Act.
GovInfo — S. 3798, Safe Access to Cash Act.
U.S. Senate / GovInfo — S. 3315, Health Care Cybersecurity and Resiliency Act.
GovInfo — Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027.