Free Republic

Rep. Thomas Kean Jr., R-N.J., has now confirmed an illness has kept him from voting on Capitol Hill since March 5 and says he plays to return to Washington, D.C., soon. However, neither he nor others have disclosed the details of his condition. In an interview with the New Jersey Globe, Kean said that in the next couple of weeks he will return to voting in the House and hit the campaign trail. “My doctors are confident that I’m on the road to a full recovery,” he also told the newspaper. Kean said the illness doesn't impact his cognitive health,...

In a Republican-led Congress defined by deference to President Donald Trump, there's a small but steadily growing cohort who have found themselves more willing to break with the White House. Although the president maintains a firm grip on Republican voters, the expanding club could hinder his agenda on everything from the Iran war to immigration funding at a moment when his party holds a tenuous majority on Capitol Hill. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is the newest member of the club. Just days after losing his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, Cassidy on Tuesday reversed himself on legislation involving the...

1. Voted against NDAA provisions for indefinite detention without trial. 2. Opposed FISA Section 702 reauthorizations lacking warrant requirements. 3. Sponsored amendments to defund NSA warrantless surveillance programs. 4. Cosponsored legislation to end bulk phone record collection by NSA. 5. Voted against Cyber Intelligence Sharing bills expanding corporate data sharing with government. 6. Introduced Surveillance Accountability Act requiring warrants for many searches. 7. Pushed for warrants on backdoor searches of Americans’ data. 8. Opposed weakening encryption standards for surveillance. 9. Cosponsored LIBERT-E Act for FISA court transparency. 10. Voted against Patriot Act extensions. 11. Sponsored bill to repeal parts of...

President Donald Trump will not control the Republican Party forever. No political figure does... History is littered with figures who seemed immovable — until they moved. The question is never whether change will come. The question is whether honorable people are ready when it does. We intend to be ready. What does that mean in practice? It means identifying and supporting candidates, at every level of government, but most importantly a candidate for President in 2028, who hold genuine conservative values rather than merely pay lip service to them. It means building a coalition of Republicans who understand that winning...

The conventional liberal take on the Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais to limit the use of race in drawing congressional districts is that it is a defeat for minority political influence… But the fact that it will no longer be permitted doesn’t mean that Black voters will necessarily have less influence. They could even have more. The key to understanding why is the tried-and-true power of the swing voter… The alternative to race-based districts, after all, is those that are “geographically compact”—in which the shared concerns of neighbors about their communities are at issue. Those could include race-related...

In 2024, President Donald Trump won the White House buoyed by historic support among Hispanic voters, diversifying the GOP’s coalition and flipping Democratic strongholds like South Texas. Two years later, a crop of Hispanic Republican candidates in Texas will aim to solidify Trump’s gains in defiance of the midterm headwinds facing the GOP this fall. The balance of the U.S. House could turn on whether they succeed... As many as four of the five Democratic seats targeted by GOP redistricting could feature Hispanic GOP nominees, while two of Democrats’ top targets will be defended by Hispanic Republican candidates. In all...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Tennessee lawmakers in the House of Representatives have passed the bill that will split Memphis along new congressional lines. Memphis will be split into three congressional districts per the new map, which passed in the Tennessee General Assembly’s special session on redistricting Thursday, May 7. Democrats in the state house have railed against the push to redraw congressional lines outside of the decennial census, calling the move a “grave, grave rollback of rights” for Black Tennesseans and especially for Memphians. The proposed new map, only released to the public about 24 hours before they passed the...

A generational and structural shift is decoupling Black identity from Democratic Party loyalty, transforming a once-reliable voting bloc into a cohort of "political free agents" that the GOP is uniquely positioned to exploit.

Ever since the Never Trumpers left the Republican Party and rushed into the arms, politically and financially, of the Democrats, it's been pretty clear that all the "conserving conservatism" talk was a smokescreen. They wanted to run the Republican Party, and when they were rebuffed, they exited to grift off the Democrats. I wrote about Jeb!'s former communications director now embracing Hasan Piker and Nick Fuentes because he wants to preserve "democracy" against Donald Trump, and we all know that David French, who ran into the arms of The New York Times, argued that the best way to fight abortions...

SAYRE, Okla. (KOKH) — Oklahoma Senate Candidate Barry Christian, 54, was found dead on Thursday after he was declared missing, according to multiple reports. On Thursday afternoon, officials with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation confirmed that Christian's truck had been found in a rural area on the side of the road, south of Erick. A short time later, Christian's daughter told Sinclair Broadcast Group that a body was discovered inside the truck.

State lawmakers on Wednesday passed redrawn congressional lines that create an additional four GOP-leaning seats in Florida, making it the eighth state to complete mid-decade redistricting in the 2026 election cycle — and likely setting up a historic legal challenge in the state. The proposal passed the Florida state House and Senate on largely partisan lines, even as some members of the Republican majorities have expressed skepticism about redrawing the congressional lines. Florida GOP lawmakers largely remained silent publicly as the state has become part of a Trump-backed mid-decade redistricting push designed to beef up Republicans' slim U.S. House majority...

Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., on Monday unveiled a proposed slate of congressional district maps that would see the state net four-Republican leaning seats. The map, first reported by Fox News, would limit Democratic seats to Orlando, and three isolated urban bubbles along the southeastern coast. Florida currently has 20 Republican seats and 8 Democratic seats. The new map would shift the balance to 24 Republicans and 4 Democrats. The move comes in the wake of the Virginia redistricting referendum, which saw voters approve a plan that would shift Virginia from 6 Democrats and 5 Republicans to 10 Democrats and 1...

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is still in her second term, but already on the cusp of becoming a national figure. She’s gone one-on-one with Joe Rogan. On live TV, she corrected Bill Maher about her “Cuban” ethnicity (“We’re Mexican. We’re not all the same, Bill.”) If you could buy stock in a politician’s future, Rep. Luna’s stock value would be soaring. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out why. If Jay Leno’s quip is accurate — and politics is “show business for ugly people” — then Mrs. Luna is preposterously overqualified. Not too many of her colleagues...

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a self-described "progressive" candidate’s bid to enter Ohio’s Republican primary, leaving in place a decision by state election officials to disqualify him for misrepresenting his party affiliation. Samuel Ronan, a former Democratic state and national candidate, attempted to run as a Republican in Ohio’s 15th Congressional District against GOP incumbent Rep. Mike Carey. To do so, he signed a declaration of candidacy — under penalty of election falsification — swearing he was a member of the Republican Party. However, court documents filed in U.S. District Court note Ronan was caught publicly admitting that his...

A contingent of House Democrats and Republicans have banded together to advance an amnesty bill that they definitely want you to think is not actually an amnesty. 20 Republicans so far have joined in as co-sponsors on the bill, betraying the agenda of the Trump administration and the will of the electorate. @realBrandonGill Make no mistake about it: The so-called 'Dignity Act' is amnesty. It gives amnesty to any illegal alien that crossed the border before 2021, any illegal married to a U.S.citizen, and also massively expands visas—-including permanent residence for F-1 international students. It would bring mass deportations to...

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is calling for Republicans to provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with enough funding to last a decade. He believes Republicans can do that without the support of a single Democrat. "We can do it with just 50 votes," Cruz said. Lawmakers in the Senate agreed early on Friday to advance funding for DHS that includes the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Coast Guard, the Secret Service and seven other agencies — even as gridlock over ICE remains firmly in place.

An Arlington Heights couple has been charged in connection with the repeated vandalism of a Republican political office in the northwest suburb, including graffiti featuring swastikas, obscenities, and mocking references to slain conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. Brock McNerney, 72, and Moisette McNerney, 69, of the 1200 block of East Clarendon Avenue in Arlington Heights, were taken into custody on Monday, the village police department announced. Both were charged with two misdemeanor offenses and released pending their initial court appearance. The pair was identified as the individuals responsible for vandalizing the Republicans of Wheeling Township office at 909 East Rand Road...

The numbers crunched by Derek Ryan, founder of Ryan Data and Research, show that nearly 55% of the ballots cast early and on the same day in the recent Democratic primary came from voters 50 and older. By contrast, voters 30 and under accounted for just 14% of the turnout in a primary that nominated 36-year-old James Talarico… But the age gap is even more yawning on the Republican side, according to Ryan's analysis, which uses data from the Texas Secretary of State's Office, the Texas Legislative Council and other sources. Voters 50 and older made up 78% of GOP...

President Trump and the Republican National Committee are strongly considering Dallas as the site of an unusual midterm convention later this year, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. Republicans are working to finalize the plan as they seek to rally their voters in the face of political headwinds. Some details must still be finalized, including the exact dates, and officials said formal paperwork still needed to be signed. But Trump advisers who are looking to parade their candidates and rally the base are close to settling on Dallas over other options, which had included Las Vegas, according...

Are congressional Republicans absolutely determined to forfeit this November’s midterm elections? It sure looks that way. The GOP would hardly be acting any differently if it were secretly run by its enemies. The election-security provisions of the SAVE Act enjoy overwhelming popular support. According to CBS/YouGov polling, requiring photo ID to vote is literally an 80-20 issue, commanding the support of four out of five voters. Yet the Republican Senate, with a 53-47 majority, is struggling to pass the law. Yes, the filibuster gives Chuck Schumer a powerful weapon to use against the GOP, but there are ways around that...