Tammy Baldwin

WASHINGTON - The nation's capital has quieted down since senators left town earlier this week, joining House members back home for a monthlong campaign blitz ahead of the majority-defining midterm elections.

Much of U.S. Senate Republicans' agenda fell flat when Democrats blocked bills aimed at setting up guardrails on congressional stock trading and addressing data center electricity costs. Meanwhile, Wisconsin's senators focused on health issues — albeit two very different aspects of health policy.

In D.C., Trump met with top AI leaders earlier this week amid anxieties over how the technology should be regulated, and he defended his ads airing across the country, which were paid for using $20 million in government funding. But his approval rating among Wisconsin voters hit an all time low, according to new polling.

Back in Wisconsin, U.S. Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden's race to keep his seat representing Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District is heating up after his opponent, Democrat Rebecca Cooke, served him with a cease and desist order. Odds are, you won't see the two debate.

I'm Valerie Yurk, the Washington correspondent at the Journal Sentinel based in the nation's capital. This is your D.C. Notebook, where I round up what Wisconsin's U.S. lawmakers are up to and any other news you might have missed coming out of Washington, D.C. Send your feedback and questions to [email protected].

Let's get to it:

Senate Democrats block back-to-back GOP bills

The Senate voted down a number of bills this week that are likely to crop up in campaign ads over the next month, including two votes on a congressional stock trading bill and a data center electricity rate measure.

In the Senate, most legislation requires 60 votes to sidestep a lengthy procedural hurdle called the filibuster. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority, meaning they need some buy-in from Democratic members to clear bills.

Democrats argue the stock trading measure, introduced by U.S. House Republican Rep. Bryan Steil, who represents Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District, doesn't actually bar members of Congress from trading stocks. Steil holds that the bill prohibits day trading.

With all Democrats opposed, including Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, the bill was rejected.

Baldwin and other Senate Democrats also voted down the House-passed Ratepayer Protection Act, which Republicans pitched as a solution to voter concerns over data centers raising utility rates. The bill forces states to consider adopting standards to make companies pay for the additional electricity costs caused by their data centers, but does not require states to adopt the standards.

Baldwin said the bill "has no teeth" and is "voluntary compliance." When it passed the U.S. House in September, however, Wisconsin's Democratic U.S. House Reps. Gwen Moore and Mark Pocan, from the 4th and 2nd districts, voted for it.

Baldwin forces health care vote while Johnson holds COVID protocols roundtable

Baldwin forced a vote on her legislation to undo a Trump administration rule making changes to Affordable Care Act coverage.

Baldwin said the current rule puts up to 2 million Americans at risk of having their health care coverage terminated and would raise plan costs. The changes in the rule were in part passed last year by the GOP "One Big Beautiful Bill."

"Today, we will put all Senators on the record – do they want to be responsible for these high costs and their constituents losing their insurance coverage, or will they stand with Americans who just want some breathing room?" she said on the floor.

Receiving no support from Republicans, including Wisconsin's Sen. Ron Johnson, the resolution did not pass.

Johnson held a roundtable Sept. 28 on protocols during the COVID pandemic like lockdowns and mandates that he said "devastated people's lives and global economies."

Johnson said he was particularly concerned about "attitudes" toward unvaccinated people and hospitals' unwillingness to use alternative, cheaper alternative medicines like ivermectin. (Merck, the company that developed ivermectin and manufactures it, said in 2021 there was no meaningful evidence it is effective against COVID-19).

The roundtable was hosted with Children's Health Defense, an organization founded by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy known for its anti-vaccine advocacy.

Trump says AI leaders agree to 'self-police,' defends commercials

After a meeting with Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., several heads of AI companies – including Anthropic's Dario Amodei, Google's Sundar Pichai, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI's Greg Brockman, Nvidia's Jensen Huang and SpaceX's Elon Musk – signed a voluntary accord to self-police.

"They're going to police each other. And they're going to self police. They're going to police themselves. It's going to work out very well," Trump told reporters.

The White House is also defending a host of pro-Trump ads airing across Wisconsin funded using taxpayer dollars, arguing they're PSAs. Both Republicans and Democrats say they look a lot like campaign ads, which would make it an illegal use of government funds.

Cooke takes legal action against opponent Van Orden

An attorney for Cooke sent a cease and desist notice to Van Orden over his use of her likeness in a series of deepfake videos shared on social media, further fanning the flames in Wisconsin's tightest "toss-up" congressional race this cycle.

In response, Van Orden took to X with another AI video, this time depicting a red duck wearing a democratic socialists shirt and shouting "cease and desist" in Cooke's voice while strolling along the shore of a pond.

None of that fares well for a debate between the two candidates. Negotiations to schedule one fell apart earlier this week, which resulted in another social media snafu over who refused to debate.

And we still have a month left, folks!

That's all for this week. Remember, send your feedback and questions to [email protected].