Weekly Update 6/15/2026
Weekly Update 6/15/2026
Appropriations:
House appropriations bill would cut Education Department budget by 10%: A House Appropriations Committee bill advanced June 9 would cut the Education Department's fiscal year 2027 budget to $71 billion, a 10% reduction from the current year and below the administration's own $76.5 billion request. For K-12, the bill proposes $40.2 billion, a $4.6 billion cut compared to fiscal year 2026, including a nearly $2 billion reduction to Title I funding for low-income schools that Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), the committee's top Democrat, said would result in 30,000 fewer teachers. The bill eliminates subsidized student loans and redirects roughly $16 billion in projected savings toward shoring up the Pell Grant program, which faces a projected $15 billion shortfall and serves more than six million students. It also eliminates funding for the Office of English Language Acquisition, increases charter school….
House defense appropriations bill advances over Democratic resistance: House Republicans advanced a $1.1 trillion Pentagon funding bill out of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee on June 11, setting the stage for a full committee markup scheduled for June 24. The legislation cleared the panel in a closed-door session over Democratic objections, with Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), the subcommittee's ranking member, saying her colleagues want to see improvements before….
President and Administration:
President signs $70 billion immigration enforcement funding bill: President Donald Trump signed the Secure America Act, a $79 billion package, into law on June 10, allocating $38 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), $26 billion to Customs and Border Protection, and $5 billion more to the Department of Homeland Security through September 2029. The House voted along party lines 214-212 using the budget reconciliation process, which bypasses….
Federal court orders Trump's name removed from Kennedy Center facade: The Kennedy Center’s board has voted to appeal a federal court ruling requiring the removal of the President’s last name from the building’s facade, with DOJ lawyers filing a notice of appeal after both the district court and a federal appeals court denied emergency stays on June 12. Workers nonetheless began removing President Trump's name from the facade in the early hours of June 13, following a ruling last….
The President demands $350B Pentagon infusion and election overhaul in third reconciliation push: The president called on congressional Republicans to immediately pass a third party-line reconciliation bill that would deliver $350 billion in new Pentagon funding and advance the stalled SAVE America Act, an elections overhaul package. The President issued the demand in a Truth Social post, calling for action with "no games, no delays, and no weak compromises," just days after….
Administration appeals ruling striking down $100,000 H-1B visa fee: The administration last week appealed a federal judge's ruling that struck down a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas, a program that allows employers to hire highly skilled foreign workers temporarily. U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin vacated the fee on June 8, finding it amounted to an…
Congress:
Republicans break with leadership to pass pro-union bill: Twenty House Republicans crossed party lines last week to help pass the Faster Labor Contracts Act, a Democratic-led bill that would shorten the time between a union election and a first collectively bargained contract. Democrats used a discharge petition to force the bill to the floor over…
California:
Republican Steve Hilton to face Democrat Xavier Becerra in California governor's race: Former Fox News host and Republican Steve Hilton will face former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra in California's November gubernatorial general election, after both advanced from a crowded all-party primary field. With 88% of votes counted, Becerra led with about 28% support to Hilton's 25%, with billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer, who has already endorsed Becerra, received 23%…
California legislature reaches budget deal, breaks with Newsom on Medi-Cal cuts: California's Assembly and Senate announced a joint budget deal on Thursday, 6/11, that broadly aligns with Newsom's call for fiscal restraint but rejects his proposed cuts to Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program, setting up a high-stakes negotiation with the governor this summer. The nearly $356 billion spending plan sets aside $29 billion in reserves and calls for a constitutional amendment to allow the state to save even more, while relying on three revenue measures Newsom proposed: a new tax on digital software, a renewed tax…
U.S. DOJ opens investigation into Newsom, wife, governor says: Gov. Newsom said today, 6/15, that he and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, are under federal investigation by the DOJ and accused the president of weaponizing against him because of his potential 2028 presidential run. In a video message, Newsom said federal agents have been demanding records and reviewing years of documents. The investigation, Newsom said, is not based on evidence…
Silicon Valley revolts against Newsom software tax plan: Fifty major technology companies including Apple and Alphabet sent a letter to California legislative leaders on Thursday, 6/11 urging them to reject Newsom's proposal to extend the state's sales tax to digital software services. The letter, addressed to Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón, argues the tax would raise costs for widely used business tools like Microsoft Outlook and Slack, and that a parallel proposal…
HUD suspends funding for Los Angeles homelessness agency over fraud allegations: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) suspended federal funding for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) on Thursday, 6/11 following the opening of an inspector general investigation into allegations of fraud and financial mismanagement at the agency. HUD Secretary Scott Turner accused LAHSA of providing false statements, lacking adequate internal controls and failing to safeguard against conflicts of interest, including an incident in which the agency's former chief executive allegedly directed more than $2 million…
Education:
Treasury previews rules for federal scholarship tax credit program as states weigh participation: The Treasury Department confirmed and previewed rules this week for public school student eligibility for a new federal scholarship tax credit program launching January 1, noting that formal regulations will be released before October. The program, created by last year's "One Big, Beautiful Bill," offers dollar-for-dollar federal tax credits of up to $1,700 for donations to scholarship-granting…
House Education Committee grills superintendents on LGBTQ+ student policies: The House Education and Workforce Committee held a contentious hearing on June 10 in which Republican members pressed superintendents from Chicago, San Francisco and Virginia's Loudoun County on their districts' transgender student, parental notification and curriculum content policies. Committee Chair Tim Walberg (R-MI) organized the hearing around what he called "attacks…
DOJ opens compliance reviews of four California school districts over LGBTQ+ policies: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) launched compliance reviews on June 8 into four California public school districts, including San Francisco Unified School District, over their policies on parental notification and transgender student access to facilities…
Supreme Court declines to take up school gender transition notification case: The U.S. Supreme Court declined on June 2 to hear a case filed by California's Rocklin Unified School District over its policy requiring teachers to notify parents within three days of a student's gender transition or nonconforming status. The rejection is the latest…
Lawsuit challenges Education Department's cancellation of English learner teacher grants: The Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Education Association (NEA) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education over its abrupt cancellation of 28 national professional development grants for teachers of English learners. The grants were rescinded in September using keyword searches for terms like "equity" and "diversity," the suit alleges, rather than substantive…
New National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores show gains for lowest-performing 9-year-olds: The latest results from the NAEP Long-Term Trend showed reading and math gains for 9-year-olds in the 2024-25 school year, with the largest improvements among the lowest-performing students. Students at the 10th percentile in math gained 7.5 points, compared to 0.7 points for top performers; the lowest readers gained 9.3 points. Researchers from Dartmouth, Harvard and Stanford also documented 2025 gains in a separate Education Scorecard released last month. Gains did not extend to 13-year-olds, where math scores continued to decline, and analysts caution the increases may partly reflect a post-pandemic rebound rather than…