Weekly Update 6/29/2026

Weekly Update 6/29/2026

Appropriations: 

Partisan divide deepens as House Appropriations Committee clears $1.1 trillion Pentagon funding bill: The spending committee last week completed action on all 12 annual government funding bills, advancing a $1.1 trillion fiscal year 2027 Pentagon spending measure in a 34-27 party-line vote, the first time in recent memory that Pentagon spending has drawn a complete partisan split. No Democrats supported the legislation, with opposition stoked by Republican amendments to permanently rename the Defense Department as the Department of War, block funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts, and restrict gender-affirming care for…

President and Administration:

Education Department's civil rights office closures create enforcement gaps: The administration’s closure of seven of the Education Department’s 12 regional Offices for Civil Rights (OCR) branches, combined with Secretary Linda McMahon’s decision to transfer special education oversight to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and civil rights enforcement to the Department of Justice (DOJ), is raising concerns that students with disabilities and those facing discrimination will have fewer protections. The two offices have long collaborated on joint guidance, including a 2022 document on informal removals of students…

Supreme Court's parental notification ruling reshapes district policies and triggers federal investigations: The Supreme Court's ruling in Mirabelli v. Bonta, issued earlier this term through the court's emergency docket without oral arguments, is reshaping school district policies and federal investigations. The decision found that policies limiting parental notification about students' gender transitions may violate constitutional parental rights. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on June 18 temporarily blocked California's AB 1955, the Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today's Youth (SAFETY) Act, which prohibited districts…

Supreme Court hands Trump sweeping authority: The Supreme Court today struck down a nearly century-old precedent that had allowed Congress to protect the heads of independent federal agencies from presidential removal without cause. The 6-3 ruling, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., overturns Humphrey's Executor, a 1935 precedent that insulated leaders of roughly two dozen agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Federal Communications Commission and the Securities…

Congress:

House Republican leaders fail to advance Reconciliation 3.0: House Republican leaders last week failed to secure agreement on a third party-line budget reconciliation package, known as "Reconciliation 3.0," after the House Budget Committee rejected leadership's pitch to advance a budget resolution. The standoff centered on demands from Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) that any resolution be fully offset "dollar for dollar" and "year for year" in current savings, without accounting…

OMB overstepping authority?: House Ways and Means Ranking Member Richald Neal of Massachusetts demanded that OMB Director Vought and HHS Secretary Kennedy withdraw a new regulation to increase the involvement of political appointees in reviewing federal grants. Neal wrote that the rule would "destabilize the bedrock of federal discretionary grantmaking and independent research--and is an affront to scientists, researchers, the Constitution, and the American people…

California: 

Watchdog report finds Education Department staff cuts compromised legally required functions: Federal auditors last week found that a 40% staff reduction at the Education Department in early 2025 appears to have eliminated units performing legally required functions. The reduction eliminated suboffices in 15 of the department's 17 offices, terminated 90 grants totaling $504 million, with teacher training and mental health programs most impacted, and canceled 129 contracts worth $1.3 billion. Impacted grants…

Newsom signs $351.7 billion budget, including education governance overhaul: California Gov. Gavin Newsom last week reached a budget agreement with legislative leaders on a $351.7 billion spending plan for fiscal year 2026-27, finalizing a deal that prioritizes austerity, builds reserves, and advances a major restructuring of state education oversight. The budget, which covers October 1, 2026, through September 30, 2027, includes $400 million in new housing and homelessness funding, more than $200…

Education: 

Federal judge strikes down Education Department rule excluding education from graduate borrowing definition: A federal judge last week struck down an Education Department rule excluding from the "professional" degree definition governing graduate student borrowing limits under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The law sets higher annual borrowing caps for professional degrees ($50,000) than for other graduate degrees ($20,500). The department had limited the definition to 11 mostly doctoral-level…

Research links immigration enforcement to student absenteeism: New research from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University links immigration enforcement to increased student absenteeism, finding that students born outside of the U.S. were about two percentage points more likely to be absent after the President's 2025 inauguration, with 11th graders up…

States fall short on federal special education targets: More than half of U.S. states and territories failed to meet annual implementation targets for federal special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), according to state determinations issued June 18 by the Education Department. Only 20 states received a "meets requirements" rating for IDEA Part B services for students ages 3-21, while four states, Maine, New Mexico, New York, and Vermont, were labeled "needs…