This week in Congress: Daylight savings, revenge porn, and more

Here’s what your representatives are working on.

Photo by Louis Velazquez on Unsplash

So far, in his second term, President Trump has signed 145 executive orders but only five laws. But, if anything, that metric overstates his legislative accomplishments. Of those five laws:

• One, the Laken Riley Act, began advancing while Joe Biden was still president, overcoming its key procedural hurdle in the Senate before Trump had even entered office.

• Another was merely a continuing resolution to keep the government funded through September.

• And the other three were resolutions overturning Biden-era regulations: important moves for the sectors they were targeting, but more pro forma reversals of the previous administration than novel legislative actions.

But that’s about to change. This week, legislators sent the first bill to President Trump’s desk that a) advanced fully during his administration, and b) does more than just keeps the government open or overturns a Biden regulation.

Here’s what the bill does — and what else your elected representatives in Congress got done this week:

Combatting revenge porn

The House voted 409-2 in favor of the TAKE IT DOWN Act, which passed the Senate unanimously in February and now heads to the president’s desk for his signature.

The measure will make it illegal to knowingly publish non-consensual nude images — otherwise known as “revenge porn” — online of an “identifiable individual,” meaning someone “who appears in whole or in part” in the picture or “whose face, likeness, or other distinguishing characteristic (including a unique birthmark or other recognizable feature)” is displayed.

The law will cover any nude images that were “obtained or created under circumstances in which the person [publishing the images] knew or reasonably should have known the identifiable individual had a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

Importantly, the law also covers the publication of non-consensual “deepfake” nudes: AI-generated pornographic images that purport to depict real, identifiable individuals. This has become an “epidemic” at many school districts across the country, where students will use AI programs to share fake sexually explicit photos designed to look like their female classmates.

Because of this provision, the TAKE IT DOWN Act is poised to become the first major law addressing a problem stemming from the emergence of AI.

Under the law, the publication of non-consensual nude images — AI-generated or not — will be punishable by up to two years in prison (or three if the offense involves a minor).

The measure also requires social media platforms to set up a process through which a person can notify the platform that a non-consensual nude image of them has been posted. The platforms will be required to take the images down within 48 hours of receiving a valid complaint.

Undoing Biden-era regulations

Lawmakers also sent two more measures to President Trump’s desk, both of them aimed at reversing yet more Biden-era regulations.

These regulations are being overturned under the Congressional Review Act of 1996, which lays out a process for Congress to repeal executive branch regulations — as long as lawmakers act within 60 legislative days of the regulation being implemented. Because of that deadline, lawmakers will often advance a flurry of CRA resolutions in the first few months after control of Congress and the White House flips from one party to the other.

Republicans approved 16 of these resolutions in the opening months of the first Trump administration; Democrats approved three in the first months of Biden’s term. Now, Republicans are churning through the resolutions in an attempt to undo Biden’s regulatory changes. Importantly, CRA resolutions are not subject to the Senate filibuster, which means they only need 51 votes to advance, instead of 60.

Here are the two CRA resolutions that were sent to Trump’s desk this week:

• H.J.Res.42, overturning a regulation setting energy conservation standards for washing machines and dishwashers. Approved by the Senate, 52-46, and by the House, 222-203.

• H.J.Res.75, overturning a regulation setting energy conservation standards for commercial refrigerators and freezers. Approved by the Senate, 52-45, and by the House, 214-193.

And here are other CRA resolutions that advanced this week:

• S.J.Res.31, overturning a regulation aimed at limiting seven hazardous air pollutants. Approved by the Senate, 52-46.

• H.J.Res.60, overturning a regulation that limited the use of off-road vehicles in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona and Utah. Approved by the House, 219-205.

• H.J.Res.78, overturning a regulation that added a fish species, longfin smelt, in the San Francisco Bay to the list of endangered species. Approved by the House, 216-195.

• H.J.Res.87, H.J.Res.88, and H.J.Res.89, overturning waivers allowing California to require all new vehicles in the state to be zero-emission by 2035 and to implement strict emission standards for heavy trucks in the state. Approved by the House, 231-191, 246-164, and 225-196.

The California waivers are an interesting case: they stem from a provision in the Clean Air Act of 1970 that specifically allows California to seek a waiver if the state wants to enact emission standards stricter than the federal government. In the decades since, the state has secured these waivers more than 75 times.

However, it’s not clear whether these waivers are really regulations that can be overturned by the CRA process. The Senate parliamentarian has said that they are not; if the Senate moves forward with the three House-passed resolutions rescinding the waivers, the chamber would be acting in defiance of its procedural referee.

Committee votes on daylight savings + antisemitism

Could this be the year that Congress ends the twice-yearly time change?

The Sunshine Protection Act, which would make Daylight Saving Time (the time we currently use from March to November) permanent year-round, was voted on by the Senate Commerce Committee this week.

The issue consistently creates some interesting bipartisan coalitions: the committee vote was 16-12, with eight Republicans in support, seven Republicans opposed, eight Democrats in support, and five Democrats opposed.

Too many senators voted by proxy, however, so the bill will have to receive a re-vote before it can officially advance. During the session, Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) briefly proposed an amendment to implement the opposite change, making Standard Time (what we currently use from November to March) permanent. He ended up withdrawing the amendment after a conversation with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the chair of the Commerce Committee and a backer of permanent DST.

Meanwhile, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee also saw some amendment drama during consideration of the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would require the Education Department to take into account the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism when investigating discrimination complaints at institutions that receive federal funding.

The IHRA definition is most controversial for including, on its list of examples of antisemitism, several that relate to Israel, including:

• “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”

• “Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations”

• “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

• “Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.”

• “Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”

During the HELP Committee meeting, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was successful in adding several amendments to the bill, including a provision stating that “no person shall be considered antisemitic for using their rights of free speech or protest” to “oppose Benjamin Netanyahu’s led war effort” or “the Israeli government’s devastation of Gaza.” The amendment was approved 12-11, with all Democrats and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voting in favor.

Sanders also proposed amendments ensuring the rights of students to “carry out campus protests that adhere to relevant time, place, and manner restrictions set by an institution” and preventing the federal government from enforcing policies that would compel schools or universities to violate the First Amendment. Both passed 13-10, with support from all Democrats, Paul, and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).

Another amendment — by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) — was approved, again with Paul’s support, stating that it is the “sense of the Senate” that the federal government “infringes on rights protected under the First Amendment” when it “takes an adverse action—including the revocation of a visa, detention, and removal from the United States—against an individual who is an immigrant student, faculty member, or staff member of an institution of higher education due to that individual’s protected conduct under the First Amendment.”

The panel ended up postponing a final vote on the full bill.

And more

• The Senate unanimously passed the Prison Staff Safety Enhancement Act, which would require the Justice Department to develop national standards for the “prevention, reduction, and punishment” of sexual assault and harassment of federal prison staff by inmates. According to a 2023 report, 40% of federal prison staff said they had been sexually harassed or assaulted by an inmate.

• The House passed the Youth Poisoning Protection Act, which would ban the sale of consumer products with at least a 10% concentration of sodium nitrite. The chemical has begun to be used in suicide attempts in recent years, including by teenagers who learn about the method online. It was approved, 378-42.

• The House voted 409-15 in favor of the TICKET Act, which would require ticket sellers for concerts and sporting events to “clearly and prominently disclose the total ticket price for the event at the time the ticket is first displayed to an individual,” including any fees.

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More news to know

The big news of the last 24 hours: President Trump announced yesterday that Michael Waltz would be stepping down as his White House national security adviser, the first high-level staff shakeup of Trump’s second term. Waltz will instead be nominated as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as national security adviser on an interim basis, becoming the first person since Henry Kissinger to hold both posts simultaneously.

Waltz was the official who created the infamous national security Signal chat (and the one who mistakenly added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to the conversation), although his departure reportedly also stemmed from interpersonal and ideological factors: other White House staffers found him difficult to work with, and Trump ally Laura Loomer had crusaded against his hawkish views.

More headlines:

• Politico: Trump’s budget asks Congress for unprecedented federal funding cuts

• CNN: The US economy added a stronger-than-expected 177,000 jobs in April

• NBC: Trump signs executive order to stop federal funding for NPR and PBS

• CBS: Trump says his administration is revoking Harvard's tax-exempt status

• AP: Army plans for a potential parade on Trump’s birthday call for 6,600 soldiers, AP learns

• New York Magazine: The Hidden Struggle of John Fetterman

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The day ahead

• President Trump will attend an RNC fundraising gala at Mar-a-Lago.

• The House and Senate are out for the weekend.

• The Supreme Court will hold its weekly conference.