The Bellevue Compass

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Welcome back to the Bellevue Compass. The news dominating the headlines this week is the coordinated U.S. and Israeli military action against Iran. We’ll cover the Congressional developments surrounding it and the ongoing DHS shutdown.

Plus, contentious primary races in Texas, Arkansas, and North Carolina happened last night, kicking off the election season. Texas’s race has been the most closely watched to see whether longtime Senator John Cornyn or “MAGA favorite” Ken Paxton would clinch the Senate primary—that race is now heading into a May runoff. The race between Representative James Talarico and Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett was a close one, and Crockett called to concede to Talarico this morning. 

What’s Going on in Congress

Republicans are expected to tie the Iran strikes to their push for DHS funding, though the outcome remains uncertain. Republicans are still trying to push through DHS funding, with some even calling for a pause in legal immigration amidst the strikes on Iran and the fatal Austin shooting. 

It’s unlikely the Democratic caucus will end its blockade anytime soon while the Iran debate dominates Congressional attention. Congress is hurtling towards a pair of votes today—one in each chamber—to challenge the president’s authority to continue military operations without congressional approval. The bipartisan resolution from Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) would require an immediate withdrawal of troops. A bloc of moderate House Democrats, however, are uncomfortable with that hardline stance and are introducing their own competing resolution that would give the administration 30 days to cease operations unless Congress formally authorizes continued use of force. Speaker Johnson has said that he believes he has the votes to defeat the Massie-Khanna measure. 

In the Senate, a bipartisan resolution from Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) could come to a vote today, and Democrats would need at least five Republicans to pass it—complicated by the fact that Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is expected to vote against it. The senators to watch are the ones who backed a similar Venezuela war powers measure last month: Todd Young (R-IN), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Susan Collins (R-ME). 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed congressional leadership on Monday and returned Tuesday with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say they’ve been given insufficient justification for why Iran posed an immediate threat, which is the legal bar required for emergency military action. (Under the War Powers Act, the president must demonstrate that a country posed an imminent threat to the U.S. in order to justify emergency military action without prior congressional approval.) The briefing did little to quiet the concerns about the scope and endgame of the conflict. Six U.S. servicemembers have been killed since the start of the conflict, and with the administration offering what Democrats describe as shifting and contradictory justifications for the strikes, pressure for formal congressional authorization is likely to grow. 

The House Rules Committee will convene today to set up another floor vote for Thursday on a DHS bill similar to the one the chamber already passed last month, but it’s expected to go about the same as it did last time. Democrats are unwilling to move, and House leadership is whipping—that is, pressuring members to vote—against the bill, telling members there is “no new language” to address ICE tactics. The GOP is betting that the political environment will pressure Democrats to support the DHS bill, but it remains to be seen whether that pressure is effective.

The Sector Breakdown

The Pennsylvania Impact

The Iran strikes are reverberating across Pennsylvania in a lot of ways. Thousands of canceled flights are stranding travelers, though it’s not possible to say at this point whether any of them are Pennsylvania natives. Ongoing conflict has the potential to disrupt commerce, and rising oil prices from $71 to $77 per barrel will translate into higher gas prices for Pennsylvanians. The ongoing DHS shutdown, now in its 18th day, is adding another layer of complexity to the situation: federal employees and contractors tied to homeland security operations are in limbo, and many will start missing paychecks this month. 

Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation has responded to the Iran strikes along predictably partisan—though not entirely uniform—lines. Republican Senator Dave McCormick and Democratic Senator John Fetterman have both voiced support for the operation. GOP House members from Pennsylvania broadly supported the strikes, citing the need for strong action against Iran’s nuclear program and regional aggression.

Meanwhile, Democratic members in the delegation are questioning the legal basis for the strikes; it is worth noting that presidents have historically retained broad authority over individual military actions, short of a formal declaration of war, which rests in Congress’s hands. 

The ongoing debate about defense and technology interests, which we mentioned briefly in the Sector Breakdown section, has the potential to shape the debate during the primaries and the 2028 election. The Pentagon’s decision to label Anthropic a “supply chain risk” is worth paying attention to for a state with a growing tech sector. The situation gets stickier: a Republican revolt over AI regulation is brewing in Congress, and it will have direct implications for Pennsylvania. More than 50 GOP state lawmakers sent a letter to President Trump this week pushing back on White House efforts to kill state-level AI legislation. A Utah bill that would require AI developers to publish public safety and child protection plans is at the center of the fight, which the White House called “categorically opposed” to its AI agenda. 

With the growing AI industry in Pennsylvania, members of the legislature are already seeking to create guidelines and establish protocols for safe AI usage, as the federal government has not yet done so. If the fight continues, state-backed legislation could face similar headwinds in AI governance and shape the regulatory environment in which the state’s tech industry operates. 

🔥 What We’re Watching

Did You Know? Pennsylvania has a list of prohibited vanity plate sayings—and PennDOT is studious in learning Gen-Z slang and even other languages’ curse words to keep them off of license plates.

Till next time,