Senate Democrats blocked two House-passed bills Wednesday — one shielding Americans from data center energy costs, another banning members of Congress from buying stocks — killing both on the same day and heading home for a month-long recess leaving voters with nothing.
The twin votes expose where Senate Democratic leadership draws the line: not with ratepayers staring down higher utility bills, and not with reformers who want to end congressional self-enrichment. In both cases, Chuck Schumer declared the bills "frauds" because they didn't go far enough — then offered no path to anything stronger.
The Ratepayer Protection Act passed the House 417-3 earlier this month. It would require state utility regulators to consider standards making data center companies cover their own energy infrastructure costs instead of passing them to residential customers. The bill failed 57-43 on Wednesday, with only four Democrats — Maggie Hassan, Amy Klobuchar, Jon Ossoff, and Raphael Warnock — voting to advance it, according to CBS News.
Schumer's objection: the bill is "optional" because it lets states decide whether to adopt the standards. "Not a single company has to comply with it," Schumer said on the floor. Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, the top Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, blocked an earlier unanimous consent request and pitched his own alternative. CNBC reported that Heinrich called the Republican bill "nothing more than a messaging bill on the eve of an election."
What neither Democrat explained is who benefits from killing even a voluntary framework. Data centers are devouring grid capacity nationwide, and the costs are showing up on utility bills. Heinrich has his own bill — but his office offered no timeline for bringing it to the floor, and the Senate is now on recess until after the election.
The Stop Insider Trading Act met the same fate, failing 53-47. The bill would have prohibited members of Congress, their spouses, and dependent children from purchasing new individual stocks. It passed the House 232-198 in July, according to CNBC. But Republicans attached a voter ID provision from the SAVE America Act, which Schumer labeled a "poison pill." Every Senate Democrat voted no.
Democrats argued the trading ban didn't go far enough because it allowed members to keep existing holdings and didn't cover the president, vice president, or cabinet. "It doesn't actually prohibit members from trading stock," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, according to the Daily Caller. The New York Post noted that President Trump executed 21,000 securities trades in 2025 and that members of Congress from both parties made 13,324 trades totaling $635.6 million last year.
Republican Josh Hawley conceded the House bill was "not nearly as robust" as he'd prefer but said he'd vote to advance it and work to strengthen it, the Daily Caller reported. That's the legislative process — or would be, if either bill were allowed to proceed.
Ohio Republican Jon Husted, who is locked in a tight race against former Sen. Sherrod Brown, pushed both bills. He wrote on X that they were "commonsense, bipartisan" measures and that "Senate Democrats are the only ones standing in the way."
The pattern is clear: Schumer demanded mandatory provisions on energy and a total stock trading ban — then used the absence of those provisions to kill both bills rather than amend them on the floor. The data center bill's voluntary framework at least would have established a model states could adopt. The stock trading ban at least would have stopped new purchases. Instead, Americans get neither — and Schumer's conference heads home to campaign.
