Rep. Julia Brownley (D-Calif.) will not seek reelection after representing a Ventura County-area district for seven terms, she announced Thursday.

Brownley’s decision adds to a wave of retirement announcements ahead of this fall’s midterm elections, with more than three dozen members of the House already deciding not to seek reelection. She’s the second California House Democrat to announce this cycle that she will not seek reelection.

Brownley’s 26th Congressional District covers most of Ventura County and a small part of Los Angeles County. It was made even more blue after the success of Proposition 50’s Democratic-friendly gerrymander.

Brownley did not cite a reason for her decision, but in a statement the Democrat said she was “confident” that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries would lead the House effectively as speaker should Democrats take back the chamber.

California Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin said Thursday she was considering a run for Brownley’s now-vacant seat, telling reporters “I am the most obvious person to run for that seat,” after exiting the Assembly floor following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s State of the State address.

Jeremy B. White contributed to this report.

The Senate unanimously approved a measure Thursday to display an existing plaque honoring the officers who protected the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot.

Congress passed a law in March 2022 mandating the plaque, but years later it has yet to be installed. Speaker Mike Johnson has argued the project is “not implementable,” and the Justice Department has maintained in litigation that an existing plaque does not comply with the law because it lists the departments who responded, not the individual officers.

The measure on Thursday, led by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), sought to address the long-running political squabble.

“On January 6, 2021, courageous law enforcement officers from the United States Capitol Police and other agencies risked their lives to defend the United States Capitol and protect Members of Congress and their staff,” Tillis said in a statement. “Prominently displaying this plaque in the United States Senate ensures their heroism and sacrifice are properly recognized.”

It’s not clear when the Senate will install the plaque, which will remain in the Senate until a permanent location is identified on the west front of the Capitol. The resolution does not need to be approved by the House.

The stark moment of bipartisanship came just after the 5-year anniversary of the Capitol attack was marred by political bickering. The White House published a website to rebut the narrative of the riot filled largely with false information, and Republicans continued to villainize the previous Democratic-led Jan. 6 committee that investigated the attack in its aftermath.

At the beginning of his second term, President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly downplayed and mischaracterized the attack, pardoned those who took part in the riot, including some convicted of violent offenses.

The bipartisan duo that spearheaded efforts to force the Justice Department to release the Jeffrey Epstein files is now asking a federal judge to appoint an official to oversee the process.

This new request from Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) comes as the DOJ is under criticism from members of both parties for not complying with the law Congress passed late last year, which mandated the department to make materials related to the late convicted sex offender public by Dec. 19.

The department, instead, has been rolling out documents in tranches, with redactions Massie, Khanna and others say go beyond what they outlined in their legislation.

“Put simply, the DOJ cannot be trusted with making mandatory disclosures under the Act,” Massie and Khanna wrote to Judge Paul E. Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York, who is overseeing the case against Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. “Absent an independent process, as outlined above, we do not believe the DOJ will produce the records that are required by the Act and what it has represented to this Court.”

The two lawmakers are asking Engelmayer to appoint a so-called special master, or independent monitor, to preside over the continued release — a court-appointed administrator who would ensure the administration follows the law.

A judge has wide discretion to appoint a special master, and judges sometimes take such a step in cases where there are a large number of documents and questions of privilege. A special master is often a retired federal judge.

The judge who oversaw the case against Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, appointed a special master to review the documents seized from Cohen’s properties to assess which were subject to attorney-client privilege, for example.

It’s not clear if Engelmayer might be inclined to appoint a special master.

Massie and Khanna criticized the limited roll-out of materials and the extensive redactions. They also note their bill required Attorney General Pam Bondi to provide details on redactions, which was not submitted to Congress by the statutory deadline.

“The court can rule fairly quickly,” Massie told reporters Thursday. “Pam Bondi is in communication with this judge about the document production … we are stepping in and offering our opinion on what would be helpful.”

“We believe they’re over-redacting material,” he continued. “And they’re also releasing it in a manner as to just flood the channel with stuff that doesn’t matter while they withhold the things that do matter.”

Massie and Khanna have also threatened to hold Bondi in “inherent contempt” — a long-dormant congressional power — over her department’s handling of the case. Massie said Thursday that their effort to pursue that mechanism was still ongoing, but that he is currently focused on the effort to appoint a special master.

“I think it’s the quickest way to produce, to expedite the document production, because these lawyers at the DOJ understand what judges can do in courtrooms,” he added. “And they are already communicating with that judge, even though they’re not communicating with us.”

The House voted Thursday not to overturn a pair of vetoes President Donald Trump made to legislation on a Colorado water pipeline and a Florida flood control project — despite Congress passing the bills with no objections last month.

The votes represented the first attempted veto overrides of the Republican-controlled House, following what were Trump’s first vetoes of his second term in office. And while Trump has acknowledged that his vetoes were for political reasons, most of the House GOP declined to override him.

The vote to uphold the veto of a water infrastructure project bill in Colorado, which is currently ensnared in the administration’s fight with the state’s Congressional delegation over cuts to a local climate center, got 248 votes, short of the 285 two-thirds majority needed for........

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