WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala. has found herself at the center of key spending fights between the White House and Congress as the Trump administration has frozen and delayed federal funding that is central to Alabama institutions.
Most recently, Britt intervened to release funds for education and for the National Institutes of Health.
“When you’re looking at NIH, it is my belief, where there are life-saving and life-changing research, we need to see that through to fruition,” Britt said in an interview. “This is about cures.”
In a letter to the White House budget office on July 25, Britt led 13 other GOP senators to urge the administration to fully implement NIH funding appropriated in the fiscal year 2025 continuing resolution.
“Suspension of these appropriated funds – whether formally withheld or functionally delayed – could threaten Americans’ ability to access better treatments and limit our nation’s leadership in biomedical science,” the senators wrote.
Britt said she had a conversation with President Donald Trump about NIH funding, where he “reiterated his strong support for finding those cures.”
Days after the letter, a footnote in an Office of Management and Budget document led to the suspension of NIH funding for research grants, the Wall Street Journal reported. Sen. Patty Murray, D-WA, the top Senate Democrat appropriator, estimated that funding was worth $15 billion.
Once again, Britt was one of the people who intervened, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-WV, said during a Senate appropriations markup last week.
“When the events of earlier this week occurred… I know Senator Britt was very active in having those decisions reversed,” Capito said during last Thursday’s markup.
The Trump administration appears to be listening.
Soon after the reports surfaced about that freeze, the decision was reversed.
And the administration confirmed to Britt that the issue of delayed NIH funding, as described in the letter, “has been resolved,” according to the senator’s office.
Being a mom is part of what has driven Britt to become a strong advocate for the research done through NIH.
“There are people out there who have gotten information about maybe their child, or themselves, a terminal illness or rare disease or whatnot,” Britt told ADN. “You want those parents, those people, to have every tool in their toolbox to help their child heal, to help their child live a long life, to help their child live another day, and I think that NIH has been so critical to that.”
She’s also motivated by how vital NIH funding is in Alabama. Researchers in the state received more than $380 million in fiscal year 2024, which led to $916 million in economic activity in Alabama. The University of Alabama at Birmingham ranks in the top 1% of all NIH-funded institutions.
“We want to make sure that investment continues to be there, and I am proud to have led the effort to ensure that it is,” Britt told ADN.
Before Britt led the letter about NIH money, she also joined with 9 other Republican senators to urge the White House to release education funds that were set to be given out right before the new school year, including about $70 million for schools and afterschool programs in Alabama. All of the funds were eventually released after pushback from Congress.
“I was proud to sign on to Sen. Capito’s letter, where we were urging the release of those funds to make sure that our students had what they needed throughout the summer and moving into the school year,” Britt said. “I was proud to see those funds released.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., also said he discussed getting the education funds released with White House officials.
The GOP-led letters directed to Trump administration officials, pushing back against moves to freeze and delay already appropriated funds, represent a small but significant way some Republicans are still getting their priorities funded, even while the administration aims to cut funding.
Some of the Senate’s funding bills for Fiscal Year 2026 have also bucked Trump’s efforts to widely slash federal spending. The Senate appropriations bill that funds NIH that passed out of committee with bipartisan support, including from Britt, boosts funding for the agency by $400 million, despite the administration’s proposed 40% cut to NIH.
But Britt has been supportive of the White House clawing back spending through a rescissions package. In July, Congress passed the package to roll back about $9 billion in foreign aid and public media funds that lawmakers previously appropriated.
“Creating accountability in this, and saying, if you spend these dollars outside of the mission in which they were appropriated for, then we will hold you accountable,” Britt told ADN.
“I think (it) is good for the appropriations process, and I think it is also good for the American taxpayer. It gives them more confidence that when we are doing our job, we are doing the proper oversight to make sure that those dollars are spent wisely.”
Democratic education advocates launch action fund targeting Alabama, other Southern states
This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters
Two veteran Democratic education advocates announced a new public school think tank and action fund this week aimed at making inroads in four Southern states. But the outfit may face an uphill battle in states like Alabama and Tennessee, where Republican supermajorities have backed privatization efforts in recent years.
The Center for Strong Public Schools Action fund will back center-left candidates in Georgia, Texas, Alabama, and Tennessee, in addition to investing at the legislative policy level with its think tank arm. Former Georgia state lawmaker Alisha Thomas Searcy and Texas education advocate Garry Jones co-founded the group.
Searcy said last week they narrowed their focus to four states where “both the threats to undermine public education and the opportunities to strengthen it are greatest.”
The initiative comes as Democrats have struggled to define their education policy agenda after the erosion of what had been a bipartisan consensus around public school choice and rigorous school accountability policies. Republicans have leveraged parental frustration with COVID-related school closures and conservative backlash to more inclusive curriculum to advance private school choice policies. At the same time, Democratic politicians have backed away from education reform and charter schools.
While CSPS Action said it will make strategic investments in high-profile contests like the upcoming Georgia gubernatorial and state schools superintendent races, the group would likely face an uphill battle on similar goals in Tennessee. The GOP continues to dominate politics in Tennessee, where Republicans hold an entrenched supermajority in the state legislature and Democrats have failed to make substantive gains in recent cycles.
A representative for CSPS did not respond to questions regarding Tennessee-specific investments, such as whether the group will wade into the upcoming 2026 gubernatorial race or if it would consider investing in school board races.
Jones and Searcy said they have raised more $1 million from national and local donors, but they declined to answer questions about who is backing the effort.
Searcy noted CSPS aims to keep a spotlight on accountability, an issue that drew heated debate in the Tennessee statehouse earlier this year as Republicans pushed through Gov. Bill Lee’s voucher program. Though participating students must take a standardized achievement test, the program allows private schools to opt out of Tennessee’s standardized testing.
With a continued GOP focus on “privatization,” Searcy said there’s an opportunity for Democrats to “embrace public charter schools,” though she acknowledged there is no consensus within the party regarding public school choice.
“It seems that Republicans are sort of abandoning anything within the public school system,” Searcy said. “When you look at who’s being served in charter schools, many of those students are Black and brown students, many of them are low-income students. These are students that we need to make sure still have a voice, still have access to equitable resources, whether it’s funding or building, because they are all in public schools.”
In addition to public school choice and accountability, Jones said the group would focus on more equitable school funding, supporting teachers, and improving school safety. These priorities bridge areas of traditional Democratic strength with ones where Republicans have gained ground.
Searcy and Jones are both alums of Democrats for Education Reform, a group that once played an influential role in electing school board members and state legislators sympathetic to the reform agenda. Searcy was hired by DFER to expand its reach in some of the same states that now will be the focus of CSPS.
DFER has seen an exodus of longtime staffers amid leadership and strategy changes, and numerous state chapters have closed.
Democrats for Education Reform commissioned a poll in 2023 that found that Democrats had lost the trust of voters when it came to education. CEO Jorge Elorza at the time exhorted Democrats to embrace public school choice policies to win back these voters. In the wake of the 2024 election, Elorza went further, issuing a paper that called on Democrats to be more open to vouchers and educational savings accounts and to invest their political capital in steering these programs toward helping the neediest students.
Searcy and Jones said vouchers represent a bright line that they won’t cross.
“I want to be clear about what sets us apart,” Searcy said. “It’s our commitment to public education. It is foundational for us, and it’s nonnegotiable. We’re committed to remaining focused on strengthening public schools, not creating pathways that take away from them.”
Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at [email protected].
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
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