What Else Is on the Ballot Tuesday
The majority voters choose this week will decide who confirms our judges, who writes our budgets, and which priorities move forward for the next two years
Over the past several weeks, I have written about what this election means for the bail profession, and those stakes are real. But the ballot Americans fill out on Tuesday reaches much further than our courthouses. Control of the House and Senate will decide who confirms the next generation of federal judges, who writes the nation’s budget, and which priorities move forward or stall until 2029. Every family in this country will feel the result, whether they vote or not.
The most lasting stake is the federal bench. The president nominates justices and judges, but the Senate decides whether they are confirmed. Justice Samuel Alito said in a recent interview that retirement is something he has to think about every term, and the Senate elected this week would decide who takes his seat if he steps down. Federal judges serve for life. Some in Washington would go further and change the Court itself. Democrats introduced the Judiciary Act in 2021 and again in 2023 to add four seats to the Supreme Court, which would let one party remake it in a single term. The men and women confirmed over the next two years will rule on free speech, religious liberty, and the limits on government search and seizure long after today’s candidates have left office. Our liberties and civil rights are only as secure as the judges who interpret them.
The Second Amendment is on the ballot in a direct way. The national Democratic platform calls for banning so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and bills to do exactly that are filed in every Congress. Law-abiding gun owners should not assume a right is safe simply because it is written into the Constitution. Rights that are not defended at the ballot box are slowly regulated away.
Another stake is what Washington takes out of your paycheck and what it decides you will pay for. The tax relief passed in 2025 is now law, and there are leaders in Washington who want to roll parts of it back. At the same time, Democrats have pushed to make the expanded Obamacare subsidies permanent, an expense carried by every taxpayer. A change in control would not need to pass a single new law to put these issues back on the table. It would only need to use the next spending deadline as leverage, which is how last year’s government shutdown played out.
Families are already feeling the cost of living. Inflation climbed to 3.7 percent in September, driven by higher energy prices, and the national debt has passed $40.5 trillion. Every dollar Washington borrows is paid back with interest, and the interest alone now costs more than a trillion dollars a year. That money does not build a road, pay a deputy, or lower a grocery bill. Voters should ask every candidate a simple question: will you spend less, or will you spend more?
Fraud makes it worse. The Government Accountability Office reported $186 billion in improper payments across federal programs in fiscal year 2025 and estimates the government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion to fraud every year. Congress is responsible for overseeing how that money is spent, and the committees that hold agencies accountable answer to the majority. Voters should want a Congress that treats every stolen dollar as a dollar taken from working families.
Border security is decided in Washington, too. Congress funds enforcement, and Congress writes the rules for who qualifies for federal benefits. Federal law already bars most people here illegally from those programs, and the 2025 law tightened eligibility further. Those protections last only as long as there are people in Washington willing to defend them. Americans who do not want open borders, and who believe public benefits belong to citizens and lawful residents, should understand that both are on the ballot.
Public safety is on the ballot as well. Not long ago, “defund the police” moved from protest signs into city budgets across the country, and many of those cities later reversed course. Some voices in Congress have also called for deep cuts to defense spending. The appropriations committees decide how much support reaches the federal grants that help local departments, and how well we equip the men and women who defend this country. The majority chosen this week will pick the chairs who make those decisions.
Americans also remember what Antifa did to our cities. In 2020, Portland endured roughly 100 nights of rioting, and the U.S. Attorney for Oregon reported more than $2.3 million in damage to federal property alone. In 2023, rioters set fire to the site of Atlanta’s future police training facility, and 23 people were arrested on domestic terrorism charges. Last year, the ICE facility in Portland came under months of attack, and in September 2025 the president designated Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. Congress oversees and funds the Justice Department, the FBI, and Homeland Security, and the majority elected this week will decide whether those agencies keep the resources to investigate and prosecute organized political violence.
There is also the integrity of the vote itself, and it has been on the line before. In 2021, when Democrats controlled the House, it passed H.R. 1, the For the People Act, which would have required states to let voters without identification sign a sworn statement in its place, overriding voter ID laws like ours. That bill died in the Senate. This Congress has moved the other way. The House passed the SAVE America Act in February, requiring proof of citizenship to register and photo identification to vote in federal elections, and the Senate opened debate in March but has not passed it. Americans of every party deserve confidence that only eligible citizens vote and that every legal ballot is counted. If control of Congress changes, the push for national voter ID would stall, and the effort to override the safeguards states have already passed could begin again.
Control of the House also decides how the next two years are spent. A House majority issues the subpoenas, runs the investigations, and decides whether articles of impeachment ever reach the floor. Democratic members have filed articles of impeachment against the president several times during this Congress, and in December 2025, 140 House Democrats voted to move one of them forward. Articles have also been filed against members of the cabinet. Speaker Mike Johnson has already warned that the president could be impeached if Republicans lose the House. In that case, the next two years in Washington could be consumed by hearings and impeachment instead of the work Americans sent Congress to do.
Finally, there is the question of how men and women serving on a public salary of $174,000 leave office far wealthier than that salary explains. Members of Congress sit in closed briefings, write the laws that move markets, and are still allowed to trade individual stocks. In July, the House voted 232 to 198 to bar members from buying new stocks, the first time a full chamber of Congress has voted on such a ban, but the bill has not received a vote in the Senate. Polling shows 86 percent of Americans support a ban. Voters should ask every candidate whether they will vote to end the practice, and whether they trade stocks themselves.
None of these issues stands alone. Judges, gun rights, taxes, health care, fraud, the border, public safety, the integrity of our elections, the threat of impeachment, and the honesty of the people we send to Washington are all decided by the same majority. Midterm elections draw fewer voters than presidential years, which means fewer people make the decision for everyone. On Tuesday, I would ask every reader to take that responsibility seriously, study the candidates, and vote with the next two years in mind.
Michael D. Morrison
About the Author
Mike Morrison is the 2026 PBUS National Bail Agent of the Year, President of the Mississippi Bail Agents Association, and a leading national voice for public safety and accountability. A licensed Professional Bail Agent since 1991 and owner of Mike Morrison Bail Bonding Company in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, he brings 35 years of hands-on experience in courtrooms, jails, and communities to his work as a bail educator, speaker, writer, and criminal justice commentator.
Morrison is recognized as a bail trainer by the Mississippi Judicial College, where he presents on bail policy and the Mississippi Rules of Criminal Procedure, and he is a sought-after guest speaker for judicial, prosecutorial, and industry conferences across the country. He has presented before state judges, justice court clerks, felony prosecutors, attorneys general staff, and bail professionals nationwide, and he travels to state bail association conferences to speak on bail and on social media strategy for the profession. He created and leads the Master Class Bail Agent Series, built to bring next-level professional education to every bail agent in Mississippi.
At the national level, Morrison works with the Professional Bail Agents of the United States (PBUS) Board of Directors and supports its committees on national initiatives. He also works with the boards of directors of other state bail associations, sharing the strategies behind Mississippi’s successes so they can be put to work across the profession. At home, he has drafted bail and public safety legislation introduced in the Mississippi Legislature.
He has published nearly 200 articles on the institutions, policies, and decisions that shape American life, from bail and the courts to constitutional rights, the Founding Fathers, elections, the economy, energy, health policy, and technology. His writing is grounded in decades spent inside the criminal justice system, and his commentary has drawn nearly two million views across social media in 2026.
Independent, plain-spoken, and focused on accountability, Morrison writes and speaks about the intersection of government, liberty, public safety, professional responsibility, and the real-world consequences of public policy in Mississippi and across the nation.
© 2026 Mike Morrison. All rights reserved.
