House Republicans are increasingly concerned about how to make up for lost time after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) decided to keep the House out of session for more than a month during the government shutdown.
Frustration over the lack of action in the House was expressed in a House Republican conference call on Tuesday, when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who had previously publicly criticized the recess strategy, again confronted Johnson about how he was handling the shutdown.
However, the concerns were also raised by members such as Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), a source confirmed Axios previously reportedwho asked how lawmakers would make up for lost time.
The last time the House of Representatives voted was on September 19th. It’s the longest break in a House session since a six-week break before the 2024 election – and an unscheduled one.
Johnson canceled five weeks of previously scheduled votes to put pressure on Senate Democrats demanding negotiations over the expiration of expanded ObamaCare subsidies to accept a House-passed, Republican-crafted “clean” continuing resolution to fund the government through Nov. 21.
Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) told reporters this week that she “of course” likes being able to spend more time in her district and that members are still working on committee business and other issues while the House is away, but “we’re all designed to work here.”
A House Republican familiar with leadership discussions said members should prepare for a packed schedule when the chamber returns – likening it to “two a day” football practices.
“It’s not going to be business as usual. It’s going to be long nights and long days,” the GOP member said.
House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said he would meet with Johnson on Thursday about all the work that remains to be done on the budget bills after the shutdown ends. All 12 budget bills have passed committee, but few have reached the House floor.
“We just have to step on the accelerator,” Cole said in an interview with The Hill on Thursday, adding that he would meet with the speaker about appropriations later that afternoon.
Cole said there wasn’t much negotiation with Democrats over the details of spending bills during the shutdown and accused Democratic leaders of discouraging their members from doing earnest work on spending bills during the shutdown. For that reason, he did not believe that meeting during the shutdown, unlike other committees, would have made a difference in how much work the Budget Committee has to do after it ends.
But Cole is asking leaders of both parties and chambers for more guidance on the sequencing of these bills and whether appropriations or party leaders would negotiate on the main line.
“We have to move and we’re wasting a lot of time,” Cole said.
While the speaker insists that keeping the House outside is not a “strategy” and argues that there is nothing else the House can do during the government shutdown, members and staff privately say there is still much work to be done inside the building.
Some members complain that leaders not only blocked plenary votes but also prevented committees from holding hearings and markups during the shutdown.
But they also recognize that Johnson’s move to stop members from voting also avoids the headaches that arise when deafening, attention-seeking members distract from the shutdown message – and also prevents more moderate members from reaching a deal with Democrats on the issue of health care subsidies without leadership’s blessing.
And by refusing to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) while the House is not in session, Johnson also avoids the problem of a dismissal motion gaining enough signatures to force a vote on releasing the “Epstein files” — although he maintains that the swearing-in delay has nothing to do with the motion.
While Johnson complained that House Republicans’ weekly conference calls were routinely leaked to reporters, he said in a news conference Wednesday that there are only about “three to four members of the House Republican Conference who have only lightly questioned the work in the districts rather than being here on the ground.”
“I can tell you that 99 percent of all Republicans in the Senate and the House fully agree with what we are doing,” Johnson said.
Johnson has pointed to committee work during the shutdown, such as the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee releasing additional transcripts and documents from its investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He noted that the House Energy and Commerce Committee, on a bipartisan basis, also requested a briefing from NBA Commissioner Adam Silver on some basketball league players and coaches who have been charged with illegal gambling and conspiring to defraud sports betting companies.
There is also growing consensus that the emergency solution ends on November 21st must be pushed back Once lawmakers find a solution to the government shutdown, behind schedule January or early February is most likely, according to the Republican familiar with leadership discussions.
Some members of the House Freedom Caucus and beyond have introduced another long-term continuing resolution (CR) that extends through the end of the fiscal year or even December 2026.
Cole said he was “strongly opposed” to such a long-term CR, but that a late-January CR “sounds reasonable to me.”
He added that bipartisan Budget Committee leaders believe “as soon as we’re allowed to negotiate, we can get these bills passed. We’ve done it before.”
“If there’s a glimmer of hope, then they’ll probably feel even more of an urgency to get things done,” Cole said.
