WASHINGTON (AP) — Mike Johnson is speaker of a House of Representatives that is no longer in session.
The Republican leader sent lawmakers home three weeks ago after the House passed a federal funding bill. They haven’t been in the work session since. And on Friday, its leadership team announced it won’t be returning next week either.
In the meantime, the government is closed. President Donald Trump began a mass layoff of federal workers. And a Democrat, Adelita Grijalva, won a special election in Arizona but has not yet been sworn in for her congressional seat.
“People are upset. I’m upset. I’m a very patient man, but I’m angry right now,” Johnson said during one of his almost daily news conferences on the empty side of the Capitol.
“I’m doing our job. We passed the bill,” he said Friday as he left the building. “It’s up to the Senate. They’re the ones playing games. All questions need to be directed to them.”
Stay or go, there are no effortless decisions ahead of us
The absence of the House of Representatives presents Johnson with a risky political dilemma. It tests his leadership, his grip on the gavel and the legacy he will leave behind as speaker of a House of Representatives that is essentially writing itself off the page at a crucial moment in the national debate.
There are few effortless decisions in the schedule. If the speaker calls lawmakers back to Washington, he will open the doors to a potentially confused atmosphere of anger, uncertainty and his own defections and divisions from the Republican Party as the shutdown drags on.
But by keeping lawmakers away for a fourth week, lawmakers risk being criticized for being absent during a crisis — “on vacation,” in the words of House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries — while the military is without pay and government services are shut down.
Johnson’s original strategy for avoiding the government shutdown was a tried-and-tested one: get the House to pass his bill, leave town just before the deadline, and force the Senate to pass it. Blocking the other chamber, as it is often called. And it often works.
But this time it’s a strategy that fails.
With the House leaving town, the blame falls on the Senate
Republican senators failed to get the House bill passed, blocked by most Democrats who refuse to reopen the government as they demand health care funds for insurance subsidies that expire at the end of the year if Congress does not act.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has repeatedly tried to wrest more support from Democrats.
But after a vote was called more than half a dozen times to pass the House bill from the Senate, not enough Democrats joined in. The Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, calls for an agreement on the health issue.
Talks are in a stalemate and quietly underway as compact groups of lawmakers privately try to negotiate exit options.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has proposed maintaining health subsidies for the next two years while making changes to the program. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., has a similar proposal, and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has shared her own six-point plan with leadership.
“We are making progress,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., who is close to the Republican president. “I think we’re starting to get to a point.”
Empty halls and viral moments
Not since then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, sent lawmakers home at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 has the House been without its lawmakers for such a long period outside of the August recess — but even then, leaders quickly rolled out a recent system of proxy voting while legislative business continued.
A few lawmakers linger in the empty halls of the Capitol. They filmed social media posts reporting the inaction. They created viral moments, including the confrontation between GOP Rep. Mike Lawler and Jeffries. Some simply offer tours to constituents who visit them.
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia was among the harshest critics of her party’s stance, saying Congress needs to address health subsidies.
And Grijalva is just trying to go to work.
The representative-elect won the special election, replacing her father, veteran Rep. Raul Grijalva, who died earlier this year after his own career in Congress.
Her arrival would shrink Johnson’s already narrow majority on paper, and she said she would sign legislation requiring the release of files related to the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, providing the final signature needed to force a vote. Democrats have loudly called for the Epstein files to be made public, seeking to force Republicans to either join their push for disclosure or publicly oppose a cause that many in the Republican base support.
Johnson, whose majority is among the narrowest in current times, has refused to swear Grijalva into office.
The newest member of the house waits and waits
The speaker has given varying reasons why he will not allow Grijalva to take her place. He said he would do it whenever she wanted, but also said the shutdown needed to end first.
He said it had nothing to do with the Epstein files.
As questions about the House’s next steps grew, so did the speaker’s desperation.
“The reason the House is not here in regular session is because they turned off the lights,” he said during Thursday’s news conference. “I try to do as much Christian charity as I can, but this is outrageous.”
He declined to say if and when the House would be called back into session.
“We’ll keep you updated,” he said. “And let’s pray that this ends soon.”
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