Speaker Johnson faces an unruly House as lawmakers return for shutdown
vote
[November 12, 2025]
By LISA MASCARO
WASHINGTON (AP) — After refusing to convene the U.S. House during the
government shutdown, Speaker Mike Johnson is recalling lawmakers back
into session — and facing an avalanche of pent-up legislative demands
from those who have largely been sidelined from governing.
Hundreds of representatives are preparing to return Wednesday to
Washington after a nearly eight-week absence, carrying a torrent of
ideas, proposals and frustrations over work that has stalled when the
Republican speaker shuttered the House doors nearly two months ago.
First will be a vote to reopen the government. But that’s just the
start. With efforts to release the Jeffrey Epstein files and the
swearing in of Arizona's Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, the unfinished
business will pose a fresh test to Johnson’s grip on power and put a
renewed focus on his leadership.
“It’s extraordinary,” said Matthew Green, a professor at the politics
department at The Catholic University of America.
“What Speaker Johnson and Republicans are doing, you have to go back
decades to find an example where the House — either chamber — decided
not to meet.”
Gaveling in after two months gone
When the House gavels back into session, it will close this remarkable
chapter of Johnson’s tenure when he showed himself to be a leader who is
quietly, but brazenly, willing to upend institutional norms in pursuit
of his broader strategy, even at the risk of diminishing the House
itself.
Rather than use the immense powers of the speaker’s office to forcefully
steer the debate in Congress, as a coequal branch of the government on
par with the executive and the courts, Johnson simply closed up shop —
allowing the House to become unusually deferential, particularly to
President Donald Trump.
Over these past weeks, the chamber has sidestepped its basic
responsibilities, from passing routine legislation to conducting
oversight. The silencing of the speaker's gavel has been both unusual
and surprising in a system of government where the founders envisioned
the branches would vigorously protect their institutional prerogatives.
“You can see it is pretty empty around here,” Johnson, R-La., said on
day three of the shutdown, tour groups no longer crowding the halls.
“When Congress decides to turn off the lights, it shifts the authority
to the executive branch. That is how it works,” he said, blaming
Democrats, with their fight over health care funds, for the closures.
An empty House as a political strategy
The speaker has defended his decision to shutter the House during what’s
now the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. He argued that the
chamber, under the GOP majority, had already done its job passing a
stopgap funding bill in September. It would be up to the Senate to act,
he said.
When the Senate failed over and over to advance the House bill, more
than a dozen times, he refused to enter talks with the other leaders on
a compromise. Johnson also encouraged Trump to cancel an initial
sit-down with the Democratic leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem
Jeffries to avoid a broader negotiation while the government was still
closed.
Instead, the speaker, whose job is outlined in the Constitution, second
in line of succession to the presidency, held held almost daily press
conferences on his side of the Capitol, a weekly conference call with
GOP lawmakers, and private talks with Trump. He joined the president for
Sunday's NFL Washington Commanders game as the Senate was slogging
through a weekend session.
“People say, why aren't you negotiating with Schumer and Jeffries? I
quite literally have nothing to negotiate,” Johnson said at one point.
“As I’ve said time and time again, I don't have anything to negotiate
with," he said on day 13 of the shutdown. “We did our job. We had that
vote."
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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., makes a statement to
reporters without taking questions following a vote in the Senate to
move forward with a stopgap funding bill to reopen the government
through Jan. 30, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Nov. 10,
2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
And besides he said of the GOP lawmakers, “They are doing some of
their best work in the district, helping their constituents navigate
this crisis.”
Accidental speaker delivers for Trump
In many ways, Johnson has become a surprisingly effective leader, an
accidental speaker who was elected to the job by his colleagues
after all others failed to win it. He has now lasted more than two
years, longer than many once envisioned.
This year, with Trump’s return to the White House, the speaker has
commandeered his slim GOP majority and passed legislation including
the president's so-called “one big beautiful bill” of tax breaks and
spending reductions that became law this summer.
Johnson's shutdown strategy also largely achieved his goal, forcing
Senate Democrats to break ranks and approve the funds to reopen
government without the extension of health care subsidies they were
demanding to help ease the sticker shock of rising insurance premium
costs with the Affordable Care Act.
Johnson's approach is seen as one that manages up — he stays close
to Trump and says they speak often — and also hammers down, imposing
a rigid control over the day-to-day schedule of the House, and its
lawmakers.
Amassing quiet power
Under a House rules change this year, Johnson was able to keep the
chamber shuttered indefinitely on his own, without the usual
required vote. This year his leadership team has allowed fewer
opportunities for amendments on legislation, according to a recent
tally. Other changes have curtailed the House's ability to provide a
robust check on the executive branch over Trump's tariffs and use of
war powers.
Johnson's refusal to swear-in Grijalva is a remarkable flex of the
speaker's power, leading to comparisons with Senate GOP Leader Mitch
McConnell's decision not to consider President Barack Obama's
Supreme Court nominee, said David Rapallo, an associate professor
and director of the Federal Legislation Clinic at Georgetown
University Law Center. Arizona has sued to seat her.
Marc Short, who headed up the White House’s legislative affairs
office during the first Trump administration, said of Johnson, “It’s
impressive how he’s held the conference together.”
But said Short, “The legislative branch has abdicated a lot of
responsibility to the executive under his watch.”
Tough decisions ahead for the Speaker
As lawmakers make their way back to Washington, the speaker's power
will be tested again as they consider the package to reopen
government.
Republicans are certain to have complaints about the bill, which
funds much of the federal government through Jan. 30 and keeps
certain programs including agriculture, military construction and
veterans affairs running through September.
But with House Democratic leaders rejecting the package for having
failed to address the health care subsidies, it will be up to
Johnson to muscle it through with mostly GOP lawmakers — with hardly
any room for defections in the chamber that's narrowly split.
Jeffries, who has criticized House Republicans for what he called an
extended vacation, said, “They’re not going to be able to hide this
week when they return."
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