Speaker Johnson keeps House lawmakers away, canceling another week's
session as shutdown drags
[October 11, 2025]
By LISA MASCARO
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mike Johnson is the speaker of a House that is no
longer in session.
The Republican leader sent lawmakers home three weeks ago after the
House approved a bill to fund the federal government. They haven’t been
back in working session since. And on Friday, his leadership team
announced they won't be returning next week either.
In the intervening time, the government has shut down. President Donald
Trump began a mass firing of federal workers. And a Democrat, Adelita
Grijalva, won a special election in Arizona but has not been sworn into
office to take her seat in Congress.
“People are upset. I’m upset. I’m a very patient man, but I am angry
right now,” Johnson said during one of his almost daily press
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 on the Senate. They’re the ones playing games. All the
questions need to be for them.”
To stay or go, no easy choices ahead
The House's absence is creating a risky political dilemma for Johnson.
It’s testing his leadership, his grip on the gavel and the legacy he
will leave as speaker of a House that is essentially writing itself off
the page at a crucial moment in the national debate.
There are few easy choices on the schedule ahead. If the speaker calls
lawmakers back to Washington, he opens the doors to a potentially
chaotic atmosphere of anger, uncertainty and his own GOP defections and
divisions as the shutdown drags on.
But by keeping the representatives away going on a fourth week,
lawmakers risk being criticized for being absent during a crisis — “on
vacation,” as House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries puts it — as the
military goes without pay and government services shut down.
Johnson’s initial strategy to avoid the government shutdown was a
well-worn one — have the House pass its bill, leave town right before
the deadline and force the Senate to accept it. Jamming the other
chamber, as it's often called. And it often works.
But this time, it’s a strategy that is failing.
As House skips town, blame falls to Senate
GOP senators have been unable to heave the House bill to passage,
blocked by most of the Democrats, who are refusing to reopen the
government as they demand health care funds for insurance subsidies that
will expire at year's end if Congress fails to act.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has been trying, repeatedly,
to peel off more Democratic support.
But after having called a vote more than a half-dozen times to pass the
House's bill out of the Senate, not enough Democrats have signed on.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is holding out for a deal on the
health care issue.
Stalemated, quiet talks are underway, as small groups of lawmakers are
privately trying to negotiate off-ramps.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has proposed keeping the health
care subsidies in place for the next two years while instituting changes
to the program. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., has a similar proposal, and
GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has shared with leadership her own
six-point plan.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks to reporters on Capitol
Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
“We're making progress,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., who is
close to the Republican president. “I think we're kind of starting
to get to a place.”
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 an extended period of time outside of
an August recess — but even then, leaders quickly stood up a new
system of proxy voting as legislative business continued.
In the Capitol's empty halls, a few lawmakers linger. They have been
filming social media posts as they narrate the inaction. They have
created viral moments, including GOP Rep. Mike Lawler's
confrontation with Jeffries. Some are simply giving tours to
visiting constituents.
GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has been among the most
outspoken critics of her party's stance, saying Congress needs to
address the health care subsidies.
And Grijalva is just trying to go to work.
The representative-elect won the special election to replace her
father, veteran Rep. Raul Grijalva, who died earlier this year after
his own career in Congress.
Her arrival would shrink Johnson’s already slim majority to paper
thin, and she has said she would sign onto the legislation demanding
the release of the files pertaining to the sex trafficking
investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, providing the last signature
needed to force a vote. Democrats have clamored for the release of
the Epstein files, looking to force Republicans to either join their
push for disclosure or publicly oppose a cause many in the
Republican base support.
Johnson, whose majority is among the most narrow in modern times,
has refused to swear Grijalva into office.
House's newest member waits and waits
The speaker has given shifting reasons for why he won’t allow
Grijalva to take her seat, saying he’d do it whenever she wanted but
also saying the shutdown needs to end first.
He said it has nothing to do with the Epstein files.
As questions mounted over the House's next steps, so did the
speaker's exasperation.
"The reason the House isn't here in regular session is because they
turned the lights off," he said during Thursday's press conference.
“I'm trying to muster every ounce of Christian charity that I can,
but this is outrageous.”
He declined to say if or when the House would be called back to
session.
"We'll keep you posted," he said. “And let's pray this ends soon.”
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