Some House GOP Lawmakers Want to Get Back to Work

The Washington Post

15:30 JST, October 11, 2025

With the House nearly four weeks into an extended recess, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has continued his refusal to bring members back into session – a decision that’s beginning to test the patience of some members in his own party.

“I think everyone’s frustrated,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) said during an interview in her office. “Zero communication. There’s zero planning, and we have no idea when we’re coming back, if we’re coming back. Everybody wants to work, and we can’t work.”

Greene said she defied a directive from House leadership for members to refrain from holding events in their districts, opting to move forward with an annual job fair for high school students in Dalton, Georgia. “I said, ‘Absolutely not, I’m not canceling anything.’”

Johnson canceled his chamber’s final September work days after the House narrowly approved a stopgap spending measure to keep the government funded until Nov. 21. He has continued to keep lawmakers out of session, arguing that there is nothing for them to do until the Senate passes the House’s spending bill, allowing the government to reopen. The Senate has brought the measure up for a vote seven times, and each time, it has failed.

“House Republicans are fanned out across the country; they’re in their districts, trying to help their constituents because so many of them are now struggling because of the Democrats’ games,” Johnson said at a news conference Friday. “We will come back here and get back to legislative session as soon as the Senate Democrats turn the lights back on.”

There is little sign of the impasse in the Senate being broken. Though Republicans control the upper chamber, they need Democratic support to pass any measure that would reopen the government.

Democrats demand that Affordable Care Act subsidies set to expire at the end of the year be extended in exchange for their votes. Republicans say they will negotiate on health care subsidies only after the government reopens. Should a spending measure that includes a deal on health care pass the Senate, it would need to be passed by the House for the shutdown to end. Senators are expected to try passing the House’s measure again next week.

During a private call with GOP members on Thursday, Johnson heard first-hand from lawmakers who voiced frustration over the extended recess. Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-California), Julie Fedorchak (R-North Dakota) and Stephanie Bice (R-Oklahoma) all expressed concern about the prolonged absence, according to a person familiar with the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the contents of the call.

A senior leadership aide, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, defended the speaker’s decision and said “an overwhelming amount of members are good with working in their districts because the House GOP did its job,” but acknowledged that a “handful” of members feel otherwise.

Some members’ frustration stems from the fact that government employees could soon begin missing paychecks. Active-duty service members, who are considered essential and therefore must work without pay during a shutdown, will miss a payday on Oct. 15 if the government does not reopen before then.

Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Virginia) is leading a bipartisan effort on a bill to pay troops during the shutdown. It has 144 co-sponsors, including 44 Democrats. Johnson has rebuffed the idea of bringing back members for a stand-alone vote to ensure troops are paid next week, arguing the House already voted to pay the troops in the measure that is stalled in the Senate.

Other, largely informal efforts to end the shutdown are underway in the Senate. Some House GOP lawmakers worry they are being left out of those talks.

“The House essentially loses its ability to participate in any negotiations that might actually end the shutdown or mitigate its effects through passing a bill, like paying our troops,” Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-California) said.

Hearings are also being canceled. The House Judiciary Committee was scheduled to hear from Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday, but all House hearings have been canceled. Bondi appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

Democrats have seized on the opportunity to attack Republican lawmakers for not coming to work.

Reps. Derek Tran (D-California) and Gabe Vasquez (D-New Mexico), along with 50 other Democrats, sent a letter to the speaker urging him to bring back the House for a vote to pay the troops, citing a similar bill Congress voted on during the 2013 shutdown, which lasted 16 days.

Democrats – and at least one Republican – have argued that the real reason Johnson is keeping the House out is not that he wants to pressure Senate Democrats into a deal, but that he hopes to derail further investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) and Ro Khanna (D-California) have been gathering signatures on a petition that would force a vote on mandating the full release of federal Epstein investigation files. Only one more signature is required to force the vote, and Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D), who recently won a special election in Arizona but has yet to be sworn in, has promised to sign the petition.

“Why are we in recess? Because the day we go back into session, I have 218 votes for the discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files,” Massie wrote in a post on the social media platform X recently.

Johnson has sworn in off-cycle election winners during a special session before. He said during a public confrontation Wednesday with Arizona’s senators, Democrats Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, that he will swear Grijalva in “as soon as [Democrats] vote to open the government” and that the delay “has nothing to do with Epstein.”