Washington — House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday canceled votes in the chamber that were planned for Thursday, cutting the work week short and sending members home until after the November midterm elections.
Lawmakers will be away from Washington for more than six weeks, avoiding potentially controversial votes and intraparty fighting before voters head to the polls. Johnson previously canceled votes for the last two weeks in September.
“The House has done its work,” Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told reporters at the Capitol. “It’s time for our members to go home to their districts and make their case to the American people.”
Before leaving town, the House is expected to vote on legislation to impose new sanctions on Russia and a bill to shield consumers from data center energy costs. But lawmakers’ exodus from Washington will also leave some outstanding issues in limbo until they return following the elections.
Rep. Ralph Norman, a Republican from South Carolina, said canceling Thursday’s votes is “unacceptable.”
“The House has now canceled at least 63 scheduled voting days this Congress, including nine days this month alone, and now we’re leaving Washington until after the election,” he wrote on X. “The Founders did not envision taking this much time off and still getting paid. If Members of Congress want to go home and campaign instead of doing the job taxpayers sent us here to do, then their campaigns ought to be paying them, NOT the American taxpayer. We still have work to do.”
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, on Tuesday introduced eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the Iran war. The resolution is privileged, meaning Johnson has two legislative days to act on it. The cancellation of Thursday’s votes pushes the issue to early November, when Johnson indicated Republicans will move to kill it.
Johnson said it was “ridiculous” to suggest that canceling Thursday’s votes was meant to avoid the vote on impeaching Hegseth.
“It’s a publicity stunt by someone who wants attention. It will immediately be tabled, of course,” he said.
In an interview with CNN on Tuesday night, Massie said he did not give GOP leaders a heads-up about his plan.
“I didn’t want to show my hand,” he said. “I didn’t show it to anybody. I was afraid that they would do something to subvert me getting on the floor for an hour and 20 minutes and reading these articles.”
Johnson also rebuffed calls by Democrats who wanted to cancel the recess to address rapid advancements in artificial intelligence. After AI industry leaders and researchers raised alarm about potentially catastrophic threats posed by the technology in recent weeks, Democratic lawmakers called on Johnson to keep the House in session until they can pass legislation to rein in AI.
“Congress should not leave town until something is done decisively to protect the safety and the well-being of the American people, in the face of growing concerns being raised by experts within the artificial intelligence industry itself,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Monday. “Republicans have completely abandoned their responsibility to legislate and engage in public policy efforts in a responsible fashion in the area of artificial intelligence.”
Members of Congress have offered a number of proposals to address their concerns about AI, but there is no consensus about legislative action. Opponents of more stringent constraints on the industry warn that regulations risk putting the U.S. at a disadvantage in its competition with China.
Johnson hasn’t expressed an urgency to pass AI guardrails, and in a series of posts on Monday, President Trump said all that’s needed to safeguard AI is a “strong” president.
“If I called an emergency session today and I brought everybody in the House and said, ‘Let’s regulate AI,’ nobody in the room knows yet what that should look like,” Johnson said at his weekly news conference Tuesday.
Johnson argued that AI companies should be able to “self-police” and “self-regulate.”
“They don’t need the government to tell them to slow it down. If they want to slow it down, they should,” he said.
Johnson has called for a meeting with AI executives and the White House, saying he expected one would come together by early next week.
“The reflex of the legislative bodies is to cover things up with red tape and in hyperregulation,” Johnson said Monday.
On another front, Congress has yet to renew a key spy authority, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expired in June.
The president’s controversial choice of Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to temporarily oversee the nation’s spy agencies complicated its renewal. Jay Clayton was sworn in as the director of national intelligence in August, but both chambers have been on recess for a majority of the time since then.
The Senate is scheduled, for now, to be in session through the end of September.
The upper chamber is working to pass a sweeping college sports bill, titled the Protect College Sports Act, that includes regulations around name, image and likeness rights and transfer eligibility. Senators are also nearing a bipartisan deal on a permitting reform overhaul.
“If the Senate works together and moves some of these important pieces of legislation, I will bring the House back on 48-hours’ notice,” Johnson said.
