The Speaker Who Silenced the House
Thirty-one Days Later, the President Fills the Void
The last time the House of Representatives held a vote was September 19, 2025, thirty-one days ago. Since then, Speaker Johnson adjourned the chamber and refused to let it come into session to conduct business, holding only pro forma sessions. House rules contain a procedural cul-de-sac where “the full House cannot procedurally overrule the Speaker.” Without Johnson’s direction, it’s not possible for House Members to bring to the floor a resolution to release the Epstein files, or for committees to conduct oversight hearings or consider legislation, or to swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva. Grijalva, who was elected on September 23rd, cannot hire staff, access funds, or take any actions to provide support to the constituents of Arizona’s 7th Congressional District.
The Senate is continuing to meet, however. They’ve considered legislation and held hearings. The government shutdown has elevated their discord, but they are in the office. Speaker Johnson could allow the Veterans Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the Congress, and other agencies to reopen should the House agree to the Senate-passed appropriations bill. The ball is literally in his court, er, chamber.
Instead, the man who refuses to let the House convene is sending out press releases with titles like: “Speaker Johnson on Day 17 of the Democrat Shutdown: Democrats’ True Colors Will Be on Display at the ‘Hate America’ Rally This Weekend.” The most telling release – yes, there are more – contains a notable case of projection: “Speaker Johnson: Democrats are Keeping the Government Closed to Satisfy their Far-Left Base.” Uh-huh.
Over the previous weeks we’ve discussed Johnson’s ideological alignment with OMB Director Russel Vought, both of whom are avowed Christian nationalists. Today we’re going to take a different tack. Speaker Johnson is keeping the House closed not because he is in a strong position, but because he is a weak speaker.
Johnson emerged out of the now dominant Republican faction in the House, the House Freedom Caucus and members most allegiant to President Trump. They are dominant because they are the best organized Republican faction, they are well connected to the president, and they demonstrated a strong willingness to say “no” when their demands are not met. Political scientist Ruth Bloch Rubin’s new book Divided Parties, Strong Leaders argues that modern speakers are weak when their party’s factions are asymmetrically organized. Alas, the more institutionalist-minded Republicans have declined to exercise power and allowed their institutional organs to atrophy. Within the Republican conference, there is little competition for the exercise of factional power.
Making matters worse is that Johnson was chosen by the dominant Republican faction when they replaced a slightly less pliant speaker. Former Speakers John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Kevin McCarthy found themselves in similar situations when this faction instigated government shutdowns, typically to ram through spending cuts. They, however, realized the only way out of their respective budget impasses was to make a cross-party deal with Democrats because the “no” faction would never cut a deal with other Republicans, let alone the other party. Even if Johnson were so inclined, he lacks an organized faction to back him on such a move.
With Senate Democrats now playing it in reverse, Johnson is under constant scrutiny to hold the line and keep the less organized and empowered Republican members, the more “traditional” Republicans, from being peeled off. The best way to do this is to keep them out of town.
Making this all the more combustible is the White House’s utter contempt for the legislative branch and willingness to use all its authority – legitimate and otherwise – to seize the power that by right belongs to the Congress. It concocted a bogus transfer authority to ignore the Constitution and Antideficiency Act to pay the troops. The President is talking about Americans on the ground in Venezuela to back actions at sea for which Congress has neither authorized nor received meaningful answers about and has led its military commander to resign. The IRS is planning the illegal practice of combing through the president’s enemies’ tax records and sitting members of Congress may be the next to face vengeance via federal indictment.
Democratic leadership may slow to catch on, but pressure from key members, the rank-and-file, and the broader Democratic coalition turned the CR vote into a chance to take a stand against the executive branch’s usurpation of the Constitution. The administration’s overreach is helping Democratic leadership to see the moment as something more consequential than a fight over healthcare. Indeed, how can such a fight be resolved in any meaningful way when the Executive branch will not uphold its side of the bargain and follow the law.
Maybe, as Meredith Shiner recently wrote, the end of the shutdown isn’t as remotely important as recognizing the fundamental illegitimacy of the current administration under our constitutional system. I share her boredom in coverage focused on how the shutdown stalemate is going to end when the response from the White House (echoed by Johnson) has been so hyperbolic politically against Democrats that it’s clear the main problem is the challenge posed to its autocratic rule.
There are so many other pressing questions to think, talk, and write about, starting with how one political party structurally failed to check the ambition of someone intent on creating a personalist authoritarian regime with its main interests being revenge and personal enrichment – after it had led an attempted coup. At a more practical governing level, Trump’s team has exposed many live wires left behind by other administrations (including government shutdowns) and exploited other design flaws held together by the gossamer of norms.
We need to reconsider whether places like OMB and the Department of Justice can operate as both administrative and political entities, and if they should still exist as such given their power. Civilian-military relations are unraveling, but have been ambiguous for centuries. Presidential war-making authority has descended to the level of the president and vice president joking about murdering fishermen. The relationship between the branches of government in creating regulations is completely scrambled. The Judiciary is intentionally avoiding creating legal precedent in aiding the administration to preserve avenues to knock down the next one it doesn’t like.
Just as revulsion to the experience of the presidency of “King Andrew” Jackson led to a fresh party system aimed at curtailing executive power, the long-term reconstruction project ahead will require some reshuffling of partisan factional power dynamics into new arrangements that can work together productively along commonly-shared governing principles. If we are going to be able to travel down that path, we have to understand why it is so challenging for a majority of Congress to be unable to work its will. Only then can we construct an agenda to fix the failings in our democracy that got us here in the first place.
Faction
Axios has surveyed a set of declared Democratic House candidates on whether they would support retaining Hakeem Jeffries as chamber leaders. Only 31 out of 114 candidates definitively said yes or that they were leaning to do so, with the largest share (57) remaining noncommittal. A group of 20 said they would not support Jeffries.
If Democrats were to win a House majority in the 120th Congress, it likely would be a slim one. Any organized bloc could use collective votes as leverage for rules reforms that restructure power in the chamber. That is how like-minded Democratic factions won rules reforms from Speaker Pelosi the last time around.
What would really blow minds is if the factions worked together to obtain more comprehensive reforms. Our rules reform recommendations for the 119th Congress, issued with the Foundation for American Innovation, contain ideas for what that could look like.
The Supreme Court appears poised to gut the Voting Rights Act’s provision requiring states to ensure equal representation through majority-minority congressional districts. Southern state legislatures would be cleared in that case to eliminate as many as 12 seats currently held by Democrats, most of whom are African-American. Among other things, this would severely weaken the Congressional Black Caucus, which has been a power base for democratic leaders. It is unclear what that would mean for how power would flow within the Democratic caucus.
Legal scholars have argued for years that proportional representation in the House would be a method to ensure some multiracial representation in states with diverse populations but Republican political control.
Transparency
House Administration Ranking Member Joe Morelle wrote a letter to Speaker Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune last week requesting that Congress create its own platform for legislative branch Office of Inspector General reports in the wake of the Trump Administration taking down oversight.gov along with withholding appropriated funds for the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE). Because oversight.gov’s repository includes nearly all IG reports, including many from the legislative branch, Congress has no functioning platform for accessing reports on its own offices.
The Congress has six inspectors general. Reports from the Architect of the Capitol, the Government Accountability Office, and the Government Publishing Office are on oversight.gov. Reports from the Library of Congress appear there as well, though the collection has not been updated since 2017. The U.S. Capitol Police do not publish their reports on oversight.gov, nor does the House Inspector General. (The House IG used to make their reports publicly available but has not done so since 2009.) It is our view that all IG reports should be published online on a central website. In addition, Congress should close the gaps for the parts of the legislative branch not overseen by an IG.
You can find backups of oversight.gov on the Program Integrity Alliance’s website and information about the IG websites that came down when the White House defunded Oversight.gov by visiting the House Judiciary Democrat’s website. Please note the defunding of oversight.gov is unrelated to the government shutdown and is aligned with the White House’s attack on the integrity of IGs.
Odds and Ends
Beefed up. Federal candidates and committees have spent nearly $10 million on personal security since the Federal Elections Commission started allowing campaign spending on it in January. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign has spent nearly $290,000 on security this year, while other members reported spending five figures quarterly. Members of Congress should not have to draw on campaign funds for their security, but we are even more concerned when they are allowed to draw from their official funds, which undermines their office’s operations.
George Santos, the crooked ex-Member of Congress sentenced to 87 months in prison for fraud and identity theft, had his sentence commuted by Pres. Trump. Journalist Jamie Dupree notes “Santos is the 10th GOP Congressman to get a pardon or clemency from President Trump.” The intended consequence of Trump’s actions is to encourage continued lawlessness in support of the aggrandizement of Trump’s powers.
Sen. Jim Justice is the subject of a federal tax lien – with more than $8 million in unpaid assessments, according to Politico.
The most popular senator in America is Bernie Sanders and the least popular is Mitch McConnell, but we’re too cheap to pay for a subscription to Morning Consult to see the rest of the results.
Just in case you think our reporting is too upbeat, ProPublica reports immigration agents are holding at least 170 Americans against their will. Maybe the House should reconvene and look into that.
The First Branch Forecast is published by the American Governance Institute. It’s written by Chris Nehls and edited by Daniel Schuman.