House lawmakers flirt with COVID-era work levels
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House lawmakers have met and voted just 87 days so far in 2025, fewer than every non-election year over the last two decades except 2021, when a global pandemic forced Americans to socially distance and stay home.
Why it matters: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has turned distance into a governing tool, keeping lawmakers out of D.C. when tensions flare or policy stalls.
- While a handful of Republicans have grumbled about being sidelined during a crisis, most of the conference remains publicly supportive of the approach.
Between the lines: Johnson has seized control of the GOP's message, holding daily press conferences since the shutdown began (except for Friday), while rabble-rousing lawmakers are off the Hill and away from the cameras.
- Earlier this month, he told reporters that it's better for lawmakers to be "physically separated right now" after several partisan clashes erupted on Capitol Hill.
- It's a familiar play: he cut the session short before the August recess over the Epstein files, froze action on the floor for a record-breaking time in July when legislation didn't go his way, and sent the House home for the week in April after members defied him on proxy voting.
By the numbers: On average, the House had logged 104 voting days by late October in off years — 17 more than this year's total.
- If the shutdown stretches through Thanksgiving, and lawmakers don't return until December, the House would end 2025 with just 99 voting days — the fewest in two decades.
- Even if the House were to return next week, and stick with the rest of the year's calendar, it would hit only 111 voting days, the second-lowest total in two decades, behind 2021.
Yes, but: Most House Republicans insist the "district work period" is still work — constituent meetings, local events and fundraising — not vacation time.
- "Dozens of Republicans are back home, cleaning up parks, volunteering at food banks and helping struggling families," House Conference chair Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) said Thursday.
- "This is not what I call a vacation. If they [senators] think showing up once a day and casting one vote is work, they need to come over to the House side and see what we're doing." Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said Tuesday.
- Johnson has also repeatedly argued that the House "has done its job" by passing a clean government funding measure.
What they're saying: "People run for Congress in order to be able to, you know, come to the Capitol and legislate and they're not able to do their jobs in that sense right now," Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) told Axios in the Capitol last week.
- "When you tell people, 'Sorry, you're just kind of not allowed to come to serve in Washington, DC as a legislator, as you are elected to, indefinitely,' obviously, that's going to frustrate people," he added.
- "We should be in session, in the House, having these conversations, because on Nov. 1, open enrollment happens, and nothing has been done." Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told Axios in an interview last week, referencing the expiring ACA subsidies.
The bottom line: "This is a deliberative body. You cannot deliberate with your colleagues if you're out somewhere else," Johnson said in March, arguing against allowing new parents to proxy vote.
