Johnson Sends House Home a Day Early, Republicans Call It Another Skipped Workday

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told the House it was going home a day early. The chamber's seven-week recess was already scheduled to begin Thursday, September 17, but Johnson moved the start to Wednesday, September 16, according to the Daily Signal.

To avoid scrapping business entirely, leadership staff notified members that some Thursday votes, including measures to overturn certain EPA regulations, would instead happen Wednesday. The rest of the week's calendar simply disappeared.

The Massie Factor

The timing coincides with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., pushing an impeachment effort against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Johnson did not say the impeachment push drove his decision to close early, but he made his opinion of it clear to reporters.

"It's a publicity stunt by someone who wants attention," Johnson said, according to the Daily Signal. "It will immediately be tabled, of course, but we probably won't do that today. We'll probably do it when we come back. But it's a stunt. Secretary Hegseth has done an extraordinary job."

The sources reviewed here do not specify what conduct by Hegseth prompted Massie's impeachment push, and no formal impeachment vote has taken place. Johnson's plan, per his own comments, is to let the resolution sit until the House returns after the November midterms and then move to table it.

A reasonable case exists on both sides. Johnson's argument, that a single member's impeachment resolution against a Cabinet secretary who has not been charged with any crime doesn't deserve floor time over other legislative priorities, is a standard leadership calculation. Massie's supporters would counter that tabling an impeachment resolution without debate, and delaying it for two months, denies the House any real chance to examine the underlying claims. Neither side's factual case is adjudicated in these sources, and no evidence beyond Massie's decision to file has been presented.

Republicans Turn on Their Own Speaker

The sharpest criticism of Johnson's move came from inside his own conference. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a Freedom Caucus member, told the Daily Signal it's "a shame" the House is leaving town with unfinished business.

"House Republicans have accomplished a great deal, but we should stay here and finish the job," Roy said. "That means codifying President Trump's border policies, pausing immigration, standing firmly against Sharia law, and pushing back against the growing surveillance state, among other things. We should stay until the job is done."

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., also a Freedom Caucus member, posted on X that canceling another day of votes is "unacceptable" and pointed to a specific tally: 63 scheduled voting days canceled this Congress, including nine in September alone.

"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," Norman wrote, adding that leaving early to campaign instead of "doing the job taxpayers sent us here to do" runs counter to what the Founders intended.

Both Roy and Norman specifically cited stalled bills to repeal the federal gas tax and codify President Trump's border mandates as casualties of the early exit.

A Broader Pattern of Dysfunction

The early recess fits a pattern documented by the Boston Globe, which reports that Congress has sunk to historically low levels of productivity and unusually high public disapproval. The Globe notes record numbers of incumbents losing primaries this cycle and describes a body increasingly incapable of using its own institutional authority.

Former Maryland Rep. Donna Edwards, now president of the bipartisan Former Members of Congress Association, described the situation to the Globe using a Jenga analogy: "I look at these things as like stones, or like Jenga, where you pull a piece out and you see how much of it can stand, and you pull another piece out, and pretty soon it all crashes. That's where we are."

The Globe also notes that Johnson himself has described his job shifting from speaker to, in his own words from a 2024 book interview, half "mental health counselor," and later added "firefighter" to that list in a podcast interview after President Trump took office.

Before Johnson's announcement, the House Minority Leader held a press conference of his own, though the specifics of those remarks were not available in the reporting reviewed here.

None of this changes the calendar. The House is now out until after the November midterms, the gas tax repeal and border codification bills Roy and Norman wanted floor time for remain unaddressed, and Massie's impeachment resolution against Hegseth sits untabled until members return. The open question is whether that two-month gap gives Massie's push more attention than a same-day tabling would have, or whether it simply confirms Johnson's read that the whole thing fades from view by November.