House Republicans came back to Washington this week after a month away and immediately confronted one of the great philosophical questions of conservative government: what if they simply left again? The Washington Examiner reports that GOP lawmakers are divided over whether Speaker Mike Johnson should scrap the House’s final three scheduled weeks in session before Election Day. The chamber is currently supposed to work through Thursday, take another recess, then return Sept. 14. But rumors on Capitol Hill have lawmakers possibly wrapping things up this week and not coming back until Nov. 9. Nothing says public service like arriving at the office, noticing an election nearby and asking whether anyone would mind if you worked from campaign headquarters for two months.
There is, inconveniently, some government left to govern. Congress still has annual appropriations work to finish. The Farm Bill remains unfinished. So does the National Defense Authorization Act. Republicans have discussed another reconciliation package. And the government needs funding past the end of September. The Washington Examiner says Johnson is expected to move a short-term funding bill that would keep the government open into December. MS NOW likewise reports that keeping the government funded is the speaker’s main immediate task. This is not exactly an empty inbox. It is more like an inbox sitting on fire while several employees debate whether the healthiest response is to update LinkedIn.
Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee supplied the cleanest explanation for the escape plan. He told the Washington Examiner, “We don’t have anything to do, so let’s get home.” He added that, as a limited-government person, staying in Washington without accomplishing anything can only cause harm. It is a beautiful piece of reasoning because it converts legislative failure into ideological consistency. If Congress cannot pass the work Congress is supposed to pass, then leaving Congress becomes an act of principle. By this standard, a plumber who cannot fix your sink is not incompetent. He is courageously reducing the size of plumbing.
Rep. Rich McCormick of Georgia offered a more campaign-friendly version. If there is little prospect of passing major legislation, he said, lawmakers might as well return to their districts, avoid controversy and focus on the issues voters want to hear about. That last part is especially elegant. Republicans could spend September actually dealing with appropriations, agriculture and defense policy, or they could go home and tell voters how strongly they feel about appropriations, agriculture and defense policy. One option involves votes, compromises and consequences. The other involves a microphone, a county fair and absolutely no danger of an amendment being attached.
Not every Republican is buying the early-dismissal slip. Rep. Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee told the Examiner she came to Washington to work and pointed to another possible reconciliation package. Other GOP members cited unfinished legislation as a reason to stay. That internal disagreement is what makes the story more than a cheap joke about congressional vacations. The Republican majority is not arguing over whether it has work. It is arguing over whether the difficulty of completing that work makes campaigning a better use of the calendar. The party controls the House, yet part of the conference appears to view the House floor as an obstacle between members and the voters they need to persuade that Republican control of the House is going splendidly.
There is also the small matter of how Johnson plans to complete the one job nobody can easily pretend is optional. According to both reports, House leadership is relying on a stopgap funding measure to prevent a shutdown. The Washington Examiner says Johnson is expected to need Democratic votes, a prospect already irritating conservative hard-liners. MS NOW reports leadership planned to bring the measure up under suspension of the rules, a procedure requiring a two-thirds majority. So the majority’s possible September strategy is shaping up nicely: use Democrats to help keep the government open, annoy the conservatives who dislike using Democrats, then consider canceling weeks of legislative time because the resulting House may be difficult to manage. This is less a governing strategy than a group project where everyone has agreed the presentation would improve if they stopped meeting.
The political logic is obvious even if the governing logic has wandered off. Republicans hold a narrow majority and vulnerable members want more time in their districts before the November midterms. Campaigning matters. Members of Congress campaign every election year, and nobody expects them to spend October chained to their desks composing amendments by candlelight. But there is a difference between a normal campaign recess and deciding that scheduled legislative weeks may no longer be worth the trouble because the majority cannot reliably move its agenda. The first is politics. The second is an incumbent majority asking voters for another term while considering an early checkout from the current one.
That is the real Too Red absurdity here. Limited government used to mean an argument about what Washington should do. In this version, it risks becoming an argument for Washington simply not showing up. The House Republicans considering an early exit are not powerless backbenchers watching somebody else run the chamber. They are members of the governing majority. If the floor is paralyzed by their own hard-liners, the schedule is their schedule. If major bills are unfinished, they are their bills. If members think Congress has “very little to do,” as an unnamed Republican told MS NOW’s cited reporting, that is not an alibi. It is a performance review.
And imagine trying this logic anywhere outside Congress. A restaurant does not close for seven weeks because dinner service looks contentious. An airline does not cancel September because the pilots would rather spend time explaining aviation to passengers at home. Most workers cannot tell the boss that the projects look difficult, so they will be elsewhere until November. Congress has built a workplace where failing to finish the agenda can become the argument for having less time to finish it. The circular reasoning is operating at full capacity.
Republicans can still decide to stay. Johnson has not announced that the remaining September weeks are canceled, and the Examiner describes the schedule as fluid. That distinction matters. The roast is not that House Republicans have already abandoned Washington until November. They have not. It is that members of a governing majority are seriously discussing whether unfinished work, internal paralysis and electoral anxiety add up to a persuasive reason to leave early. They want voters to renew the Republican House majority. It would help if the Republican House majority could first demonstrate an interest in using the one it already has.
If a governing majority decides it cannot get much done, is the answer really to give it fewer days to try?
Sources
Washington Examiner: House Republicans split over leaving Washington early for campaign train
MS NOW: The House just got back into town and wants to leave again ASAP
