After nine Republicans joined all Democrats to tank a procedural vote Tuesday afternoon, Speaker Mike Johnson had a novel solution: everyone go home.
“We can’t have any further action on the floor this week,” Johnson told reporters after a rule, which would have killed a discharge petition from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna to allow new parents to vote remotely for 12 weeks, failed 206-222.
“It was very unfortunate,” a visibly frustrated Johnson said as he left the House chamber. “We’ll regroup and come back and we’ll have to do this again.”
Of course, Johnson’s declaration that there can’t be any more action in the House this week is his choice. Republicans could have just as easily gone back to the Rules Committee, stripped the language tabling the discharge petition from the rule setting up consideration for a number of bills and almost certainly gotten back to work.
But that also would have meant, in effect, admitting defeat on Luna’s proposal, which garnered 218 signatures last week and is due for a floor vote.
The whole situation — Republicans trying to subvert a clear majority that wants to give new parents the temporary ability to vote remotely, losing a rule vote on the floor and packing it up and going home — earned quick ridicule from Democrats.
“So let me get this right,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz posted on X, “they opposed proxy voting for pregnant women because they said they should be in dc for work, and their response is to send us home and not work at all?”
He separately tweeted that Johnson’s response had to be an April Fools joke, that the House’s work week was “0.08 Scaramuccis,” and not very “👊🇺🇸🔥,” referring to messages in the secret war-planning Signal chat with top Trump administration officials.
Other Democrats were similarly trollish.
“Petulance is a poor substitute for governing,” Rep. Jared Huffman told NOTUS. “But at least we can all go do something productive in our districts now.”
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman noted that the rule that was voted down would have, among other things, set up consideration for GOP legislation to remove a $5 cap on bank overdraft fees.
“I guess no Republicans want to work anymore,” she posted on X.
Even Republicans who sided with leadership against the discharge petition were frustrated with the decision to end the week.
“Whether you agree or disagree with Ms. Luna’s discharge petition, this has been on the horizon for a long time and leadership failed to address it to her satisfaction,” Rep. Andy Ogles told NOTUS.
“I would say that a blind man or woman could have seen this outcome coming, which is why it’s frustrating that leadership didn’t hit it off at the pass. They’re in leadership for a reason,” he added.
One House Republican, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the situation, told NOTUS that Speaker Johnson was “the only one slowing down the president’s agenda.”
“He knew this would happen,” this GOP lawmaker said. “He’s trying to blame the nine when he can take that out of the rule, not put the petition on the floor and vote for the rest of the week. This is all his fault and he knows it.”
Rep. Kevin Hern, chair of the House Republican Policy Committee, said he was simply “hoping to get back on track next week.”
“Well, we’ve got a lot to do, so we need to have opportunities to vote on a lot of the [Congressional Review Acts], and certainly Darrell Issa’s bill reining in the rogue district judges,” Hern said.
The timing of the canceled week also meant that most lawmakers would be out of town by the time Trump’s “Liberation Day” of tariffs went into effect Wednesday.
“We’ll try our best, but now we’re all headed home, and Trump’s about to impose massive tariffs on this country, and you know, no one’s here to stop them,” Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia told NOTUS.
House GOP leaders are publicly projecting confidence that, when the House returns Monday, Republicans can defeat Luna’s discharge petition, even after the embarrassing failure on the House floor.
Leaders are mulling over several options to kill the proposal next week, including reportedly just adding a budget, freshly amended by the Senate, to the slate of legislation that the rule would set up for floor consideration.
But leaders are also clear-eyed that it’s not just the nine Republicans who took down this rule that they will have to deal with. From here on out, any rule that does not include language to kill Luna’s petition will likely fail at the hands of conservatives who oppose proxy voting. So, the plan is to include similar language killing the discharge petition, in each rule from here on out, until they are successful, a source told NOTUS.
A senior GOP aide told NOTUS that “4% of the conference is blocking the Trump agenda.”
“They want to implement a work-from-home program for Congress,” the aide said. “That’s not a very sustainable position.”
But simply sending lawmakers home to avoid a vote on the discharge petition also isn’t sustainable. If Republicans want to take up more legislation, they will have to dispense with Luna’s proposal — one way or another.
Still, many Republicans didn’t seem to mind unexpectedly finishing their work week in Washington by Tuesday afternoon.
“I see it as a way to encourage us all to be back in our districts,” Rep. Joe Wilson told NOTUS.
“There’s some different events that I can’t wait to go to tomorrow that I was not able to accept, but now I can, so I look at it as an opportunity,” Wilson said.
Democrats also looked at it that way, with a House Majority PAC staffer pointing out that two vulnerable Republicans — Reps. Gabe Evans and Jen Kiggans — now could turn their tele-town halls into “real town halls!”
Meanwhile, Democratic leaders weren’t quite taking a victory lap.
Moments after they joined with those nine Republicans to reject the rule, there was a hearing on Social Security.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stuck to his talking points about Republicans “destroying Social Security” and didn’t bring up Johnson canceling the rest of the week.
“We’re going to continue, as Democrats, to show up and stand up and speak up,” Jeffries said.
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Daniella Diaz is a reporter at NOTUS. Katherine Swartz is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Reese Gorman is a reporter at NOTUS.