Congress

43 days and counting: Why the House is working way less than the Senate

Published

5 months ago

June 3, 2026

Tuesday was supposed to be a voting day in the House, with members flying back to Washington to begin their workweek by passing a slate of bipartisan bills.

Instead the floor was largely deserted after Republican leaders pushed back the chamber’s first votes — further adding to a gaping divide between the House and Senate in how often lawmakers on each side of the Capitol are carrying out their most basic legislative duties.

According to a Blue Light News analysis of the Congressional Record, the House has gaveled in 241 days during the 119th Congress, compared to the Senate’s 284 session days. The analysis includes brief pro forma sessions, which both chambers conduct during extended recesses at roughly the same pace.

That 43-day gap is looming extra large as Hill Republicans face a massive time crunch ahead of the midterms, with hopes of passing several major pieces of legislation ranging from a GOP-only immigration enforcement funding package to bipartisan transportation and housing bills and key extension of government surveillance powers.

But even though the House has only 38 scheduled legislative days left before Election Day, GOP leaders have continued to cancel votes at times, prompting many lawmakers to stay home as Speaker Mike Johnson struggles to wrangle his tiny majority.

The ever-tightening calendar has further imperiled the GOP’s hopes of passing yet another longshot party-line bill focused on war funding and affordability issues before voters head to the polls — one that Johnson has said Republicans could advance by the end of July despite a lack of consensus on what exactly should go in it.

Johnson often argues the “sausage-making” of the legislative process isn’t always pretty, and he has managed to get out of many — though not all — of his tough spots.

“Despite a razor-thin House majority, and the resulting frequency of various attendance problems, and despite a string of record-setting government shutdowns forced by the Democrats, Speaker Johnson, his leadership team, and House Republicans have delivered countless positive legislative results for the American people,” said Taylor Haulsee, a spokesperson for the speaker, citing “lower taxes, secure borders, reduced crime, a return to American energy dominance, massive reductions in burdensome regulations, fraud, waste and abuse, and more.”

Furthermore, senior House Republicans and aides argue it’s often better to cancel votes or keep members home than risk bringing them back prematurely to a failed vote that would generate frustrations and risk a backlash against Johnson and his fellow leaders.

The biggest reason for the discrepancy between the House and Senate calendars was last fall’s record-setting government shutdown. Johnson kept his chamber out of session for nearly two months after House Republicans passed a funding package that languished in the Senate due to a Democratic filibuster.

Eventually, Democrats flinched and the government reopened, but the costs were significant: Committee work ground to a halt and the floor agenda piled up just as the GOP majority grew even more unmanageable.

Since then, Johnson and fellow leaders have pared back session days as they have faced dicey legislative fights and uncertain attendance.

Just ahead of the recent Memorial Day recess, Republicans’ hopes of quickly passing the immigration enforcement bill evaporated after President Donald Trump’s administration announced the creation of a controversial “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that could be used to hand large settlements to presidential allies.

Members headed home expecting to return for Tuesday’s votes, but Johnson & Co. instead opted to punt the week’s first roll call votes to Wednesday. That effectively gave the White House more time to wriggle out of the payout-fund mess and also possibly strike an Iran deal that would forestall an embarrassing loss on a bipartisan resolution to end the war in the Middle East.

Tuesday was also primary Election Day in several key states, meaning member attendance would be sketchier than usual — another consideration weighing on the GOP whip team.

“Even if one or two members are missing, it can derail a whole week of floor plans,” said one senior GOP aide who was granted anonymity to speak frankly about the challenges facing the House majority.

There’s also the long-term absence of Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-N.J.), who has been missing from Capitol Hill since March 5 with what his office says is a health matter.

Some committee business continued Tuesday — including an Appropriations subcommittee hearing where acting Attorney General Todd Blanche renounced the fund — but most rank-and-file members were not present on Capitol Hill.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries took advantage of the vacuum at a news conference, insisting that a string of legislative setbacks and floor defeats for Republicans has contributed to the House’s poor attendance.

“What exactly do Republicans have to show for being in complete control of Congress over the last 18 or so months? The answer would be nothing, nada, zero,” Jeffries told reporters.

“They made life worse for the American people, and so that’s one of the reasons why I’m convinced that Republicans continue to cancel votes and do everything they can every week to get out of town before sundown,” he added.

The two chambers were in roughly the same number of days to this point in the last Congress, — with the House meeting 257 days between January 2023 and June 2024 versus the Senate’s 260 days. There was a significant gap in the same window for the 117th Congress, when differing approaches to the Covid pandemic contributed to the House’s lighter, 237-day schedule versus the Senate’s 271 days in session.

The Senate has a natural advantage in managing its calendar. It has the unique role of approving presidential nominees, which means it can usually easily fill its agenda with confirmation votes even when legislative business stalls. Senate Majority Leader John Thune also has a slightly more comfortable majority, with 53 Republican senators, as well as Vice President JD Vance available to break ties.

In the House, on the other hand, Republicans have been working with a one-to-three-seat majority since the Congress began in January 2025 — a tiny margin in the much larger chamber.

On some recent voting days, Johnson did not appear to have a functioning majority. In the hours before lawmakers left for the Memorial Day recess, GOP leaders suffered an embarrassing defeat when a small group of Republicans joined with Democrats to vote down a bill that would have advanced plans for the Smithsonian National Women’s History Museum while barring exhibits on transgender women and giving Trump more control over its location.

Johnson then faced another GOP rebellion, this time on a vote forced by Democrats to effectively end hostilities with Iran. The measure was set to be approved thanks to Republican defections, and it would have delivered Trump a major rebuke. The speaker huddled with Majority Leader Steve Scalise and top GOP aides on the House floor and ultimately decided to postpone the vote until after the recess.As Johnson struggled to get through the vote series that last session day in May, the sentiment among Republicans on the House floor was clear.

“We just gotta get out of here,” one senior House Republican said.

Congress

GOP senator questions Elon Musk’s influence over military assets

Published

55 minutes ago

October 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer said Thursday that he had concerns about Elon Musk’s influence over national security matters after Ukraine was blindsided by a disruption of a satellite communications service developed by Musk’s SpaceX.

“We’re putting too many eggs in one company’s basket when it comes to our space assets,” the Republican member of the Armed Services Committee said. He added about Musk that he was concerned about the power of “one individual and one company over America’s ability to protect the domain of space, which is a war-fighting domain.”

Cramer received a briefing Thursday from Air Force Secretary Troy Meink that he said focused on getting an update on Starshield — a military product based on SpaceX’s Starlink technology. Cramer told reporters before the briefing that he wanted Congress and the Pentagon to “pour a lot of resources … into making sure there’s lots of competition both for satellite production and satellite launch.” “I’m uncomfortable with the potential vendor lock in space, and I think the events of the last couple of weeks have demonstrated greater concern, even than just simply cost,” Cramer said.

Musk has been under days of scrutiny — including fresh pledges by Democrats to investigate him next year — after the Wall Street Journal reported that he ordered the recent slowdown in Starshield capabilities over the Russia-Ukraine war theater.

Cramer, asked about the Journal reporting after the closed-door briefing, said that he wasn’t sure if Musk ordered the slowdown and that the “culpability of multiple people … was left somewhat loose.”

“By that I mean, discussions with the president before, discussions with the president after. … Obviously I don’t think it could have possibly happened without Elon Musk’s knowledge, whether or not you know how supportive he was one way or the other,” Cramer said.

Cramer added that he believed there could have been a broad misunderstanding within the U.S. government and within SpaceX about how reliant Ukraine was on the satellite technology. But he said it was incumbent that the operation of satellite technology like Starshield must “be exclusively with the authority of the United States government.”

“There are certain things the government has to do that can’t be so dependent on others,” Cramer said. “And fighting wars is one of those things.”

Congress

Top Senate Finance Democrat maps out clean energy plan

Published

4 hours ago

October 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee wants to revive a clean energy tax credit program he argues was a booming success — and says he has the receipts to prove it.

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon is releasing a new report of IRS data, shared first with Blue Light News, showing that, in the first two years of the Democrats’ 2022 climate law, nearly $2.5 billion in direct payments went directly to schools and other tax-exempt entities to cover electric school buses, rooftop solar, electric vehicles and more.

Wyden said in a press release the numbers prove there is “massive demand” for “any and all” programs that lower energy costs and rebuild aging infrastructure, after Republicans gutted many of these wind and solar tax credits in their tax and spending megalaw last summer.

“When Democrats have a trifecta of power, reinstating the wind and solar tax credits and bolstering the Direct Pay Program will be a top priority to help bring an end to Trump’s energy crisis,” said Wyden, who is poised to take back the Finance gavel if control of the Senate flips in the midterms.

The report, prepared by Democratic staff for the committee, argues the current “energy crisis,” where Americans’ utility bills are rising, was manufactured by Republicans and the direct result of the Trump administration’s clean energy incentive rollbacks.

Wyden said he would revive the solar and wind tax credits if given the chance to chair the Finance Committee again, plus boost what’s known as the Direct Pay Program, which schools and tax exempt entities can use on rooftop solar, electric vehicle purchases, heat pumps and more.

“If we’re back in the majority — and I think we will — I will be introducing that bill [to restore] the clean energy tax credits that had billions of dollars in the market in the first couple of years,” Wyden said in an interview last month regarding his plans. “I’ll be introducing that right away.”

Wyden, who has led his party on the Finance Committee since 2015, wrote the bulk of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act’s climate and clean energy provisions.

Congress

Capitol agenda: Some Republicans get bipartisan curious

Published

5 hours ago

October 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Facing a blue wave, Republicans have found bipartisanship.

A new Blue Light News poll shows that 66% of Republican voters this midterm want a Democratic House to find common ground with President Donald Trump to pass legislation next year, assuming the party flips that chamber in November.

Democrats don’t seem sold on the unity vibe. Almost the same percentage of Democratic voters want their party to block Trump and GOP proposals they disagree with, even if that means fewer bills get passed.

The GOP’s team-player spirit is also showing up in Republicans’ campaign messaging too — far more than in previous cycles.

Across all House and Senate races, GOP candidates or outside groups backing them have run nearly 200 ads that mention bipartisanship, working across the aisle or “both sides,” according to a Blue Light News analysis of AdImpact data. That’s up more than 60% from 2024.

An ad from Michigan GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers says he’ll “bring both parties together” to lower prices. Iowa Rep. Zach Nunn told voters in an ad he is “one of the most bipartisan members of Congress.” And Arkansas Rep. French Hill is touting how the housing law he backed “passed with bipartisan support.”

The focus is a notable change from 2024. Back then, GOP candidates and groups ran more than 90 ads that promised to “stop Biden” or “stop Democrats.” That rhetoric is all but gone from GOP ads now.

Still, it remains to be seen if GOP lawmakers elected in November can collaborate with the different factions of the Democratic party that may be more — or less — willing to reach across the aisle.

Seventy-one percent of progressive voters, for example, indicated they would prefer Trump obstruction over finding common ground, compared to 57% of moderates, according to the polling. Progressives were also more likely to say Democrats’ highest priority if they retake the House should be doing everything they can to block Republicans’ agenda.

The one exception for Dems: affordability. Fifty-seven percent of Democratic midterm voters indicated they’d prefer the party do whatever it takes to pass legislation lowering the cost of living, even if it’d give the GOP a win — including 56% of progressive voters and 58% of moderates.

What else we’re watching:

— DEMS’ TREASURY TARGETS — Democrats are readying for a showdown with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent if they take back power in November. The Democrats who would lead the committees overseeing the Treasury Department and IRS are preparing to investigate Trump’s alleged self-enrichment schemes and efforts to dismantle regulatory agencies, according to people with direct knowledge of Democrats’ plans granted anonymity to describe them.

— WYDEN’S CLEAN ENERGY PLAN — Sen. Ron Wyden wants to bring back a clean energy tax credit program he says new data proves was wildly successful in helping keep down Americans’ energy expenses. The top Democrat on Senate Finance is releasing a report of IRS data, shared first with Blue Light News, showing $2.5 billion in direct payments made in the first two years of the Democrats’ 2022 climate law to cover electric school buses, rooftop solar, electric vehicles and more. Wyden said he would revive the solar and wind tax credits if given the chance to chair the panel again, plus boost what’s known as the Direct Pay Program, which schools and tax exempt entities can use on clean energy infrastructure.

Jessica Piper, Danny Nguyen, Michael Stratford and Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.