Congress

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

Published

4 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

Top Democratic appropriator wants White House to pay for airing ‘propaganda’

Published

2 hours ago

October 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A group of Senate Democrats are rolling out a bill Thursday to cut funding from the White House budget office any time a president uses taxpayer dollars to pay for anything considered political “propaganda.”

The legislation led by Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the Senate’s top Democratic appropriator, is unlikely to clear Congress unless Democrats win control of the House and Senate in the midterms. But the language could eventually be included in annual government funding bills and serves in the meantime as a way for Democrats to press their GOP counterparts on President Donald Trump’s ongoing use of federal funding to air campaign-style ads commending the president and his offensive against Iran.

“Congress cannot sit on its hands,” Murray said in a statement, noting that lawmakers in both parties have said in recent days that they oppose the taxpayer-funded ads the Trump administration is defending as “public service announcements.”

The bill would dock the budget of the Office of Management and Budget by $20 million every time an administration violates existing law barring the use of federal funds for “publicity or propaganda purposes.” The head of the Government Accountability Office would be charged with determining if such a violation has occurred.

Congress

Barrage of lawsuits targets Trump’s funding cancellation

Published

5 hours ago

October 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump’s move to cancel $810 million in congressionally approved spending are piling up in courtrooms throughout the country as states and groups that receive federal dollars fight to keep the cash flowing.

In the final hours before the fiscal year ended late Wednesday, a half-dozen states went to federal court to challenge Trump’s latest use of a controversial “pocket rescission.” A group that helps students from migrant families go to college also filed suit, trying to preserve about $25 million in education funding Trump is seeking to claw back.

At least one federal judge so far has been sympathetic to arguments that Trump’s move, which essentially runs out the clock on Congress’ right to evaluate and potentially reject funding clawbacks, could be illegal: U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled late Wednesday to delay the expiration of $56 million for housing support services, temporarily blocking Trump from canceling the money.

The flurry of legal action comes as many lawmakers on Capitol Hill clamor for the courts to strike down Trump’s action as an illegal and unconstitutional encroachment on Congress’ power to dictate how federal cash is spent.

But the fresh lawsuits will not necessarily prompt a sweeping ruling from the Supreme Court, which allowed Trump to go ahead last year with withholding $4 billion he canceled through the same budget tactic. The high court argued in that brief unsigned order that the Trump administration had made a strong argument that outside groups may not have legal standing to sue under the decades-old impoundment law.

In the lawsuit Wednesday by six states, the suing parties argue that the president has not only flouted that 1970s law, but also the Constitution and the annual funding bills Congress has enacted over the last year.

The group suing over the cancellation of funding for educating students from migrant families laid out similar arguments, contending that the Trump administration has violated the First Amendment by discriminating based on “protected speech, expressive activities, and viewpoints that are irrelevant to funding or activities” the programs support.

Cobb’s decision, meanwhile, is only temporary. She explained in an emergency order Wednesday that she acted because the suing groups “would lose out on significant amounts of funding due to allegedly unconstitutional actions.”

Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.

Congress

Centrist Dem’s Supreme Court plan boosts momentum for revamp

Published

12 hours ago

October 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democratic efforts to revamp the Supreme Court gained momentum Thursday as an influential center-left think tank released a plan to limit justices’ terms and misconduct.

Third Way’s proposal, shared first with Blue Light News, highlights growing unity across the ideological spectrum in the Democratic Party for significant changes to the high court as Americans’ trust in the institution hovers at historic lows.

The group says it also wants to inject ideas to overhaul the court — including legislation to set an 18-year term limit and an enforceable ethics code — into the party’s conversations leading up to the 2028 presidential race.

“This is one of those things that we think can and should be a part of the 2028 discussion, and those folks who are running should be asked about whether they would champion Supreme Court reform,” Lanae Erickson, a senior vice president at Third Way, said in an interview.

Key Democratic groups have increasingly been coalescing around ideas to overhaul the court’s structure and policing in light of accusations of growing partisanship and corruption among justices. In June, a number of key Democratic House caucus leaders, including the Congressional Progressive Caucus, released their own resolution calling for term limits for justices and a code of ethics.

“We think that the center left has been remiss in not being forward enough on reform proposals that would make our system work better for people, which is why some folks have gone to the further left,” Erickson said.

Third Way cited public opinion polling from both the Brennan Center for Justice and FOX News indicating more than 70 percent of respondents favored term limits for justices. An 18-year cycle would ensure the appointment of two justices every presidential term.

The group also wants legislation to hold justices accountable for ethics violations. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said last month he supports “dramatic reform” on the Supreme Court starting with an ethics code so justices don’t act “above the law.”

The court in 2023 adopted its own formal ethics code for the first time in history, but that policy largely lacks some of the teeth that advocates have proposed.

One idea supported by some Democrats that Third Way is not endorsing: upping the number of justices on the bench. Erickson said that idea seems more like “a mutually assured destruction path,” as parties could go back and forth adding more justices.

The path forward for any court-focused legislation in Congress in the near future, however, is very slim without majorities in both chambers and control of the White House — something Third Way acknowledged.

Still, the group’s recommendations are meant “to show that the center left can also be bold and be addressing systemic problems to appeal to voters and their level of anxiety and anger about what’s happening right now,” Erickson said.