Congress
Under Mike Johnson, a rarely used House tool has gone mainstream
Over the course of decades, House lawmakers had succeeded only a few times in triggering votes on bills the chamber’s leaders refused to call up.
Then Mike Johnson became speaker.
On the Louisiana Republican’s watch, the “discharge petition” has caught fire. Rank-and-file lawmakers have managed five times since he won his gavel two years ago to circumvent Johnson’s wishes by getting the 218 signatures needed to force votes on legislation he had blocked — more than in the prior 30 years combined.
Most recently, a bipartisan group used the maneuver to advance a long-stalled bill requiring President Donald Trump’s administration to release information about the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
It’s members of Johnson’s own party who have most effectively wielded the tool in recent years. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) masterminded the Epstein push, while Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) engineered an effort to seek voting accommodations for House members with newborn babies. Before that, then-Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) used the gambit to enact a bill to expand Social Security payments for millions of public sector workers.
“They try to say that discharge petitions are a tool of the minority, but that’s actually only the perspective of people that want to consolidate power within leadership,” Luna said in an interview, adding that she would protect the maneuver “with every bone in my body.”
The upshot for Johnson is that the arcane legislative mechanism once known only to Capitol Hill obsessives is now a routine part of life in the Republican House majority. Beyond Epstein, Johnson is now facing several new drumbeats for action, with lawmakers looking to force votes on banning member stock trading, sanctioning Russia and extending health care subsidies that are set to expire at year’s end.
The GOP’s slim majority is an obvious contributor to the burgeoning popularity of the maneuver. The discharge process is set into motion when 218 members sign on to a petition, meaning only a handful of Republicans need to cross leadership if Democrats are united in support.
But the recent spate of successful discharges also reflects careful groundwork Democrats laid to quickly seize on the procedure, along with a sentiment among many Republicans that Johnson is stifling the will of the House to appease Trump and small GOP factions — including hard-liners who successfully ousted Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy.
“I would encourage you to ask Mike Johnson why he repeatedly refused to bring my bill to the floor,” Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) said in an interview.
‘Toxic political environment’
Steube is still bitter about how Johnson hindered passage last year of his legislation to provide tax relief to disaster survivors, even after the measure was unanimously approved in committee. Once Steube got the signatures he needed to compel floor action, the measure passed the House in a 382-7 vote before clearing the Senate and earning then-President Joe Biden’s signature.
That first victory — seven months into Johnson’s tenure as speaker — showed how the maneuver can be successful “in a toxic political environment,” said Steube, a MAGA-hat-wearing, fourth-term member who has consistently won his southwest Florida district by a landslide. “It’s got to be something that is very bipartisan and is important enough that the body says, Yeah, this warrants overriding the speaker.”
The discharge petition dates back to 1910, when it was created in response to the “overreaching, overbearing, overcontrolling” style of then-Speaker Joseph Cannon — aka “Czar Cannon” — according to Sarah Binder, a George Washington University professor who focuses on legislative politics.
Now, she said, it serves as a “pressure valve” for a chamber designed to reflect the majority’s will.
In some cases, discharge petitions can help solve thorny political problems for the speaker. Philip Wallach, who studies the roots of congressional dysfunction at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said Johnson is “using this idea of getting forced” as a way to keep his job.
“He’s actually kind of deft at the coalition management problem and at staying on side with Trump,” Wallach said. “If he acted some other way, I really do think there’s a good chance that he would find himself on the wrong side of Trump and get thrown out.”
That was certainly the case with the Epstein vote, though Johnson protested mightily against the bill Massie and his ally Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) sought to discharge, arguing until the moment Trump signed it that it did not do enough to protect Epstein’s victims from invasions of privacy.
But as the 427-1 vote demonstrated, there was a deep groundswell for transparency that Johnson had been holding off at Trump’s behest.
‘The fuse in the fuse box’
Massie said members of both parties are now “brainstorming” other bills they might be able to catapult to the floor.
“It’s the fuse in the fuse box when everything gets jammed up and the wires get crossed and nothing can get done,” he told reporters last week.
In discouraging Republicans from signing on to discharge petitions, House GOP leaders argue that the tactic undermines the party in power and circumvents Congress’ “regular order” system of debate, where legislation is meant to advance through committees with special expertise.
“Typically it’s when somebody either doesn’t want to go through the committee process or doesn’t get what they want out of the committee process,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said in an interview.
But it’s not just committee calendars and floor scheduling that has chafed many House Republicans. GOP leaders have taken more overt steps this year to thwart the chamber’s ability to work the majority’s will — including by preemptively blocking efforts to force votes on canceling some of Trump’s tariffs.
Even before Johnson’s tenure, House leaders of both parties have chipped away at the “open rule” practice of allowing lawmakers to debate any amendments they wanted on the floor. Now they nearly always pick and choose the amendments allowed — if they allow them at all.
On the Epstein bill, the House’s top Republicans characterized the decision to sign Massie’s petition as a loyalty test.
“They made it pretty clear that if you get on the discharge petition, you’ve declared war on the president, in so many words,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said in an interview, adding that he sympathized with Johnson’s need to keep Trump and “prima donnas” in the House GOP happy.
“He tries his best,” Bacon said.
But Bacon, who is retiring after his term ends, has signed on to several discharge petitions, including one to sanction Russia and aid Ukraine, which is just a few signatures shy of 218. Bacon reasons that gesture is a way to show Trump that there’s rising support for helping Ukraine while affording Johnson some political cover.
“I feel like I’m helping him out by doing the discharge on Ukraine, in a way,” Bacon said of Johnson. “Because I’m trying to force the hand. He’s going to say, ‘I didn’t have any choice on this.’”
‘Zombie’ legislation
Democrats, to be sure, have done their share to contribute to the dizzying pace of discharges. Just last week, another petition succeeded, setting up a vote on a measure sponsored by Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) that would nullify an executive order Trump issued in March scrapping the collective bargaining rights of more than 1 million federal employees.
The party’s leaders, in fact, have quietly plotted for months to take full advantage of the tool. Under House rules, it typically takes well over a month to force a vote once a petition gets the requisite 218 signatures. So Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, coordinated the filing of “zombie” measures containing placeholder language allowing members to jump-start the procedural countdown before they finalize the substance of the legislation they want to propel to the floor.
McGovern acknowledged in an interview that none of that spade work pays off unless at least a few members of the majority are disgruntled enough to buck their leaders.
“It takes a lot of courage for Republicans to sign on to a discharge petition when they’re in charge,” he said. “But I think it’s a reflection of their frustration with their own leadership.”
Off Blue Light News, congressional observers who know the history of the seldom-used gambit are stunned, if not necessarily surprised, by its recent success.
“Despite the fact that it doesn’t succeed very often, it’s out there for an ambitious, organized minority — and, in this case, also disgruntled or concerned majority members, who feel their leadership’s not on the right side of the issue,” Binder said. “So beware the discharge.”
Cassandra Dumay contributed to this report.
A top pollster for President Donald Trump is pushing back on recent public polling showing Republican Mike Rogers trailing progressive Abdul El-Sayed in the marquee Michigan Senate race.
Tony Fabrizio, who is conducting polling for Rogers, says the polls released this month are over-sampling Democratic-leaning voters, specifically college-educated and Black voters, according to an internal memo obtained by Blue Light News. A Susquehanna poll released this month showed El-Sayed leading by seven points and a TIPP poll showed him leading by four points.
El-Sayed’s lead in those polls is a “fake narrative,” Fabrizio wrote. His polling for AARP — conducted alongside Democratic firm Impact Research — showed the race essentially tied.
The warning follows huge polling misses in the Democratic primaries in the Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida, which he wrote were “some of the most egregious examples of public polling failures in recent memory.” It’s also a sign that Republicans are wary of the string of bad polling numbers for Rogers in the race, which is crucial for determining control of the chamber.
Jim Lee, CEO of Susquehanna Polling and Research, told Blue Light News that the firm did not oversample any demographics. “I think their head is in the sand,” Lee said, noting in part what he said was a gap in enthusiasm between Democratic and Republican voters this cycle.
TIPP didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Fabrizio, in the memo, argued on the Susquehanna poll: “50% of the sample in this survey is college-educated – making them massively overrepresented to what they should be. We took a look at 2022 and 2024 Exit Polls and VoteCast data and, as shown below, there is no indication that the Michigan electorate will be anywhere near 50% college-educated. In fact, it is unlikely they will be even 40% college-educated.”
He also noted “a huge gap” between college-educated and non-college educated voters.
“This was the driving issue of the public polling misses for President Trump in 2016 and 2024, especially in the Upper Midwest states of Michigan and Wisconsin,” Fabrizio added. “By increasing college-educated voters by 10+ points, and thus decreasing non-college educated voters by the same, we can pretty much guarantee this poll is significantly overestimating El-Sayed’s vote share.”
President Donald Trump and hemp industry lobbyists are hoping to win a final vote on Capitol Hill next week to skirt a ban on intoxicating products — with shutdown politics as leverage.
Nine months ago, Congress cleared a bill to close a loophole created in 2018 that allowed the sale of some hemp-derived products containing types of THC colloquially known as “diet weed.” That ban is supposed to take effect in mid-November, or roughly 11 weeks, to limit overall THC levels in hemp products that can get people high — including gummies, canned drinks, pills and vapes.
But Trump and industry leaders successfully lobbied Senate leaders to add language to a government funding patch earlier this month to delay the ban until mid-December, with the administration promising instead to finalize regulations cracking down on how the products are made and sold.
Now House Republican leaders are aiming to clear that bill for Trump’s signature early next week, according to three people granted anonymity to disclose private discussions. And many GOP lawmakers are not pleased at the prospect of being rolled.
Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) told reporters last week that he expected House lawmakers would “iron out” some “sticking points” with the Senate-passed funding bill, “particularly the hemp issue,” rather than pass the legislation without changes — which appears to be GOP leadership’s current plan.
Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) was more blunt: “it is morally reprehensible to threaten a shutdown over a loophole Congress agreed to close to less than a year ago,” he said in a statement Thursday.
Yet despite fierce pushback from lawmakers warning that the intoxicating products are harming Americans, hemp industry leaders are preparing for a victory, betting members of Congress ultimately care more about swiftly passing legislation to avert a Sept. 30 government shutdown before the midterms.
“Any effort to try to shut down the government — over a one-month delay on a hemp issue — I don’t think is going to fly well with most members of Congress,” Jonathan Miller, a top lawyer for the U.S. Hemp Roundtable advocacy group, said in an interview this week.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about its plans for imposing new rules on hemp products in the coming months. But the Trump administration is expected to need more time than mid-December to finalize regulations, so hemp industry representatives are discussing a “regulatory bridge” that would impose temporary rules while continuing to avoid a full ban, according to Miller.
That could include restricting purchase to adults age 21 and older, blocking imports from China, mandating certain manufacturing practices, cracking down on copycat products that look like popular candy or potato chips and requiring transparency in product labeling.
While lawmakers have been back home over their summer break, hemp industry leaders have fanned out across the country to make their case for this plan. “The hemp industry does not have an August recess,” Christopher Lackner, head of the Hemp Beverage Alliance, said in an interview this month of the group’s work to facilitate passage of the Senate-passed funding bill.
Trump administration officials have also been telling reluctant lawmakers they will use the one-month delay to work on regulations. “The White House has committed to me that they’re committed to regulate the industry,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said in an interview this month.
Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), who fought in the Senate to retain the ban as originally intended, said White House officials have said “they don’t want another extension, and I agree with that.”
In a statement, Ricketts said that “manufactured high-THC products like gummies and drinks are putting our kids in the hospital” and need to be taken “off our shelves.”
Some supporters of the ban say the White House and industry are just employing delay tactics to get to December, when lawmakers will face another pressure campaign to delay the ban while they are motivated to avert a shutdown before leaving town for the holidays.
“What they’re really after is to try to jam this on some must-pass, end-of-the-year funding,” Budd told reporters earlier this month. “That’s really what this is about.”
Budd fought to block the delay in the Senate as part of the government funding measure, but his amendment to that end was shot down 61-32 before the chamberpassed the legislation, sending it on for House action.
Trump personally called Budd after the senator filed the amendment and talked about creating federal regulations for hemp products, according to a Senate aide granted anonymity to describe the private discussion.
Days later, Budd demanded a vote on the amendment anyway and continues to slam the hemp industry.
“It is clear that businesses that sell unregulated, intoxicating products will stop at nothing to protect their bottom line, even at the expense of children’s health and safety,” he said in a statement this week.
Besides lawmakers fighting to ban intoxicating hemp products, others are pushing alongside the White House and industry for federal regulations.
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-W.Va.) has crafted legislation that would direct the Food and Drug Administration to create federal rules for intoxicating hemp products and wants to see mandates for third-party testing, as well as new THC limits per serving.
Griffith told reporters Thursday the “deadline push” in the Senate-passed government funding measure “is not long enough” to finalize necessary regulations.
Since state limits for THC vary widely throughout the country and the federal government has taken years to step in since the hemp loophole was created in 2018, Griffith argued it makes more sense to regulate the intoxicating products than to enact a federal ban.
“That horse is out of the barn,” he said. “What we need to do is corral it.”
Kelsey Brugger, Amanda Friedman and Rachel Shin contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump’s $400-million super PAC is taking its first steps into the general election: hosting a public event in battleground Michigan, headlined by Vice President JD Vance.
Battleground Republicans have been clamoring for Trump’s MAGA Inc. to spend in competitive races. The Michigan event is an early indicator of how the massive group might seek to use its funds to help the party keep control of Washington.
Vance will be joined in Sterling, Michigan, on Monday by GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers, 10th District nominee Mike Bouchard Jr. and gubernatorial nominee John James, along with several other Michigan Republicans, according to an event advisory from MAGA Inc.
The GOP sees Michigan’s open seat as its best Senate pickup target this fall as Rogers faces former public health leader and progressive Abdul El-Sayed, who emerged from a grueling primary earlier this month.
“MAGA Inc. will be hosting events throughout the nation to ensure that Republicans retain control of Congress in order to finish cleaning up the mess the Biden-Harris-Pelosi-Schumer Democrats left,” said Alex Pfeiffer, spokesperson for MAGA Inc. “We’re not going back to their record inflation, open borders, and surging crime.”
MAGA Inc. is sitting on more funds than any other super PAC, and Republican donors and battleground candidates have been hoping it will unleash that money to help the party keep control of the House and Senate.
So far, the group has only spent only a few million dollars out of its massive fundraising haul, and its funds have largely gone to competitive Republican primaries. Most recently, it spent $827,000 on phone calls and text messages to boost Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.) in the state’s special primary.
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
Politics2 years agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
Politics2 years agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics2 years agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
The Dictatorship12 months agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words