The House canceled the vote and went into an early July Fourth recess as Speaker Mike Johnson struggled to appease the hardliners who had essentially taken over the proceedings.
Mike Johnson reflects on the balance of power in an exclusive interview
House Speaker Mike Johnson reflected on the tug-of-war between the legislative and executive branches in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY.
WASHINGTON — Amid a Republican revolt to tighten voting restrictions, the House is stalled on passing critical legislation that will keep Americans safe and keep the wheels of government turning.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson abruptly adjourned the chamber on Tuesday, June 30th. The impasse over several disagreements, including passing election reform legislation known as the Save America Act, which President Donald Trump has said is a top priority, forced him to cancel voting and send lawmakers home early for the Fourth of July holiday.
The House failed to approve a procedural bill known as a “rule” on Tuesday after about a dozen Republicans decided to let the bill sink, effectively paralyzing the Republican leadership’s legislative timeline.
Some were angered by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s strategy to pass SAVE, which hardliners have publicly declared ineffective. Some said they had been promised a vote on another border security bill but had not gotten it.
Shortly after, the Defense Policy Act, which the Pentagon must pass every year, stalled. But the House also lost several voting days, which will be difficult to regain.
The infighting has wreaked havoc within the Republican-controlled Congress, jeopardizing the party’s ability to further achieve its policy goals as the midterm elections approach. More urgently, it continues to prevent Congress from performing its more basic functions, on which so many Americans depend.
“Broadly speaking, there are things we need to move forward with, things we’ve all been talking about, things that aren’t happening, things that are starting to become bottlenecks,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), one of the lawmakers blocking the agenda, told USA TODAY. “We need to find a way to open things up again.”
Johnson blamed the problem on the Republican Party’s razor-thin House majority (although the party’s standing improved slightly on Tuesday, when a New Jersey lawmaker finally reappeared on Capitol Hill for the first time in four months for health reasons).
“This is a close life,” the speaker told reporters before canceling the vote. “We will get through it.”
Democrats did little to hide their frustration amid what House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called “Republican dysfunction.”
“What on earth are we doing here?” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) in a floor speech. “Every week I wonder if someone is going to have a seizure, if Donald Trump is going to make some weird post and blow everything up, if Mike Johnson is going to bring something to the floor when there are no votes.”
Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, one of the lawmakers pursuing the Save America Act, which would require proof of citizenship and a photo ID to vote, defended herself on the steps of the Capitol on Tuesday. Even though Trump, who met with Johnson just last week, encouraged Republicans like him to “stop the grandstanding” over his demands to pass voting restriction legislation, he and other hardliners remained undaunted.
“The only thing I can do is use my vote,” Luna said. “Why don’t we do everything we can?”
Contributed by: Reuters
Zachary Schermele is USA TODAY’s Congressional Correspondent. You can email us at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and on Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social..
