Pressure growing on Johnson to call House back amid shutdown fight

House GOP leaders are facing increasing pressure to bring the chamber back to Washington amid a shutdown fight with no end in sight.

A growing number of GOP lawmakers are voicing frustrations with their leadership for prolonging the House recess, warning that the optics surrounding that inactivity could backfire on the party to the benefit of Democrats.

The rumbling is creating a headache for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and his leadership team, who have made canceling votes a central part of the Republicans’ shutdown strategy. In doing so, they’re betting that an empty House will pile pressure on Senate Democrats to drop their opposition to a GOP spending bill and help reopen the government.

But as the shutdown crept into its second week, neither side has given an inch, causing federal workers to receive diminished paychecks on Friday and threatening a similar pay squeeze on military personnel, who are at risk of missing their first scheduled paycheck next Wednesday. 

Those pressure points have only amplified the calls from within the GOP conference for Johnson to reconvene the chamber, if only to move legislation to ensure the troops are compensated. 

“Military pay should not be held hostage due to Washington’s dysfunction!” Rep. Jen Kiggans, a Virginia Republican who represents Norfolk’s massive naval base, wrote this week on X.

Kiggans, who is the lead sponsor of legislation to pay the troops during the shutdown, urged Johnson and GOP leaders to pass her bill “immediately.” And she invoked a powerful advocate in President Trump, who has said Congress will “probably” pass legislation to prevent any delays in those payments.

“The President has made it clear: we must pay our troops,” Kiggans said.

She’s hardly alone. 

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said this week that Johnson should bring the House back to Washington “for many reasons.” But the Georgia firebrand pointed specifically to the issue of health care premiums, which are expected to skyrocket at the end of the year, when enhanced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are scheduled to expire. Greene is the rare Republican urging GOP leaders to address the issue immediately to prevent patients from “just getting destroyed.” 

“Any serious speaker of the House is going to build consensus within his conference behind a plan,” Greene told CNN. “It’s not something secret that gets worked on in a committee.”

House Republicans staged a conference-wide call on Thursday, during which a number of GOP lawmakers also expressed frustrations about the leadership strategy, which has featured the cancellation of all votes since Sept. 29. Those figures raised concerns that keeping the House on recess during the shutdown was a bad look for Republicans, according to a source on the call. Among the dissenters were Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.), Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) and Julie Fedorchak (R-N.D.), MSNBC reported this week. 

Other Republicans, siding with Kiggans, made clear that they want GOP leaders to tackle the issue of military pay, the source said. 

Johnson, for his part, has sent mixed messages on the issue. On Tuesday, the Speaker suggested he was ready to support a stand-alone bill to pay the troops and air-traffic controllers, even if other parts of the government remained shuttered.

"I’m certainly open to that,” he said. “We’ve done it in the past. We want to make sure that our troops are paid."

But the idea is opposed by Senate Republican leaders, who are hoping to maximize the pressure on Senate Democrats to support the GOP's short-term spending bill, which would fund all areas of the federal government, including the military. And Johnson quickly changed his tune to reject a stand-alone Pentagon bill, saying if Democrats want to fund the military they should support the larger package. 

“We have voted so many times to pay the troops. We have already done it. We did it in the House three weeks ago,” Johnson told reporters in the Capitol on Friday. “The ball is in the court of Senate Democrats right now. That's it." 

Democrats have criticized that argument as they demand bipartisan talks to address the expiring ObamaCare subsidies. But they’ve been joined, in recent days, by GOP lawmakers who are also questioning Johnson’s hands-off approach. 

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) was one who publicly challenged Johnson’s assertion that the House has “already done our job.” 

“No, what the House has done is pass a 7-week Continuing Resolution,” Kiley posted Wednesday on X. “The entire reason a CR is necessary is that Congress has not done its job in passing a timely budget. The Speaker shouldn't even think about cancelling session for a third straight week.”

Two days later, Johnson cancelled votes for a third straight week.

The Speaker has suggested there’s a way to ensure the troops are paid without bringing House lawmakers back: Trump could do it unilaterally. 

“The executive branch, the president, is working on ways that he may have, as well, to ensure the troops are paid,” Johnson said during Friday’s press conference.

Such a move would relieve some pressure on Congress to end the shutdown. But it wouldn’t break the stalemate over how to reopen the government, nor would it alleviate the apprehensions of rank-and-file Republicans itching to get back to the Capitol to show voters that they’re fighting the good fight. 

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, had forecast those misgivings in September, on the last day the House was in session before the shutdown. 

“I hope we'll come back,” Cole said at the time. “Our leaders have to make that decision, but I intend to be back here. 

“I don't think it's a good look to be home when the government shuts down.”