‘We were gone far too long.’ House members reflect on longest shutdown : NPR

After the narrow approval of temporary funding bill to end government shutdown Last night the House of Representatives adjourned for the remainder of its session. week – one full day of session is noted after 54 days of absence.

Wednesday's vote was the first vote by House members since House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, sent House members home after the chamber passed an initial version of the continuing resolution in mid-September.

“The House has done its job,” Johnson said on the third day of the shutdown when asked why he did not allow his members to remain in the city. “The Chamber will return to meetings and begin its work as soon as [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer allows us to reopen the government.”

He kept his word, but Tensions were high when members returned this week.

“Long time, no see. I hardly recognize you guys,” House Rules Committee ranking member Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, said at the meeting. -Where the hell have you been?

After repeated comments from Democrats that Republicans were on vacation during the shutdown, Chairman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., intervened.

“I'm tired of hearing you all say we had an eight week vacation. I worked every day,” she said. “I don’t want to hear another soul say that.”

Although House leadership from both parties held news conferences every day during the shutdown, the House did not engage in legislative business for more than seven weeks.

“It was pretty, pretty lonely in the hallways,” California Republican Kevin Kiely said Wednesday. Unlike Republicans, rank-and-file House Democrats have been directed by their leaders to regularly travel to D.C. for caucus meetings.

But Keeley continued to come to his office in the Capitol. throughout the entire shutdown period.

“It was not a good hour for the United States Congress when the House of Representatives adjourned while so many people across the country were suffering,” he told NPR. “I don’t think either side will come out of this situation in the best light.”

Keeley said he used the time to work with a colleague on the other side of the aisle to resolve the issue of expansion Affordable Care Act subsidies expire at the end of the year – the essence of the shutdown itself.

“I think that’s been one of the benefits of being here, that I’ve had such constructive conversations,” he said. “But of course, if the whole House of Representatives were here, then we could have the kind of consensus process necessary to pass such legislation.”

Other members of the Republican Party such as Missouri State Representative Mark Alfordsaid the time spent at home was beneficial.

“In some ways, working in this area this time has been very, very rewarding,” he told NPR. “I've done more in my district than I think I could in the three years I've been on the job. [in Congress]. We visited farms, businesses, visited 14 of the 18 rural hospitals in our area, and it gave us a very clear picture of where America is right now and what we can do to help.”

Meanwhile, Democrats are still angry that the House was sent home in the first place.

“I think the speaker did show some poor judgment. I think it was disrespectful to the body,” said Rep. Julie Johnson, a Texas Democrat.

She called it “poor taste” for the speaker not to swear allegiance to his fellow Democrat. Adelita Grijalva, who won Arizona's special election in mid-September and waited to be sworn in during quarantine.

Grijalva told NPR Everything is taken into account she thinks she has support attempt to release Jeffrey Epstein files played a role in her waiting to sit down.

“I really like this woman. She will be a great member of Congress,” Speaker Johnson. said after he swore allegiance to Grijalva. “We followed House custom on the schedule, and we had a little, as they say in the Deep South, some intense communication about it. But she is here now, and I promised that we would take the oath of office before we began legislative business so that she would not miss the vote.”

Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., said Grijalva's profanity during the work stoppage was just one of the chamber's business matters that should have been done last month.

“For the last 54 days, the House of Representatives has been completely shut down and locked down, and there's all sorts of legislative business going on there,” she told NPR. “People are unhappy about the lack of accountability.”

Stansbury added: “We should have been here the whole time.”

Rep. Steve Womack, R-Arkansas, agreed.

“We've been gone too long,” he told NPR. “I didn't want to go home in August [for recess]. So to be gone for those five or six weeks and then turn around and do it again in October was just… it was just more than Americans had to put up with.”

Womack, a longtime appropriator, said he expects the end of January to be when Congress will have to finalize the rest of its spending bills.

“We're going to get Congress back on the books in another 78 to 79 days,” he said. “We'll go back to where we were. I just hope we don't put America back in the same situation.”