House Republican leadership canceled the last two weeks of September votes on Thursday, meaning that after members depart the Capitol later this month they will not return until after the November midterm election.
“This is a change from House GOP leadership’s previously announced schedule,” Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Massachusetts) wrote in an update.
House lawmakers are now set to leave Washington on Sept. 17 rather than Oct. 1 for their break before the midterm elections.
The official House legislative calendar, maintained by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana), shows that the House was supposed to be in session the week of Sept. 21 and Sept. 28.
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When House lawmakers came back to Washington earlier this week after a monthlong August recess, they quickly passed a stopgap measure to keep federal agencies funded until mid-December. The funding bill averts the threat of a government shutdown ahead of the midterm elections.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has frequently touted the 119th Congress as “one of the most productive Congresses in the history of the institution.”
But last year under Johnson’s speakership, Congress set a 21st-century record for casting the least amount of votes, according to The Washington Post. The 362 votes the chamber held was half as many votes as in 2017, which was the first year of President Donald Trump’s first term in office with a Republican majority.
With only a few months left of the year and more canceled in-session weeks on the horizon, the House has held less than 300 votes in 2026.
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