Pressure growing on Johnson to call House back amid shutdown fight
by Mike Lillis - 10/12/25 6:00 AM ET
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.”
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https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5550435-pressure-mike-johnson-house-shutdown/
