Mike Johnson Cancels Last Day Of Votes, Avoids Pete Hegseth Impeachment Vote Before Midterms
WASHINGTON ― House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has canceled Thursday’s votes and will instead send members home early, making Tuesday’s business in the House the last before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
Johnson, who already canceled the next two weeks of the legislative session, told reporters the House had been incredibly productive all year and didn’t need to stick around another day.
“It’s time for our members to go home to their districts and make their case to the American people to go and explain all the great things we’ve done,” Johnson said.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), however, told reporters Tuesday he expected leadership to cancel votes because he’d introduced a resolution to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Rank-and-file members have the power to force votes on such resolutions, and Massie planned to do so. When a member invokes his privilege to force a vote, the House has to act within two legislative days, though leadership can set a vote to table the resolution instead of a vote on the resolution itself.
“I do expect it’ll cancel Congress,” Massie said Tuesday. “But that won’t get Peter Hegseth out of the noose, so to speak. We come back after the election, and it would be the same members of Congress” who will have to vote on the resolution.
Among other things, the resolution says Hegseth committed high crimes and misdemeanors for prosecuting the war in Iran without congressional authorization and suppressed free speech by retaliating against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) for participating in a video reminding members of the military not to follow unlawful orders.
Johnson called Massie’s contention “ridiculous” in response to a reporter’s question on Wednesday.
“It’s a publicity stunt by someone who wants attention. It will immediately be tabled, of course, but we probably won’t do that today. We’ll probably do it when we come back,” Johnson said. “But it’s a stunt. Secretary Hegseth has done an extraordinary job at the Department of War. We’re in the middle of international conflicts right now, and we should not be playing games with national security.”
Massie pointed out Johnson sent lawmakers home for their August recess two weeks early last July amid a furor over the Donald Trump administration’s then-refusal to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein. He said he kept his Hegseth impeachment plans to himself as a result.
“I think if they found out I was going to do this, they might have canceled even more days,” Massie said.
CORRECTION: This story has been amended to clarify that the resolution accuses Hegseth, not Massie, of high crimes and misdemeanors.