On September 16, US Representative Mike Johnson (R-LA), acting in his role as Speaker of the House, sent that body’s members home until after the November midterm elections.

My knee-jerk reaction is gratitude. After all, as Gideon J. Tucker wrote in 1866, “no man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”

Conversely, if all those members of Congress are back home campaigning for re-election (or just enjoying a break), their opportunities to engage in criminal stupidity step down from wholesale to retail levels.

Heck, if we have to put up with Congress existing at all, I’d rather they convened once a year to collect their salaries for the year, then took the other 364 days off.

On a closer look, though, Johnson seems to have found a way to turn Tucker’s aphorism on its head, frequently using the absence of Congress to protect existing depredations, rather than the presence of Congress to drum up new ones.

“The House has now canceled at least 63 scheduled voting days this Congress, including nine days this month alone,” notes US Representative Ralph Norman (R-SC).

When Johnson thinks he’s going to lose a vote — with “lose” defined as upsetting or defying president Donald Trump — he just sends everyone home until he can whip a few more House members into line, or at least until the loss might come at a slightly less embarrassing point in the news cycle.

He’s done it with votes on EPA regulations.

He’s done it with votes related to the Epstein files.

This time he fled in terror, taking the entire House with him, from a privileged motion filed by outgoing US Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY).

The resolution, if passed, would have impeached US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for “Waging War in Contravention of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 …. Ignoring Laws that Minimize Civilian Casualties …. Extrajudicial Killings …. Suppressing Free Speech …. Kidnapping of a Sovereign Foreign Leader …. [and] Unlawful War in Yemen.”

Letting the House vote on the resolution would have been a no-win situation for Johnson and his party given that every House seat is up for election in a month-and-a-half.

If it had failed, Republican candidates would have had to explain to voters why they supported keeping a corrupt, incompetent crook in charge of the US armed forces.

If it had passed, Republican candidates would have had to explain to voters why they had left that corrupt, incompetent crook in charge of the US armed forces for nearly two years before taking steps to remove him.

While I doubt the House and Senate possess the moral fiber and testicular fortitude to send Hegseth packing (preferably all the way to The Hague), they’re a lot more likely to do so on November 4, when the next election is two years away and voters have time to forget all about it.

Ultimately, though, Hegseth and the House are simpatico — crooked peas in a crooked pod. As Mark Twain noted, “there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY