As the House heads home early this week with no plans to return until November, at least one Republican isn’t happy about it.
In a rare use of members’ “personal privilege,” Rep. Thomas Massie continued a feud with Speaker Mike Johnson, who earlier this month accused the Kentucky Republican of “not participating as a full member of the Congress.”
House procedure allows members to raise questions of personal privilege on the floor to respond to criticism of their integrity as elected representatives, but they have seldom taken advantage of it in recent years.
“I’m here today to let you know that I’m a full participating member of the House of Representatives. In fact, when other people want to go home, I’m here to work. I’m here to get justice for the Epstein victims, the survivors. I am here to get the price of food and fuel down for our constituents. We’ve got solutions. We just refuse to pass them,” he said on the House floor as he raged against his own party.
Massie spent an hour on the floor Wednesday afternoon lambasting the House’s truncated schedule and suggesting leaders were trying to leave town so they wouldn’t have to deal with his latest quests for transparency and accountability.
Earlier in the day, House leaders announced they would cut the week short and cancel business on Thursday — a decision that came after Johnson had already lopped two weeks off the calendar in late September.
That allows members to return to their districts and campaign ahead of the midterms. It also derailed Massie’s plan to force a fast-tracked vote on impeaching Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. And it slowed momentum for his push aimed at dislodging more files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
A discharge petition tied to that proposal, dubbed the Epstein Files Transparency Act II, was nearing the required 218 signatures. The biggest obstacle for Massie was Republican support. If every House Democrat were to sign the petition, he needed three GOP colleagues to join him before they could sidestep leadership and bring the bill to the floor.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the only Republicans who had signed aside from Massie were Reps. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Ralph Norman, R-S.C. None of them will be returning to Congress next year, with Massie losing his primary to a challenger backed by President Donald Trump and Mace and Norman both falling short in their unsuccessful bids for South Carolina governor.
By Wednesday night, another Republican had joined them — Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. But the petition still remained short of the target, with a couple of Democrats missing from the list. Both Reps. John Garamendi, D-Calif., and Adam Smith, D-Wash., have missed votes in the House this week, with Smith posting on X that he has been “dealing with some medical issues.”
It leaves the Epstein files push hanging until the House returns. The bill would allow state attorneys general, victims and members of Congress to sue the Justice Department for failing to disclose documents as required under the law Massie championed last fall.
Massie was not the only Republican unhappy about the House schedule change — Norman called it “unacceptable” on X Wednesday afternoon.
“The House has now canceled at least 63 scheduled voting days this Congress, including nine days this month alone, and now we’re leaving Washington until after the election. The Founders did not envision taking this much time off and still getting paid. If Members of Congress want to go home and campaign instead of doing the job taxpayers sent us here to do, then their campaigns ought to be paying them, NOT the American taxpayer,” he wrote.
Massie’s first attempt to force the Justice Department to release Epstein files, which he led alongside Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., easily passed the House after a battle to bring it to the floor against the wishes of leadership. It was signed into law last November.
“What would a fully participating member of Congress do if he got a law enacted against the will of the president, against the will of the speaker … against all odds, and then the chief law enforcement officer of the country will not follow the law? What would a fully participating member of Congress do? Well, I think he’d do what I did,” Massie said.
Massie is hoping to make the most of his limited time left in Congress. “I’m going to do something every week, so that I won’t be sitting at home saying, ‘I wish I’d done that,’” he said in June.
Some, however, took umbrage at Massie’s actions.
“Sadly we have Members of Congress who didn’t get picked by their 5th Grade Kickball Team and are taking out their frustration on the institution of the House of Representatives. #MoveOn,” Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., wrote on X Wednesday as Massie’s floor speech went on.
Massie doesn’t see it the same way.
“Why would we be canceling days when the country is burning? The inflation is rampant. There are things we could do here. Why would we cancel our own majority?” he said.
Jackie Wang contributed to this report.
