After just 7 workdays, Congress adjourns until after midterms, dodges impeachment vote against Hegseth

The House of Representatives canceled the votes scheduled for Thursday and brought an early end to the brief legislative session that followed the summer recess. In total, lawmakers met for only seven days since resuming activities on Aug. 31, before heading off to the final stretch of the election campaign midterms.

"We're going to modify the House schedule by a day," said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), in a brief statement to the press. The early adjournment, incidentally, solves two political problems for the Republican leadership: It avoids an awkward vote on the possible dismissal of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and leaves unanswered the demand from more than 100 Democrats who had been pressing Congress to address the risks of artificial intelligence before adjourning.

Lawmakers will not return to Washington until Nov. 9, by which time the election results will have been determined and the composition of both chambers for the next two years will have been settled. Current polls show the Democrats with an advantage in regaining control of the House of Representatives after four years in the minority, while the Senate is shaping up to be a much closer race.

Among the first pending issues when Congress resumes its duties is, precisely, the resolution to remove Hegseth from office, sponsored by the libertarian-leaning Republican representative Thomas Massie (R-KY).

Massie, who is now a dissident Republican, made no secret of his displeasure with the maneuver.

"And there it is. Just as I predicted," he wrote on X as soon as Johnson's announcement became public. "They're canceling Congress tomorrow to avoid the vote on IMPEACHING [Hegseth]. It will also make it harder for us to reach 218 signatures on the Epstein Discharge Petition before the election. We were at 190+ signatures last night."

Before adjourning, lawmakers did manage to vote on nearly 20 bills under a suspension of rules, which requires a two-thirds majority for approval. Among them was a symbolically significant measure: a bill that tightens sanctions against Russia and Iran, named in honor of Senator Lindsey Graham, who died suddenly on July 11.

Pushing this initiative through required Republican leadership to resort to an unusual move. To allow the debate on the floor, they needed the support of two Democrats — Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez of Washington, and Jared Golden of Maine, who ultimately voted alongside the Republicans to set the rules of debate for the bill — a move that caused some unease within the Democratic leadership. Such bipartisan agreements on procedural rules are a rarity in the House, since, in fact, the Republicans themselves had not been able to pass a rule on their own since July.