Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) is breaking ranks to scold GOP leadership for keeping the House closed for business throughout the shutdown, reported the Huffington Post on Tuesday.
Kiley stood on the House floor during the so-called "pro-forma" session, where another lawmaker banged the gavel as a technicality to prevent the House from being adjourned, even as it was for all intents and purposes. Speaking to HuffPost after, he said, “God, I wanted to at least remember what the floor looked like. It’s been almost a month that we’ve been out of session. We’ve been out of session 71 out of 83 days.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has kept the House closed as a means to pressure Democrats to capitulate in the shutdown fight; they are refusing to provide the votes to help Republicans reopen the government until they negotiate over extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are set to expire and send millions of people's premiums skyrocketing.
Republicans' thinking is that as long as the House remains out of session, the only way to reopen the government will be for the Senate to pass the resolution the House already passed, which would require Democrats' unconditional surrender. So far, though, neither side has budged.
A side effect of this obstruction is Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), who won a special election weeks ago, has still not been sworn in as a member of Congress. This has led many to speculate that another reason Johnson is keeping the House closed is to prevent Grijalva from being the final vote on a bipartisan discharge petition to compel the full release of the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case files. On Tuesday, the attorney general of Arizona threatened to sue Johnson if Grijalva is not promptly seated.
Kiley is one of the few Republicans on the record as against Johnson's strategy, wanting the House to remain open for business.
The lawmaker has also defied his party by condemning President Donald Trump's mid-decade redistricting crusade to pressure Republican states to rig their congressional maps to give themselves extra seats. Democrats in California have retaliated by calling a statewide popular vote on a map designed to draw out five Republicans in that state, including Kiley himself. Kiley has introduced his own legislation that would make spontaneous mid-decade redraws illegal.
