WASHINGTON – After a prolonged break, the U.S. House of Representatives has reconvened, only to find its agenda overshadowed by a surge of disciplinary actions, including censures, reprimands, and member investigations. This focus on internal disputes has significantly sidelined legislative efforts.

Instead of addressing pressing issues like the steep rise in health insurance premiums, the House has been embroiled in high-profile conflicts among its members. These confrontations, both on the chamber floor and beyond, have taken precedence over substantial legislative work.

“It’s unfortunate for this institution,” stated Del. Stacey Plaskett, a Democrat from the U.S. Virgin Islands, who recently faced an unsuccessful attempt by House Republicans to censure her and remove her from the House Intelligence Committee.

This political drama intensified on Wednesday when a move to censure Rep. Cory Mills, a Republican from Florida, was proposed. This development coincided with the House Ethics Committee’s abrupt announcement of an investigation into Mills.

As reprimands consume the House’s focus, legislative work is suffering, with the year-end deadline fast approaching. One critical issue hanging in the balance is the potential expiration of health care tax credits on December 31. If unresolved, millions of Americans could find themselves without affordable insurance coverage in the upcoming year.

The escalating environment of political scrutiny is leaving the House, with just weeks to go before the end of year, without much time to make progress on unfinished business. Particularly unsettled is whether Congress will be able to deal with the expiration of the health care tax credits on Dec. 31, which threaten to leave millions of Americans unable to afford insurance coverage in the new year.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had insisted that once the government reopened from the federal shutdown, talks would get underway with President Donald Trump on the health care debate. But this first full week back in session has shown few signs of progress on that or other issues, including the routine bills to fund the government and prevent another shutdown.

“It’s time for the House to actually do things that matter for the American people,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries at his weekly press conference.

Jeffries said the House Republicans were “forced to come crawling back into the Capitol” after their nearly seven-week absence during the shutdown, and “they still haven’t brought a single bill to the floor that actually addresses the high cost of living in the United States.”

“What is wrong with these people?” he asked.

Health care and government funding at stake

As Johnson tries to exert control over the House, where Republicans have narrow majority control, the GOP speaker’s leadership is being tested in new and confrontational ways by rank-and-file lawmakers. They are seizing on the tools at their disposal to maneuver around the GOP speaker.

Johnson had to reverse course and support the vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files after a mass uprising from lawmakers demanding action. What started as a rogue action by a handful of lawmakers on what’s called a discharge petition became a nearly unanimous roll call, sending the bill to the Senate — and then to Trump to become law.

“Having now forced the vote, none of us want to go on record and in any way be accused of not being for maximum transparency,” Johnson said. “Of course we’re for maximum transparency.”

Epstein files unleash more scrutiny

Republicans, including those from the Freedom Caucus, launched the campaign against Plaskett over text messages she had received from Epstein during a committee hearing with Trump’s former political fixer Michael Cohen in 2019.

GOP Rep. Ralph Norman, who is running for governor in his state of South Carolina, said the text exchanges were improper and he was seeking to remove Plaskett from her role on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

“She did it to herself,” he said during Tuesday’s heated floor debate.

But Plaskett, a former U.S. attorney in New York who had been appointed to the Department of Justice during the Bush administration, defended her actions. She said she was simply interacting with a constituent — Epstein had owned two tiny islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands — one of many people texting as her phone exploded with messages during the high-profile hearing. At the time, it was not publicly known that Epstein was under investigation, she explained.

The effort failed, 214-209, with three Republicans joining the Democrats to oppose the resolution of censure and removal from the Intelligence Committee. Also failing, by a vote of 214-213, was an effort by the Democratic leadership to refer the situation to the Ethics Committee for review.

GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, who is also running for governor in South Carolina, filed her resolution against Mills midday Wednesday claiming he brings “discredit” on the House for a long list of alleged transgressions. A Florida judge has granted a protective order against Mills at the request of a former girlfriend who claimed that he threatened to release nude images of her and physically harm her future boyfriends after she broke up with him.

And starting the week was a vote, 236-186, to reprimand Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, D-Ill., after his chief of staff became the only candidate who submitted the paperwork needed to run for the congressional seat once he announced he was not seeking reelection.

A new normal of disruptions in House

There have been at least a half-dozen efforts this year to censure or other reprimand lawmakers, largely from Republicans seeking to punish Democrats — though Democrats have been retaliating with their own threats to file actions against Republicans.

Jeffries said there’s “not enough time in the legislative calendar if Republicans want to go down this road.”

And lawmakers of both parties have used the discharge petition strategy to force issues — like the Epstein files — to the fore over the objections of the GOP leadership.

Johnson has bemoaned the disruptions he has been unable to fully control and repeatedly said he wishes he could be speaker over a “normal” House. But others see this House as the new normal.

“I think it’s indicative of how the House has been for quite some time,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. “And that’s by design. Nothing gets done.”

Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., who faced his own violations with the Ethics Committee in 2020, said the punishments are the new normal.

“It’s being Weaponized. Back and forth. Back and forth,” he said.

“In previous times, you would have gotten fussed at by the speaker saying, please don’t do this.”

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Associated Press writer Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.