Part II – The Procedural Coup

The Call Is Coming From Inside the House

Here, I’ve detailed the concrete changes — recesses, blocked votes, sidelined members, and the hollowing-out of oversight — that have set this period apart from any governmental crisis we’ve ever experienced before.

At first glance, procedure is benign and banal. But under Speaker Johnson, it has been manipulated to silence an entire branch of Congress.

He’s using rules as weapons — repurposed not for governance, but for keeping power out of reach.

It takes a kind of genius to pull off this combination of unprecedented moves: levers pulled, doors locked, safeguards removed in just the right way to usher in legislative devastation.

Each move matters. Together, we see how easily accountability can be disappeared behind the façade of the normal.

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This is the post that you don’t want to read. And you don’t have to. But in a very short period of time, these things will find you anyway.

First, I’ve pointed out three areas of the most current American cognitive dissonance. I guarantee you are struggling to navigate AT LEAST one of them.

Second, I’ve listed nine reasons why the House of Representatives specifically is no more. I saved the most devastating reasons for the final few. Read them, if you dare.

And it all has to do with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson…

But first…the cognitive dissonance of the Right:

Observing Trump bend, circumvent, or break the law to benefit his friends yet pervert the law to terrorize his enemies is somehow ‘good for America’ and will only help Republicans while only targeting Democrats.

Bolton and Comey are both Republicans. No one is safe from the whims of the Great Leader.

And…the cognitive dissonance of the Left:

You can’t believe the 2024 Presidential election was manipulated and not ring every alarm to ensure it can’t happen again.

If everything is left exactly the way things were left in November, the Democrats will mysteriously never win a majority again.

Finally…the cognitive dissonance of America:

No Speaker of the House who seriously wants to end this government shutdown would disband Congress with no firm date to return. Period.

It is simply impossible to navigate negotiations of any kind and also not be at work. In fact, not only do the actions of the Speaker more closely align with those of a person not planning to reopen the federal government anytime soon, his actions suggest he isn’t planning to reopen it at all. not planning to reopen the federal government anytime soon, his actions suggest he isn’t planning to reopen it at all.

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1 Never before has a Speaker kept the House in an extended recess during an active government shutdown.

The House is the one body that must act to end a shutdown — it alone can introduce and pass the funding bills required to reopen the government.

And yet, for weeks, the chamber has remained in suspended animation, its members sent home on “district work periods” while the country waits.

The brief pro-forma sessions that do occur are not governance; they are choreography.

They exist to check a constitutional box, not to conduct the people’s business.

The Speaker has kept the institution that holds the power to reopen the government from even trying to use it.

The result is a House that still bears its name but not its purpose.

2 Never before has a Speaker used congressional recesses as leverage to halt all legislative business during a national funding crisis.

Johnson’s open-ended congressional recess is being used as a shield from responsibility rather than as negotiation pressure.

That’s entirely new.

3 No Speaker in American history — Democrat or Republican — has refused to seat a duly elected and certified member because of a shutdown, recess, or fill-in-the-blank.

Even during the Civil War, both World Wars, and the COVID-19 pandemic, members were sworn in and seated promptly.

Johnson’s delay in swearing in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva until “the government reopens” is therefore without modern or historical precedent.

4 No Speaker has ever blocked continuing resolutions (CRs) altogether.

For those doubting or claiming otherwise: Congress has not made or passed a new CR during this shutdown.

The last continuing resolution was written and passed on September 19, 2025.

The shutdown began on October 1. Since then, the Senate has debated and rejected that same September CR more than a dozen times.

Anyone who says otherwise is simply incorrect.

Johnson refuses to bring any new CRs or short-term funding bills forward at all unless Democrats accept his policy terms — effectively freezing the process and weaponizing the shutdown itself.

5 In 114 years of congressional history, no Speaker has neutralized the power of the discharge petition through calendar manipulation.

By extending recess sessions to prevent members from gathering signatures or filing new discharge petitions, Johnson is effectively freezing an essential minority power.

It was invented specifically to prevent a Speaker from doing what Johnson is now doing — controlling the floor so tightly that a bipartisan majority can’t act.

The petition process depends on the basics of a functioning House:

it has to meet every few days, and the Clerk has to be present with the desk open for signatures.

A House in recess has neither, functionally suspending majority rule.

Now, even if a majority of the House wanted to act on government funding or transparency, it literally cannot because the Speaker’s recess schedule makes democracy procedurally impossible.

6 No Speaker has ever paused virtually all committee activity, including investigations unrelated to appropriations — because that dismantles one of the foundational doctrines America was founded on: checks and balances.

Oversight is Congress’s core check on executive power.

Under Article I, Congress has both appropriations (the power of the purse) and oversight (the power of inquiry).

When oversight is frozen, the executive branch effectively operates without scrutiny and without fear of subpoenas, negative testimony, or being compelled to produce documentation.

This reduces government accountability.

Agencies like ICE can act without fear of being questioned by committees such as Oversight, Judiciary, or Homeland Security.

Inspectors general, whistleblowers, and watchdogs lose their main allies in Congress.

While the freeze continues, the Executive Branch (the President) becomes functionally unchecked — a condition the Founders explicitly tried to prevent.

7 The Pro-Forma Sessions Are the Procedural Coup

No Speaker in American history has used pro-forma sessions in this way — technically holding them but stripping them of all legislative function — because doing so effectively causes the House of Representatives itself to stop existing as a functioning body for that period.

In modern history, the House and Senate always hold pro-forma sessions during recesses and shutdowns.

They often appear silly, sometimes with just a single member present, but in doing so they guarantee that Congress is never fully adjourned, even during a recess.

Speaker Johnson’s control of these sessions:

• means that the House is not legislating at all. While technically in session, it performs no legislative business — no motions, no bills, no votes.

• fulfills the Constitution’s letter while violating its purpose. Article I, Section 5 is satisfied on paper, but the intent behind it — the guarantee that Congress can govern — is subverted. It’s not unconstitutional; it’s anti-constitutional.

• disables mechanisms like the filing and signing of discharge petitions, the introduction or referral of bills, and prevents an immediate congressional response to national crises or budget deadlines.

• neutralizes formally convening oversight committees, giving the President and the Speaker unchecked space to act without immediate congressional review.

• places the entire House in suspended animation: legally present, procedurally frozen in amber, and unavailable to act … until the Speaker allows it.

• concentrates total control of the chamber’s calendar — and its very existence — in the Speaker’s hands.

• And here’s the concrete danger: if a subpoena lands while the House is “technically” in session but not legislating, its legal authority may be challenged or ignored — destroying records or evidence with zero consequence. There’s no one truly standing behind the demand.

(Part II of IV in “The Call Is Coming From Inside the House.” Next: Part III – The House That Isn’t There by Tonoccus McClain)

The Call Is Coming From Inside the House — a four-part series by Tonoccus McClain

I (Substack | Facebook) • II (Substack | Facebook) • III (Substack | Facebook) • IV (Substack | Facebook)