House Democrat Declares, ‘Mike Johnson Has Effectively Dissolved the United States House of Representatives’
Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) said Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has “effectively dissolved” the House.
The House remains out of session amid the ongoing shutdown that began on Oct. 1. Ahead of the shutdown, the House passed a continuing resolution to fund the government beyond that date, but the legislation stalled in the Senate, where it failed to notch the necessary 60-vote procedural threshold. Seven votes are needed from Democrats, who are demanding an extension of healthcare premium subsidies for Obamacare recipients. So far, congressional Republicans have not budged.
Johnson said on Thursday that bringing the House back into session until an agreement is reached would “be a waste of our time.”
On Friday, Smith appeared on MSNBC, where Jason Johnson asked about the Trump administration’s ongoing bombing of Venezuelan boats in international waters. Trump officials allege the boats were carrying drugs. The administration has provided no evidence to justify the bombings, which are legally suspect, according to experts.
“Once you start just randomly killing people from other countries and coming up with a crime to throw on them later, doesn’t that destabilize our relationships with the rest of South America? Doesn’t it make business more difficult?” the host asked. “What are some of the ripple effects of this current insane foreign policy by the administration?”
Smith used the question to pivot to House oversight, which is currently nonexistent, thanks to the speaker keeping the chamber out of session.
“It does all of those things, and it tells everyone in the world that this is perfectly ok,” Smith said. “You decide you want to kill somebody, go ahead and do it. And you don’t have to justify it either. It makes us more vulnerable.”
The lawmaker then accused the speaker of dissolving the House:
We are losing our constitutional republic. And meanwhile, the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson has effectively dissolved the United States House of Representatives. I spoke with several Republicans, including Chairman Mike Rogers today to talk about, “Ok, we need to have hearings on this. You know, the House Armed Services needs to exercise oversight.”
And there are many Republicans, including Mike Rogers, who agree with that. But we’re not in session. So we can’t do it. So we’re gonna do it. So, the president just gets to do what he wants.
I mean, look. The whole Nazi Germany analogies are always troubling, but, you know, that was one of the steps is the parliament or the Reichstag or whatever it was, was sort of pushed out of existence and didn’t have any oversight.
Watch above via MSNBC.
