Speaker Johnson sends House of Representatives home until Monday

The House of Representatives is taking an unscheduled long weekend

They called it quits on official business Tuesday afternoon, and they're not scheduled to return until Monday

House Speaker Mike Johnson canceled votes for the week after suffering a defeat delivered by members of his own party

Johnson will now wait for the arrival of two new Republican representatives from Florida

before restarting the House's legislative schedule. On Tuesday, nine Republicans joined every Democrat to vote against a special rule that would have

simultaneously defeated a measure to allow new parents in Congress to vote remotely and move forward

bills that are critical to President Trump's agenda. Let me just make this clear

That rule being brought down means that we can't have any further action on the floor this week

That means we will not be voting on the SAVE Act for election integrity. We will not be voting on the rogue judges who are attacking President Trump's agenda

We will not be taking down these terrible Biden policies with the CRA votes

All that was just wiped off the table. It's very unfortunate. The House balance of power is 218 Republicans to 213 Democrats That means Republicans can only lose two of their own when trying to pass legislation on a party line vote To prevent an even narrower margin Congresswoman Elise Stefaniq had to withdraw her nomination to be the United Nations ambassador So now they wait for the arrival of two new Republican representatives who won special elections Tuesday night

That will give them more wiggle room, but not much. Democrats are criticizing Republicans for not only ending the work week on a Tuesday

but also squashing a resolution to help new parents care for their infants

which the sponsors described as pro-family. Republicans are anti-family. So they lose an effort to try to silence expectant mothers and members of Congress who have just given birth

They lose that rule, and then they scramble out of town. I mean, what does that say

This is a party that continues to claim they have a mandate. You don't have a mandate

to do a thing. Johnson says he'll still bring forward the election and judicial reform bills

and the sponsors of the proxy voting bills say they want to have a vote on that too

But it will all have to wait until next week after everyone's gone home to cool off

I'm Ray Bogan for Straight Arrow News. For more reporting, download the SAN app