House members are increasingly bypassing Speaker Mike Johnson by using discharge petitions to force votes on legislation he refuses to bring to the floor, marking a dramatic shift in how Congress operates and a sign of deepening frustration with his leadership.
A discharge petition introduced by Rep. Donald Norcross (D-N.J.) hit the 218 signatures needed to force a House vote on Wednesday, cementing what has become a historic pattern. The petition to speed up unionization negotiations was signed by 211 Democrats and seven Republicans, including Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska, Riley Moore of West Virginia, and Nick LaLota of New York.
The speed was striking. Norcross introduced the petition on April 20. Exactly one month later, the final three Republican signatures arrived.
Johnson himself once signaled concern about the tactic. Last year he briefly proposed rule changes to make discharge petitions harder to execute, calling them "too common." Majority Leader Steve Scalise backed the effort, saying he wanted to see "a higher threshold for a lot of these motions." Those changes never materialized.
The numbers tell the real story. This is the eighth discharge petition to hit 218 signatures in the 119th Congress. Two others crossed the threshold in 2024, giving Johnson's tenure the highest rate of successful discharge petitions in modern congressional history. According to data compiled by Axios, more than 20% of all successful discharge petitions since 1935 have occurred in just the last two years.
Republican leaders have traditionally discouraged their members from signing Democratic petitions, but that persuasion is increasingly ineffective. Several GOP members are now willing to defy leadership to move bills Johnson has blocked.
The outcomes have been mixed. Two discharge petitions from 2024 became law: one expanding Social Security benefits to retirees receiving certain government pensions, and another providing tax breaks to disaster victims. Only one of eight petitions that reached 218 signatures this year, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, has been signed into law. Others passed the House but stalled in the Senate.
Johnson even managed to block one discharge petition from Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida, who sought to allow limited proxy voting for House members with newborn children.
Author James Rodriguez: "Johnson's inability to control his own conference on procedural votes is a leadership crisis that rivals anything Congress has seen in decades."
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