Discharge Petitions Are Surging. Republican Defectors Say It’s Not Mike Johnson’s Fault.

Republican House members have attempted five times under Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership to bypass one of his biggest powers: choosing which bills should go for a vote.

Still, many of the Republicans who supported discharge petitions that force a vote say they’re not a rebuke of Johnson’s leadership.

“The speaker has done a pretty strong job,” Rep. Chip Roy told NOTUS, adding that discharge petitions “just shape the direction and drive a statement that there is a clear majority. The majority party can still grab the bill and do something with it.”

The typically unsuccessful political maneuver requires the support of 218 lawmakers, which typically means Republicans teaming up with Democrats to force votes on bills that leadership has declined to bring to the floor. Most recently, a measure introduced by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna demanding that the Justice Department release files on convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein passed the House 427-1.

Massie said that the increasing level of successful discharge petitions was more about the House’s razor-thin margins than Johnson’s leadership. There are 219 Republicans and 213 Democrats in the House as of December, meaning Democrats need to win over only a small number of Republicans.

“It’s going to be more likely to succeed with a narrow margin,” Massie said. “You can’t read too much into it.”

Massie added that leadership does bear some responsibility for the uptick. A frequent defector from the Republican conference, Massie said there used to be more options for lawmakers like him to express their individual opinions under former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

“Through amendments, you could show what the will of the House was on your particular issue,” Massie said. “Under Speaker Johnson, he’s really restricted how many votes we have on things.”

Johnson’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the discharge petitions.

Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna introduced a discharge petition earlier this year to allow for new-parent lawmakers to cast their votes by proxy. Though the measure never received a floor vote, nine Republicans joined with Democrats on the measure.

Luna is now moving forward with another discharge petition to force a vote on a congressional stock trading ban. Luna told NOTUS that the discharge petition is a “great tool,” but said her use of it is not a rebuke of Republican leadership.

“It doesn’t show anything about leadership, because discharge depends on the ability of members to whip the vote,” Luna said. “We’re basically just getting back to how things are supposed to go, where everyone is equal.”

The bill banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks was initially introduced by Roy, a Republican, and Democratic Rep. Seth Magaziner and gathered more than 100 co-sponsors as of late November.

Though Johnson has voiced some support for the ban, he also expressed “sympathy” for the idea that it could lead to “less qualified” members of Congress.

Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan, who crossed the aisle to support a discharge petition forcing a House vote on restoring collective bargaining rights for federal employees in November, told NOTUS he used the procedure to advance his own district’s priorities.

Though Breshahan said the discharge petition’s popularity in 2025 is ultimately due to the House’s thin margins, he still found the maneuver a useful way to support legislation that was not backed by the majority party.

“It’s been a part of the institution, and I think there’s an appropriate way that they could be utilized,” Bresnahan said. “At the end of the day, Republicans have their own agendas, and we think independently, and we want to represent our districts.”