House Ditching Capitol Hill Early Without Touching AI, Debt Or Mass Surveillance

The House decided to leave Washington, D.C., early for the October recess Wednesday and not return until after the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer announced the last scheduled votes would take place Wednesday afternoon and canceled all votes expected on Thursday. House leadership canceled session for the last two weeks of September to campaign in the midterm elections, although the national debt, mass surveillance and artificial intelligence (AI) remain unresolved.

Over 100 Democrats urged Johnson to stay in session through September and October to rein in AI risks. Tech leaders warned that AI development must slow down or it could kill all humanity within the next decade.

President Donald Trump called these warnings a “sick conspiracy” and argued no guardrails were needed. Many Republicans, including Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, appeared open to placing some guardrails on AI while not stifling innovation.

Other Republicans agreed with Trump that China’s AI development remained a threat to the U.S., while others believed AI needed more regulations.

Speaker Mike Johnson said that the House passed 600 pieces of legislation that are sitting in the Senate, including the Safeguard America Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act.

“I’ll point out that there’s almost 600 pieces of that landmark legislation that are still sitting over in the other chamber in the Senate. So, we need to get more and more of that done through both chambers so we can get them to the President’s desk. This Congress has done phenomenal work and the members are wrestling a lot of different priorities right now,” Johnson said. “Of course we’re in the middle of a critical midterm election,” the speaker continued. “Many of them want and need to be in their districts working with their constituents and running their campaigns and so we’re trying to balance all those interests and needs right now.”

The national debt surpassed $40 trillion and no member of Congress has yet to introduce a bill to fully ban Flock Safety cameras and other automated surveillance technologies.