Congress hits record shutdowns, departures

Congress is struggling with the most basic parts of its job — fund the government, oversee a war, keep committees staffed. The weird part is that none of those failures is happening in isolation. They’re stacking on top of each other. By the end of April, lawmakers had finally ended a record 76-day partial shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security. But on the same day, the Senate still could not push through a war-powers vote on Iran, and the broader institution kept thinning out as more members announced they were leaving. (washingtonpost.com) ### What actually broke here? Start with the shutdown. Homeland Security went partially unfunded for 76 days before President Donald Trump signed a bill on April 30 to reopen much of the department. That made it the longest agency shutdown on record — not a full federal shutdown, but still a major failure for a department that handles border enforcement, TSA, FEMA, and disaster response. (washingtonpost.com) ### Why does the Iran vote matter so much? Because Congress has one clear constitutional job in war — decide whether the U.S. stays in a fight. Under the War Powers Resolution, the president is supposed to stop hostilities after 60 days unless Congress authorizes them. That deadline hit on May 1 for the Iran conflict that began on February 28. Instead of authorizing it or ending it, Congress mostly punted. (politico.com) ### What happened in the Senate? On April 30, senators voted on whether to discharge Sen. Adam Schiff’s Iran war-powers resolution from committee. It failed, 47-50. That was already the sixth failed Democratic-led attempt to force the issue. The notable crack was Susan Collins — she joined Rand Paul and most Democrats in (politico.com)a majority to move the measure forward. (cbsnews.com) ### Didn’t Trump say the war was over? Basically, yes. On May 1, Trump sent Congress a letter saying hostilities with Iran had “terminated,” pointing to a ceasefire that began on April 7. The administration’s argument is that the 60-day clock stopped because active fighting stopped. The catch is that this sidesteps the bigger question Cong(cbsnews.com)xecutive branch defines the conflict away. (politico.com) ### Where do departures fit in? They make everything slower and thinner. As of April 28, NPR’s tracker counted 70 current lawmakers planning to leave their seats after the 2026 cycle — 14 senators and 56 House members. That is one in eight members of Congress. And that count does not even include all the deaths and resignations that have already hit the 119th Congress since January 2025. (wbur.org) ### Why does turnover hurt more right now? Because Congress is already running on tiny margins and overloaded committees. The House has also dealt with vacancies during this Congress, which makes scheduling, whipping votes, and moving must-pass bills harder. When a chamber is this closely divided, losing even a few membe(wbur.org)mbers less willing to take hard votes. (ballotpedia.org) ### Is this just partisan drama? Not really. It’s institutional drift. Shutdowns used to be treated as big, costly failures. War-powers votes used to be rare because presidents often sought broader buy-in before conflicts got this far. Now Congress is normalizing not deciding — on funding, on war, on succession planning inside the building itself. (washingtonpost.com) ### Bottom line? The story is not just that Congress fought over Homeland Security, or ducked another Iran vote, or saw a wave of exits. It’s that all three are happening at once. That is what makes the place feel brittle right now — the institution is losing people, losing time, and increasingly losing the habit of making decisions. (washingtonpost.com)