Congressional Emergency Exit

In December 2025, four Republican members of the House of Representatives openly defied their speaker and signed a discharge petition to force a vote on extending the Affordable Care Act enhanced premium subsidies that expired at the end of the year.

On Capitol Hill, the discharge petition is having a moment. Long viewed as a niche parliamentary tool, it has suddenly become a viable option to keep legislation alive in the narrowly divided House. In 2025 alone, 13 discharge petitions were filed, with another expected early in the new year.

To understand its influence today, it helps to look back at the origins of the discharge petition.

Where We’ve Been

The discharge petition emerged from power struggles in the early 20th century between then-Republican House Speaker Joseph Cannon and a group of “progressive” members of his party. At the time, speakers also chaired the House Rules Committee, which decides what bills move to the floor for a vote. Like speakers before him, Cannon used his chairmanship to block legislation he didn’t like regardless of its level of political support.

On St. Patrick’s Day in 1910, Congressman George Norris, a Nebraska Republican, introduced legislation to expand the number of committee members and remove the speaker as chair. Norris argued that his legislation was privileged— meaning it had priority over all other bills and the speaker could not prevent the House from voting on it. Cannon, though, had final say: he allowed House members to debate the validity of the privilege claim but ultimately ruled against giving the bill that status. Norris and his supporters appealed to the House and overruled the speaker in a vote of 182-163. The bill itself passed 191-156.

In his revolt against Cannon, Norris unknowingly created the beginnings of the discharge petition that gave rank-and-file members a way to force bills out of committee and to the House floor without leadership approval.

The number of signatures required for discharge changed repeatedly over the years—beginning with 218, decreasing to 150 and then 145 (one-third of the full House), then returning to 218 in 1935, where it has stayed.

Initially, the discharge petition operated in the shadows. House members could sign on, but those signatures remained secret until the petition reached 218 names. Lawmakers could claim publicly to support legislation while privately refusing to sign the discharge petition, avoiding any political price for their inaction. Similarly, signatories were shielded from leadership retribution unless the petition succeeded, at which point all supporters were revealed together.

However, in 1993, then-Republican Congressman James Inhofe of Oklahoma grew frustrated with colleagues who voiced support for transparency measures but wouldn’t back them with action. When his Discharge Petition Disclosure Bill was buried in the Rules Committee, Inhofe filed a discharge petition and threatened to publicly release the names of all members who refused to sign it. True to his word, The Wall Street Journal published the list. Inhofe’s petition reached 218 signatures, and his resolution passed in a 384-40 vote. Since then, all discharge petition signatures have been made public immediately (now via the House clerk website), altering its strategic calculus.

House leadership can now watch discharge petitions in real time and apply maximum pressure to prevent them from reaching the number of signatures needed to advance bills to a floor vote. Members who sign late in the process could face consequences from leadership, as early signers can claim they were posturing and never expected success. The transparency also enables filing of discharge petitions purely to take public stands on issues, even with no real chance of success.

Where We Are

According to the Brookings Institution, since the 218-signature threshold was reaffirmed in 1935, only about 4% of the 676 petitions filed have garnered enough names to send the legislation to the House floor. Just seven bills have become law through this process over 90 years.

However, several discharge petitions have succeeded in the 118th Congress and the current 119th Congress. In May 2024, Congressman Greg Stuebe (R-Fla.) successfully led a petition to force a vote on a disaster relief tax bill. That legislation passed the House by a vote of 382-7, the Senate by voice vote, and was signed into law by President Joe Biden.

In November 2025, Congressman Jared Golden (D-Maine) forced a vote on legislation to restore collective bargaining rights for most federal employees by overturning the Trump administration March 2025 executive order “Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs.” The House quickly passed the legislation 231-195, marking the first time Congress had enough votes to repeal one of Trump’s orders. The bill was directed to the Senate in December.

The 2025 discharge petition most relevant to the insurance industry came in December, regarding the enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits that expired on Dec. 31. Attempts to extend the subsidies for three years via the typical legislative process had repeatedly stalled, leaving millions of Americans facing reduction or elimination of their tax credit even as premiums continue to rise.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) filed a discharge petition on a bill that would establish a clean three-year extension. The Dec. 17 discharge vote had the support of all 214 House Democrats and four breakaway House Republicans: Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.), and Ryan Mackenzie (R-Pa.).

Under House rules, seven legislative days must pass before a successfully discharged bill can come to the floor. Due to the Christmas holiday, the ACA subsidy extension vote won’t occur until early January 2026 at the earliest. Even if the legislation passes the House, it faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where a vast majority of Republicans have all expressed skepticism about extending what they call “COVID-era” subsidies without broader healthcare reform.

The low success rate of discharge petitions is a product of the House’s power structure. A successful discharge petition represents a direct rebuke to leadership, forcing it to allow a vote on legislation it opposes. For majority party members, signing a petition means openly defying their own leaders. Minority party members, meanwhile, are often happy to sign discharge petitions because it embarrasses the majority leadership. But minority support alone is never enough—discharge petitions require defectors from the majority party, members willing to break ranks despite the potential consequences.