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Why this Republican lawmaker is still showing up to work during the shutdown

Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., listens to testimony during a House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight field hearing on violent crime in Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 29. In a recent interview on Morning Edition, Kiley discusses his decision to continue working during the government shutdown.
Nell Redmond / AP
Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., listens to testimony during a House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight field hearing on violent crime in Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 29. In a recent interview on Morning Edition, Kiley discusses his decision to continue working during the government shutdown.

Updated October 27, 2025 at 12:11 PM ET

As the government shutdown drags on, most House members have gone home at the direction of Speaker Mike Johnson. But one Republican, Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, still reports to his Capitol Hill office each morning.

“I’m looking for any and all constructive conversations toward getting us out of this mess,” Kiley told Morning Edition’s Michel Martin. “The good news is, I’ve had a number of those from folks on both sides of the aisle. The bad news is, the government is still shut down.”

Kiley, who represents California’s 3rd District, which includes Yosemite and Death Valley National Parks, has criticized Johnson’s decision to recess the House while the shutdown continues.

“It’s all the more urgent given the fact that the government is shut down and we’re starting to see people losing their food assistance benefits. We’re seeing flight delays and all of the other compounding costs to the American people,” he said.

Kiley says the pause has frozen normal work.

“We have 20 committees in the House of Representatives, countless subcommittees that were supposed to be doing things each of the last four weeks,” Kiley said.

Johnson argues keeping lawmakers home pressures the Senate to act on a seven-week funding bill. Kiley disagrees.

“Clearly, it’s not working,” he said. “Sometimes you have to work with people who have a different position in order to find common ground.”

Democrats have criticized Johnson’s handling of the standoff, accusing the speaker of using the recess to delay the swearing-in of Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election to fill the seat of her late father, Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona. Johnson has rejected that claim, saying the delay is unrelated. Kiley said he supports seating Adelita Grijalva without delay.

“She won her election. I don’t know why this is even an issue,” he said.

He added that he’s open to negotiating over the expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies — a key reason Democrats have refused to support the current funding bill.

“There’s enough interest on both sides for a deal,” Kiley said. “I don’t see why we’re not talking about that now.”

For now, he’s continuing to show up to his office each morning, an act to remind colleagues that Congress should still be working.

“We should have a functioning House of Representatives,” Kiley said.

This live interview was edited for digital by Treye Green.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Michel Martin is the weekend host of All Things Considered and host of the Consider This Saturday podcast, where she draws on her deep reporting and interviewing experience to dig in to the week's news. Outside the studio, she has also hosted "Michel Martin: Going There," an ambitious live event series in collaboration with Member Stations.

Martin came to NPR in 2006 and launched Tell Me More, a one-hour daily NPR news and talk show that aired on NPR stations nationwide from 2007-2014 and dipped into thousands of important conversations taking place in the corridors of power, but also in houses of worship, and barber shops and beauty shops, at PTA meetings, town halls, and at the kitchen table.

She has spent more than 25 years as a journalist — first in print with major newspapers and then in television. Tell Me More marked her debut as a full-time public radio show host. Martin says, "What makes public radio special is that it's got both intimacy and reach all at once. For the cost of a phone call, I can take you around the world. But I'm right there with you in your car, in your living room or kitchen or office, in your iPod. Radio itself is an incredible tool and when you combine that with the global resources of NPR plus the commitment to quality, responsibility and civility, it's an unbeatable combination."

Martin has also served as contributor and substitute host for NPR newsmagazines and talk shows, including Talk of the Nation and News & Notes.

Martin joined NPR from ABC News, where she worked since 1992. She served as correspondent for Nightline from 1996 to 2006, reporting on such subjects as the congressional budget battles, the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, racial profiling and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At ABC, she also contributed to numerous programs and specials, including the network's award-winning coverage of Sept. 11, a documentary on the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas controversy, a critically acclaimed AIDS special and reports for the ongoing series "America in Black and White." Martin reported for the ABC newsmagazine Day One, winning an Emmy for her coverage of the international campaign to ban the use of landmines, and was a regular panelist on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. She also hosted the 13-episode series Life 360, an innovative program partnership between Oregon Public Broadcasting and Nightline incorporating documentary film, performance and personal narrative; it aired on public television stations across the country.

Before joining ABC, Martin covered state and local politics for the Washington Post and national politics and policy at the Wall Street Journal, where she was White House correspondent. She has also been a regular panelist on the PBS series Washington Week and a contributor to NOW with Bill Moyers.

Martin has been honored by numerous organizations, including the Candace Award for Communications from The National Coalition of 100 Black Women, the Joan Barone Award for Excellence in Washington-based National Affairs/Public Policy Broadcasting from the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association and a 2002 Silver Gavel Award, given by the American Bar Association. Along with her Emmy award, she received three additional Emmy nominations, including one with WNYC's Robert Krulwich, at the time an ABC contributor as well, for an ABC News program examining children's racial attitudes. In 2019, Martin was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for outstanding achievement in journalism. She is the 2021 recipient of PMJA's 2021 Leo C. Lee Award.

A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Martin graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College at Harvard University in 1980 and earned a Master of Arts from the Wesley Theological Seminary in 2016.

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