Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., makes a statement to reporters without taking questions following a vote in the Senate to move forward with a stopgap funding bill to reopen the government through Jan. 30, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) — After refusing to convene the U.S. House during the government shutdown, Speaker Mike Johnson is recalling lawmakers back into session — and facing an avalanche of pent-up legislative demands from those who have largely been sidelined from governing.

Hundreds of representatives were preparing to return today to Washington after a nearly eight-week absence, carrying a torrent of ideas, proposals and frustrations over work that has stalled when the Republican speaker shuttered the House doors nearly two months ago.

First will be a vote to reopen the government. But that’s just the start. With efforts to release the Jeffrey Epstein files and the swearing in of Arizona’s Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, the unfinished business will pose a fresh test to Johnson’s grip on power and put a renewed focus on his leadership.

“It’s extraordinary,” said Matthew Green, a professor at the politics department at The Catholic University of America.

“What Speaker Johnson and Republicans are doing, you have to go back decades to find an example where the House — either chamber — decided not to meet.”

When the House gavels back into session, it will close this remarkable chapter of Johnson’s tenure when he showed himself to be a leader who is quietly, but brazenly, willing to upend institutional norms in pursuit of his broader strategy, even at the risk of diminishing the House itself.

Rather than use the immense powers of the speaker’s office to forcefully steer the debate in Congress, as a coequal branch of the government on par with the executive and the courts, Johnson simply closed up shop — allowing the House to become unusually deferential, particularly to President Donald Trump.