On June 29, 2026, the Special Committee on Political Reform of the House of Representatives began deliberating a bill to reduce the number of seats. Five opposition parties, among them the Chūdō Kaikaku Rengō and the Democratic Party for the People, stayed away.
Murai Hideki, the chief whip of the Liberal Democratic Party on the House Steering Committee, criticized the boycott: Kokumin kara shokumu hōki to omowarete mo shikata nai. “They cannot complain if the public sees it as abandoning their duties.” Kyodo News called this one of the stock phrases the ruling side uses when the opposition refuses to deliberate.