Republicans and Democrats said Tuesday they will cancel next week’s scheduled congressional recess due to the ongoing battle to fund the government and that they will stay in session.
Wary of leaving town while a partial shutdown drags into a fifth week, House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the chamber will be in session at least a few days next week.
“If the government is not open, we will not have a recess,” Hoyer told reporters. “That does not mean we will be here every day, but it does mean that we would be here and that members will be on 24 hour notice that they may be recalled at any point in time we effect the opening of government.”
Hoyer aides said the schedule will keep lawmakers in the Capitol until this Thursday. The House will gavel back in on Tuesday and hold votes on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., plans to cancel the recess unless the impasse that has shuttered the government ends by then. Both chambers had planned to gavel out at the end of this week and not return until the week of Jan. 28.
By next Monday, which is a federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., the shutdown will have lasted more than 30 days with an increasingly damaging impact on services and on the 800,000 federal workers now living without paychecks.
Polls show most surveyed about the shutdown blame President Trump, but a significant number also blame Congress and in particular Democrats, who have refused to budge on their refusal to provide wall money.
“They haven’t moved an inch,” Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Tuesday.
Thune, who helps determine the Senate floor schedule, said he is not certain how the chamber will stay busy next week now that the recess is off. Democrats have pledged to block any GOP-introduced legislation unless it is a spending bill to re-open the government that they support.
“I hope we can be doing other business as well, which is at this point being prevented by Senate Democrats,” Thune said. “It’s going to be up to them to see what we are actually working on next week. Hopefully it will be a solution to this government shutdown.”
Thune suggested the Senate could possibly vote next week on the nomination of Trump’s attorney general pick, William Barr, who is expected to win the approval of the Judiciary Committee this week.
Democrats have no power to block Barr because, unlike regular legislation which requires a 60-vote threshold for passage, executive branch nominees advance and are confirmed with a simple majority. As a result, Barr can win Senate confirmation as long as Republicans stick together and support him.
“My guess is that could be business we could be taking up perhaps as early as next week,” Thune said of the Barr nomination. He said Barr would be confirmed “fairly soon.”
