With the Senate out of session until Aug. 15, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s, R-Ky., plan to keep the chamber working through the entire month has instead been reduced to 2.5 weeks. But that hasn’t stopped senators from complaining about it.
Members of the so-called “coalition of the cranky” unloaded their grievances to the Washington Post’s Paul Kane over the weekend, griping that the loss of an August recess meant lost opportunities with constituents, canceled vacations, and, in the words of Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., no time “to decompress.”
It was only Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who seemed to have a foot in the real world, noting, “The average American has a lot less time off than we do, so working in August, and then having a week off, and then working — that’s not hard.”
The other senators quoted in the piece should really take the hint. Maybe having to work an extra 2.5 weeks out of a year that already gives senators 13 weeks of vacation isn’t actually the worst thing in the world?
That said, the fact that senators are in this position, with so much work left undone, is really no one’s fault but their own. There are three ways the Senate could have avoided this.
1. Work more than 2.5 days a week
The Senate is infamous for their 2.5-day work week, which involves senators flying in on Monday nights for a quick 5:30 p.m. vote, only to head out again by Thursday at 2:00 p.m. Everywhere else in the world might say, “Thank God, it’s Friday,” but in Washington, Congress says “Thank God, it’s Thursday,” while hightailing it out of town.
Maybe — and I’m just speculating here — working more than two full days a week would have allowed the Senate to accomplish the work it needed to get done before the August recess.
2. Make them talk
Democrats have been notoriously obstructive this year, particularly when it comes to confirming the president’s nominees. Both Senate Republicans and the White House have cited the hours wasted by Democrats who are forcing all post-cloture time to be run on nominees who they largely don’t even oppose. But that’s not the whole story.
The Senate’s rules allow the majority to make the minority show up on the floor and use that time. That is, if Democrats want all 30 hours, then Republicans should make them talk for all 30 hours. Otherwise, if there is no one looking to speak, the Senate can move to a vote on the nominee. Those 30 hours can easily become 10 or eight or two. However, Senate Republicans have chosen not to enforce this against the Democrats, instead letting them waste Senate floor time for free.
If Senate Republicans used just a few of the Senate’s rules against their obstructionist counterparts, they’d have a much quicker time getting the president’s agencies staffed up.
3. Keep spending bills on schedule
The thing about spending bills in the Senate is that the calendar never changes. The fiscal year always ends in September, yet Congress is surprised by it every time. Congress consistently refuses to get anything done in a way that doesn’t result in a last-minute, year-end, multi-bill spending behemoth. (In fact, Congress is so bad at this that the last time Congress passed 12 individual spending bills in the vaunted “regular order” was, wait for it, 1996.)
At conservative urging, Congress did start the spending process earlier this year, but chose to prioritize bills in such a way that the important, policy-heavy legislation — bills to fund the troops and the Department of Homeland Security, in particular — were placed dead last. (Because D.C. is a place where real life and irony are often the same, the spending bill the House and Senate both chose to pass first was the one to fund themselves.)
Moreover, none of the spending bills have even been conferenced between the chambers, much less sent to the president for his signature. We are rapidly approaching a situation where, yet again, Congress will have to pass a continuing resolution into December, conveniently punting many sticky policy problems until after the election.
The irony here is that, even if the Senate works from Aug. 15 onward, they’ll only be putting in 2.5 days a week. And, if history is anything to go on, it will be unusual for them to even stay through the remainder of the month. Last year, Sen. McConnell pledged to keep the Senate in all of August, but then announced that the Senate had completed its work after just four days.
This time around, there is more than enough work for the Senate to stay in town (and, if they’re feeling spunky, maybe even for three days a week). There are 49 judges still waiting to be confirmed, five more spending bills the Senate must pass, and, as of July 30, 151 executive branch nominations pending on the Senate calendar.
August is a hard (and hot) month to be in D.C. But it’s even harder to explain to voters why this Congress has just one accomplishment under its belt. It’s time for the Senate to get to work, and stay there.
Rachel Bovard (@rachelbovard) is policy director of the Conservative Partnership Institute.
