Congressional Long Weekend

Congress has now adjourned for the long 4th of July weekend. Where most working folks have a three day weekend, Congress is out-of-town today and won’t be back until either July 12th (Senate) or 13th (House). To be fair, it won’t be all kicking-back and watching fireworks; 1/3 of the Senate and everyone that isn’t retiring in the House will be working hard on their election campaign. There will be lots of meetings and barbeques to attend before they get back to work. When our representatives come back to Washington they will have just about two weeks to get anything done before they depart for their month long summer recess. Just to review, we are waiting for a Senate mark-up hearing on a CFATS re-authorization bill (either HR 2868 or S 2996 or a bill yet to be introduced ‘any day now’ by Sen. Lautenberg) and a number of committee reports in both the House and Senate on bills where markups have been completed in the last 9 months or so. We are also waiting on the introduction of the first of any of the twelve budget bills (DHS will probably be the first). Once that summer recess is over Congress will be increasingly (if that is even possible) deadlocked by electioneering. As September runs into October and on to the first Tuesday in November it will become even more difficult for Congress to get anything of substance completed. There will be lots of talk as our representatives try to convince voters back home that they deserve to be sent back to the halls of government along the Potomac.