Congress Adjourned for Summer Recess Yesterday

While most people think that the Senate pulled out of town on Thursday and the House on Friday, the last day of work for the two bodies was Tuesday and Monday respectively. The House adopted H. Con. Res. 112 on Monday ‘without objection’. The Senate took up the resolution yesterday and passed it by a voice vote. There is no official tally of how many members were present in either body, but I doubt it was more than three, the designated presiding officer and a standard bearer from each party. The formalities took just minutes to complete.

Both bodies will reconvene on September 8^th.

Summer Recess

Well, technically the Congress is not taking their standard summer recess this year; neither are they actually remaining in session. Instead of passing the standard concurrent resolution outlining their recess the House will be holding pro-forma sessions every three business days under provisions of H Res 375 (the resolution for the rule for the consideration of S 627). Normal operations in the House will resume on September 7^th; the Senate will resume normal operations on the 6^th.

Most hearings scheduled for today, including the LightSquared hearing that I reported on earlier, have been postponed. We will start to see the scheduling of field hearings outside of Washington. For example the Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Management of the House Homeland Security Committee will look at “Securing the Port of Houston from a Terrorist Attack” on August 24^th.

Summer Recess

When the House finishes their business today they will begin their summer recess (unless they are forced to have a Saturday session to finish their business). The Senate passed House Concurrent Resolution 308 (H.Con.Res. 308) yesterday setting the dates for Adjournment for the House. The House will return on September 14th for a daily session starting at 2:00 p.m. EDT. The Senate adjournment resolution (H.Con.Res 307) was passed in the House yesterday but has not yet been acted upon by the Senate. It is expected to pass by Unanimous Consent (as did H.Con.Res. 308). The Senate will start their recess on August 6th (next Friday) and return on September 13th with a morning session starting at 12:00 pm EDT. The House recess is starting a week earlier than originally planned. Pundits have blamed this on the necessity of getting back to the home districts to save their political campaigns. It certainly means that action won’t be started actually passing the Homeland Security Appropriations bill (which has not yet been marked up by the full House Appropriations Committee) until sometime in September. It will be unlikely for the final bill to get to the President before October 1st.