Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

August 6, 2012

Washington Notebook: Congress gets no recess, but plays hooky

A handful of House and Senate members will hold 'pro forma' sessions every three days that are often little more than the opening prayer, Pledge of Allegiance and a few announcements.

By Kevin Miller kmiller@mainetoday.com
Washington Bureau Chief

WASHINGTON - In a final symbolic gesture before their five-week recess, House members voted not to officially go on recess. And then pretty much everybody left town for August recess.

Democrats in the Republican-controlled House managed to pick up enough GOP members Thursday night to defeat a resolution authorizing the House to adjourn for its traditional five-week summer break. But even though the House never formally adjourned (thereby also preventing the Senate from adjourning), there probably won't be much happening in Congress over the next month.

Instead, a handful of House and Senate members will hold "pro forma" sessions every three days that are often little more than the opening prayer, Pledge of Allegiance and a few announcements. No votes are held, and the vast majority of senators and representatives do not bother showing up.

Of course, the House Democrats' parliamentary revolt against an official recess was politically motivated. Thursday's 150-265 vote -- in which every Democrat, including Maine Reps. Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud voted against recessing -- will allow them to claim between now and November that they were ready and eager to stay in Washington to work on the many unresolved issues. Republicans have employed similar tactics against Democrats in the past.

TOPPING INACTION WITH INACTION

The past few weeks were widely regarded as Congress' last, best chance to get work done before the November election on a host of critical issues. But for the most part that didn't happen.

Seemingly stuck in a perpetual state of partisan gridlock, Congress has so far failed to:

• take any substantive steps to avert the first of $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts, half of which will come from defense budgets;

• find compromise on avoiding tax increases that economists warn could push the country back toward recession;

• pass a new multi-year farm bill;

• and enact new laws to protect the nation's economy from potentially debilitating "cyber attacks."

And that is a partial list.

With control of the White House and both chambers of Congress in contention, it is unlikely Congress will tackle many major issues between Labor Day and November. And Congress is slated to meet for less than 20 days during the "lame duck" session in November and December.

An increasingly frustrated -- and vocal -- Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said it was "preposterous" to expect that Congress would be able to address the myriad of large, complex issues before year's end, especially when most committees won't meet during August recess. Snowe has cited congressional partisanship and inaction as her primary reason for retiring later this year.

"We're in a perilous period in this country," Snowe said in an interview Thursday afternoon following a failed, largely party-line vote to move forward with enhanced cybersecurity legislation. "And it is taking a tremendous toll on the average American and certainly Mainers because of the enormous uncertainty our inaction has perpetrated in the overall psyche, both from a personal standpoint and from an economic one. That is what has restrained private-sector investment and growth that would lead to better job creation."

Snowe said Congress doesn't seem to have learned from last summer, when a political stalemate over the deficit led to the downgrading of the country's credit rating.

"This Congress has been characterized as being one of the worst Congresses, the laziest Congress, the list goes on," Snowe said. "Don't you think we would want to rise to the occasion and do better right now? I just don't understand."

(Continued on page 2)

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