The House managed to find a way to dispense with the enormous number of amendments to the defense authorization bill, mostly, it seems, by not offering them. That gave them time to pass the Senate's USA PATRIOT Act renewal, sent over earlier in the day, before adjourning for a long weekend. By which I mean until next Wednesday!
In addition to the PATRIOT Act renewal, the Senate took care of some housekeeping by unanimous consent, covering everything from passage of the House's intelligence authorization bill, to some commemorative resolutions, to a huge raft of military appointments and promotions.
Looking ahead to today:
Nothing doing today. But the Senate will be in pro forma session. Republicans, fearing recess appointments?particularly that of Elizabeth Warren to head the CFPB?insisted that they would object to any unanimous consent request on adjournment, and thereby touch off an annoying and possibly troublesome voting situation. The motion to adjourn is not debatable (and therefore can't be filibustered), but the thinking is that it would be politically sensitive (and certainly an annoying waste of time) to have to vote to adjourn when there's still no budget in place, and no prospect of ever putting one in place.
In addition, some House Republicans apparently threatened to block adjournment by attempting to defeat any adjournment resolution. Constitutionally, neither house can adjourn for more than three days without the consent of the other. And three days is generally considered to be the minimum length of recess necessary to attempt a recess appointment, though technically there's no constitutional minimum prescribed.
Either way, it was just easier to agree quickly to a deal for pro forma sessions instead, especially since there's been no indication from the White House that there was any interest in exercising that power at this time.
So that's that, at least for the next couple of days! Enjoy the holiday weekend. And if you're annoyed by the fact that your Members of Congress have so often been in recess lately, I suppose this is your chance to let them know, since even when they're "off" they're "on." You'll likely be able to find your Senators and Representative nearby over the short break, attending all the local events that eat up an elected official's "time off" around a holiday like Memorial Day.
Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/MiVTXIc_gi8/-Today-in-Congress
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