WASHINGTON – You can still smell the jet fumes of the planes that ferried members of Congress away from Washington for their five full weeks of congressional recess Friday — but not everybody wanted to go.
Some members of Congress are still hoping that leadership may call them back before September, when they will face a looming deadline to agree on a deal to fund the government before the fiscal year ends on September 30.
Republican Rep. Scott Rigell of Virginia spent the final few weeks before Congress went into recess calling for the House of Representatives to stick around and finish the appropriations process.
“By any objective measure, we have failed to perform our most basic legislative duties” and fund the government, Rigell told The Daily Caller.
The government is currently funded by a continuing resolution that expires on September 30. Between now and then, Congress must agree on another continuing resolution – no easy feat given the current divisions between the two parties – or pass appropriations bills, an even less likely outcome. And there is little time to do either: the House is in session for a mere nine days between now and the end of the fiscal year.
“Tradition has it’s place,” Rigell said of the traditional August recess. “But this idea that, well it’s tradition that we break for five weeks, well look, we’re not in normal times. … When you’ve got a fiscal morass, and you’re just in a real fix, to shut down and turn off the lights and lock the door? I can’t even begin to process it.”
Rep. Rob Wittman, another Virginia Republican, joined Rigell last week in voting against the rule that allowed Congress to recess for the month of August, something that is rarely done.
“We need to be here,” he told TheDC. “There’s so many things that need to be done. I’m concerned that with all the things stacked up with the September 30 deadline.”
Both said their colleagues were supportive of their idea to keep Congress open during summer break and that their idea had not made them pariahs.
“There is truly widespread agreement that breaking for five weeks is not the right thing to do,” Rigell said, noting that he had only spoken to Republicans about it.
“What I’m hearing is, ‘Well, Scott, you’re saying the right thing.’ Whether that translates into them taking the same step, I don’t know,” he added.
Even Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sounded on board with the idea in a press conference Friday shortly before members headed out of town.
“How do we explain to the American people that we’re going into an August recess and … we still have no jobs bill, we have no budget bill, and we have the threat of shutting down government and not raising the debt ceiling without repealing the Affordable Care Act?” she asked.
“I wish that we could stay,” Pelosi said. “Our members are prepared to stay and work.”
Of course, this schedule has been on the books since the beginning of the session this year, and members have planned vacations, trips overseas and various events in their home districts.
“I would like to hammer out what we can and get it done,” said freshman Republican Rep. Trey Radel of Florida, who noted that he had not been in office long enough to have a strong opinion on the subject when asked for his reaction to the idea of staying. But he did point out that he had “already set up business roundtables, town halls to go stay in touch with my friends, families, and neighbors, constituents at home.”
Wittman brushed such concerns aside.
“I understand that people have plans, and I understand if we want to take some time away from Washington in August, but really the August recess is an artifact of the past, it’s an artifact of no air conditioning and horse and buggy days. With all the things before us we really need to be here in Washington,” he said.
Wittman said he plans to spend his recess visiting with the military members in his district, and to hopefully join his family on a vacation. But he said he was willing to change his plans if Congress would reconvene.
“I’m very willing to change my schedule to make sure that we are here,” he said.
It is not a novel concept. Former Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, in her book published after she left office at the end of last session, suggested that a lot of the gridlock in Congress could be solved if members simply spent more time in Washington with one another and actually worked a five-day week.
Rigell took that idea a step further, suggesting a six-day work week until Congress concludes its business.
As for whether or not such a divided Congress could get all its business done even with more time in session, Wittman said he believed it was possible.
“I think by putting the time on the table to do that, to put ideas on the table, to force discussion of those ideas, you ultimately will come up with something that you can act upon,” he said. “I think that’s part of the process.”
“Obviously,” he added, “if you’re not here, it’s almost impossible to get that done.”