Lawmakers skip town until November

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The most partisan, least-productive Congress in memory has skipped out of Washington so lawmakers can make their case for voters to re-elect them.

The Senate closed the Capitol not long after sending President Barak Obama a spending bill that will make sure the government won’t shut down Oct. 1, the start of the new budget year. The measure passed early Saturday by a 62-30 vote.

Left behind for a postelection session is a pile of unfinished business on the budget and taxes, farm policy and legislation to save the Postal Service from insolvency.

The GOP-controlled House beat its retreat Friday morning after taking one last, futile slap at Obama by passing a bill called the “Stop the War on Coal Act.” The measure, dead on arrival in the Senate, was aimed at boosting the coal industry in its fight against new environmental regulations while hurting Obama’s political prospects in coal states such as Ohio and Virginia.

The Democratic-controlled Senate’s middle-of-the-night session came after a spitting match between Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Republicans over Reid’s insistence on advancing legislation by Sen. Jon Tester of Montana to boost access to public lands for hunting and fishing.

Tester is perhaps the Senate’s most endangered Democrat, and Republicans protested that he was being given special treatment in a clearly political move to boost his re-election chances. The measure cleared a procedural hurdle by an 84-7 vote.

The votes came at midnight to give senators who had scattered from Washington time to return.

Democrat Claire McCaskill was in Missouri for a debate, while Michael Bennet, D-Colo., had been in the southwest portion of his state to attend a ceremony celebrating the new Chimney Rock National Monument. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., was venting his frustrations with American Airlines on Twitter.

The only must-do item on the get-out-of-Dodge agenda was a six-month spending measure to fulfill the bare minimum of Congress’ responsibilities by keeping the government running after the current budget year ends Sept. 30.

The spending measure permits spending on agency operating budgets at levels agreed to under last summer’s hard-fought budget and debt deal between Obama and Capitol Hill Republicans. That’s a 0.6 percent increase from current spending rates, which represents a defeat for House Republicans, who had sought to cut about 2 percent below the budget deal and shift $8 billion from domestic programs to the Pentagon.

Reid also relented to a demand by tea-party Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., for a vote on suspending foreign aid to the governments of Libya, Egypt and Pakistan. Paul only got 10 votes. But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., won approval of a nonbinding resolution supporting steps to make sure Iran doesn’t develop a nuclear weapon.

It’s the earliest pre-election exit by Congress from Washington since 1960, though lawmakers will return after the Nov. 6 vote to deal with unfinished work.

The exit from Washington leaves the bulk of Congress’ agenda for a post- Nov. 6 session in which it’s hoped lawmakers will be liberated from the election-year paralysis that has ground Capitol Hill to a near halt.

Topping the lame-duck agenda will be the George W. Bush-era tax cuts, which expire Dec. 31, and more than $100 billion in across-the-board spending cuts set to strike at the same time. The cuts are punishment for the failure of last year’s deficit “supercommittee” to strike a deal.

Also left in limbo is the farm bill, stalled in the House due to opposition from conservative Republicans who think it doesn’t cut farm subsidies and food stamps enough and Democrats who think its food-stamp cuts are too harsh.

The current farm act expires Sept. 30, but the lapse won’t have much practical effect in the near term. Still, it’s a political black eye for Republicans, especially in states such as North Dakota and Iowa.

The lack of productivity of the 112th Congress was the result of divided government and bitter partisanship.

“This isn’t leadership. It is negligence,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.