Congress works full time, passes laws part time

WASHINGTON – Congress is taking more time off than usual this year.

The House is on track to meet for 97 days this year compared to 141 last year. The Senate, which met for 154 days last year, has met only 43 days so far this year.

While at least two members of Maine’s congressional delegation are concerned about the light schedule, all four are keeping themselves busy with constituency and committee work. Three of the members also are working on re-election campaigns.

Democratic Reps. Michael Michaud and Tom Allen said they thought that the House should be meeting more this year, but pointed out that the Republican leadership made the schedule.

“I believe we should be spending more time in session because we have a lot of work to do,” Michaud said in his Washington office. “Unfortunately, Congress hasn’t exerted its independence.

“Congress is a separate branch of government, and there’s been a lack of oversight for federal agencies, whether it’s the hurricanes in the Gulf Coast, 9-11 Commission recommendations or high gas pricing,” Michaud said. “There’s a lot of work we should be doing in Congress that we’re not doing.”

During the Clinton administration, the Republican Congress was much keener on oversight, according to Allen. He said the House Government Reform Committee, which he sat on, went so far as to investigate President Clinton’s use of the White House Christmas card list. The current lack of oversight, he said, was intended to protect a Republican administration.

The House is on schedule to meet for fewer days this year than it has in decades, Allen said. Many issues cannot be addressed in a substantive way because of the light schedule, he said.

“Health care costs for small businesses, the threat of climate change and the rapid rise in energy costs – all of those issues just get lost because they’re complex and they take a substantial amount of time,” Allen said in an interview on Capitol Hill. “And when we come in on a Tuesday evening and vote for a couple of post offices and then work Wednesday and finish on a Thursday afternoon, we just don’t have the hours down here for the committees to do their work.”

The House has rarely voted on Mondays and Fridays this session, leaving the members travel days to get back to their districts and do work there.

Congress is responsible for naming post offices around the country, and such votes regularly take up voting time. Allen said there were not any more of those types of votes this year than normal, but that many more important issues just were not being addressed by the Republican leadership.

Allen said that many of his more senior colleagues have told him that the House used to spend days on legislation such as the defense appropriations bill and others, but now they are done in a day or less.

This year the House and Senate took off a week for St. Patrick’s Day and both are now in the middle of a two-week spring break. The House worked a mere two days in January while the Senate worked nine. Both Houses regularly take off the month of August and reconvene after Labor Day. This summer the House is scheduled to leave a week earlier than the Senate.

“Though we have plenty of work to do in the district, the legislation suffers immensely when we’re not here,” Allen said.

Last year Michaud said he and his colleagues had much of their August break eaten up by their attempts to deal with the closing of Brunswick Naval Air Station.

The two chambers’ schedules are tentative and are subject to change when more legislating is necessary. A week ago the Senate was supposed to adjourn Thursday but stayed late into the night and into Friday to work on the immigration package.

One reason Congress is meeting so little this year is because of the November elections. The two chambers usually have a light schedule the last quarter of an election year so lawmakers can campaign. All the members of Maine’s delegation said that despite a lighter legislation schedule, in an election year their work time remains about the same because they have to campaign and raise funds.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins, the only Maine member who is not up for re-election this year, said that chairing the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee made her schedule much busier than it had been before she got the post.

“Maybe there are less scheduled days, but I’m not [any less busy],” said Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe. “I’m about seven days a week.”

Snowe said that what Congress accomplishes is more important than how many days lawmakers meet. The Senate this year has confirmed Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, passed lobbying reform legislation and approved a budget resolution.

Michaud, who has been in the House two terms, said he took a vacation last year, but it was the first one he had taken in about 10 years. Before being elected to the House he served in the state Legislature for 22 years.

“Even though I took it off as far as scheduling meetings, with the BlackBerrys nowadays you’re always in constant contact with folks,” Michaud said, pulling out his communications device.

Other members agreed with Michaud, saying that their time off often was spent thumbing e-mail messages to their staffs on their BlackBerry devices or fielding calls from the press.

All of the members said they worked long days when in session. They come in early in the morning, between 6 and 8 a.m., and leave late at night, between 10 and 11 p.m. Their days are full of committee work, voting, meetings and press interviews.

Back in Maine, the members might not work into the night as often and are more likely to get a day off, but they are busy shaking the hands of voters, raising funds and attending meetings. They are also in constant contact with their Washington staffs while in Maine.

James Melcher, an associate professor of political science at the University of Maine at Farmington, said each member of Maine’s delegation is hardworking.

“In the House of Representatives in particular, people are campaigning for re-election pretty much constantly,” Melcher said. He said the framers of the Constitution wanted the House, where representatives face re-election every two years, to be “under the microscope” all the time.