Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has announced he cancelled August recess so the upper chamber can vote on bills and President Donald Trump’s nominees.
Needless to say, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) approves of McConnell’s decision:
Senators will receive “a state work period” the first full week of August, but must come back to D.C. after that.
The Republican senators are happy, but they want more since the work week is “late Monday afternoon until early Thursday afternoon.” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) wants the senators to work on Fridays and Saturdays:
In addition to working into the four-week summer break, Grassley is calling for “filibuster Fridays,” arguing Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) should force the Senate to stay in Friday and Saturday to speed up confirmation of nominations.”I’d like 2see #filibusterfridays in the Senate If Dems want to filibuster we can vote on Fridays +into wknds,” Grassley said in a tweet.”Another summer, another heavy work load NOW is the time to vote on Fridays (even wknds!) to get MORE nominations confirmed Especially judges Help the judicial branch,” he added.
If the Senate can finish voting on the nominees and come to terms on legislation like spending bills, appropriations, defense authorization, and water infrastructure, then the senators can get back some of their recess time.
This is bad news for the incumbent Democrat senators since they will not have the ability to campaign during the month. Democrats have 26 seats up for re-election in November along with independent seats in Maine and Vermont, both belonging to senators who caucus with the Democrats.
A lot of those Democrat senators come from states Trump won in 2016: Sens. Claire McCaskill (MO), Sherrod Brown (OH), Joe Donnelly (IN), and Jon Tester (MN).
[Featured image via YouTube]
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