Senate GOP Cancels August Recess To Defeat 'Democrats' Obstruction'

GOP Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell has canceled half of the Senate’s traditional August recess, citing Democratic efforts to stall and block the GOP’s priorities.

“In order to provide more time to complete action on important legislative items and process nominees that have been stalled by a lack of cooperation from our friends across the aisle, the Senate will delay the start of the August recess until the third week of August,” McConnell said in July 11 statement, titled “McConnell Statement on August Recess, Democrats’ Obstruction.”

The extra time will allow the Senate to vote on the annual defense bill and to approve White House nominees, the announcement said:

Once the Senate completes its work on health care reform, we will turn to other important issues including the National Defense Authorization Act and the backlog of critical nominations that have been mindlessly stalled by Democrats.

McConnell’s decision follows a request by 10 GOP Senators to cancel the recess.

“The message is very clear … we’ve got some very important issues to get resolved,” Perdue said in a Tuesday press conference before McConnell’s announcement. “This is a positive, constructive effort to get results for the people back home,” said Perdue, who organized the push to cancel the recess.

The Senate’s calendar shows just 31 working days before the government’s fiscal year ends on October 1.

The Senate usually only works for a few days each week and also breaks for periodic recesses to ensure that Senators can frequently return to their distant states. But the 2017 calendar is packed with President Donald Trump’s legislative priorities — including tax and health-care reform — plus more than 200 White House nominees who need Senate approval. Also, Democrats are trying to oppose Trump’s priorities and nominees by using every lever they can to delay votes.

“We have an enormous amount of work to do,” said Sen. Mike Lee from Utah. “It just doesn’t make any sense for us to take the month of August off,” he said, adding that Senate the should be kept open on weekends too. “We have to be prepared [to work] long hours, and certainly not just in [the August] recess,” he said.