The House held one of its longest sessions in months this week, even though no legislative business was accomplished.
Although Congress is officially on a recess, the House conducted an unusually long pro forma session that lasted from 11:30 a.m. Tuesday until shortly after 9 a.m. Thursday. The American flag flew, the lights burned and two members of Congress and some ancillary staff members were forced to dress the part, even though nothing was really going on.
It has been customary for Congress to hold pro forma sessions during recess periods. In recent years, Republicans have tried to block the president from using his recess appointment powers to install nominees they opposed by holding these sessions, requiring members of both chambers to gavel in briefly to meet the definition of holding a congressional meeting.
Those sessions, however, tend to last a few minutes, with a prayer, a pledge and maybe a little legislative banter before the gavel is smacked and the session ends. They tend not to stretch over nearly two days of quiet.
But right before Christmas, it was House Democrats who declined to sign off on a holiday adjournment, citing the failure of Congress to come up with an agreement to extend unemployment benefits. Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat, took to the floor on Dec. 26 to explain the logic.
Leaving town without dealing with the benefits, he said, was, “sadly, consistent with our failure to pass meaningful jobs legislation proposed by the president. It is, sadly, consistent with our failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform, which is broadly supported by business, labor, farmers, farmworkers and an overwhelming number of religious leaders and members of the faith community. It is, sadly, consistent with our failure to pass a farm bill, which could give confidence to those in dire need of help putting food on their family’s table that this Congress will not abandon them.â€
Mr. Hoyer then threw in the towel, the House adjourned, end of story.
But because no adjournment message was put together for Martin Luther King’s Birthday â€" Democrats would have objected, they said â€" another pro forma session was called for Tuesday.
But then, snow intervened. While the session was meant to start midday Tuesday, the speaker’s authority was invoked, and Representative Luke Messer of Indiana was tapped to come in earlier in the day to avoid a precipitation mess and gavel in a four-minute session. (Prayer, pledge, some sort of oblique statement of “an imminent impairment of the scheduled time for the House meeting,†and goodbye.)
However, when that speaker’s authority is used, the House is unable to adjourn, though it can recess. So from Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. until Thursday at 9 a.m., nothing happened. Nothing at all. Then, Thursday morning, Representative Frank R. Wolf of Virginia sauntered in, announced that the House would return on Monday, smacked the gavel, and the people’s nonbusiness business thus concluded.
