Chambers’ Diverging Priorities Show in Schedules, Laws Passed

By Brian Friel, CQ Staff

The Senate returns from a weeklong recess to find the House chamber empty, that body making a point that it is under different management.

The lack of scheduling coordination is a reminder that divided control of Congress has set the two chambers on separate paths. And the legislative record of the 112th Congress underscores that the two chambers are operating in parallel universes.

Five months into the session, Congress has cleared 14 bills for President Obama’s signature — most of them extensions of expiring laws.

House and Senate leaders have come together to complete “must-pass” legislation, but their infrequent agreements make for an unpredictable outlook for the summer’s main piece of business — raising the debt ceiling to avoid a government default.

Congress’ 2011 legislative achievements include nine extensions of existing law, naming two federal buildings and clearing a joint resolution appointing a Smithsonian Institution regent. The other two measures enacted were a widely backed repeal (PL 112-9) of a tax reporting requirement that was part of the health care overhaul (PL 111-148, PL 111-152) and the fiscal 2011 appropriations package (PL 112-10) that averted a government shutdown.

That amounts to half the average number of bills signed into law during the same period at the start of the last 20 Congresses. Only two produced fewer laws by the start of June, and both of those convened at the beginning of new administrations — the 97th Congress at the start of the Ronald Reagan administration, when the House was in Democratic hands and the Senate led by Republicans, and the 107th Congress at the start of the George W. Bush administration, when Republicans controlled both chambers.

Facing deadlines, House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., went behind closed doors to reach two important agreements this year. In May, they agreed to a four-year extension of expiring government surveillance powers (PL 112-14), and in April they reached a deal with the White House that permitted completion of the fiscal 2011 appropriations bills.

The spending package also illustrated the two chambers’ different approaches. House Republicans allowed hundreds of floor amendments to be offered to their version of the bill, which the Senate then rejected. Lacking the necessary 60 votes for either a Democratic or a Republican bill, Senate Democratic leaders turned to negotiations with the White House and House Republicans.

Brian Darling, senior fellow for government studies at the Heritage Foundation, predicted more of the same, beginning with the debt limit increase. “The next few months should be characterized by gridlock and inaction,” he said.