Analysis: At the halfway mark of this year, the Senate is not living up to its nickname as the world’s greatest deliberative body.
So far this year, senators have spent the equivalent of a little more than eight minutes of that hypothetical hour debating the issues, while they spent nearly 22 minutes of that hour going through roll-call votes.
Browning’s data show that this year’s Senate was in session a little more than 400 hours so far, easily the least floor time at this stage of the last five Congresses. Last year, long after senators had been vaccinated and the pandemic receded, a bipartisan group of nearly 70 senators, led by Sen. Thom Tillis , sent a letter to Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell demanding shorter vote periods.“Votes are often left open well beyond the allotted time, frustrating a majority of members from both sides of the aisle. Often, the outcome of the vote is not in doubt,” Tillis wrote on behalf of the group.
Senate leaders privately blame the rank-and-file senators for their lackadaisical approach to votes. Senators often linger at meetings across the street in their office buildings or at fundraisers downtown, sometimes gaming out their arrival for the end of one vote and the start of the next. Merkley views this Senate atrophy as a broader issue. Big bipartisan debates are now dwarfed by the Senate’s assembly-line approach to focusing mostly on confirming presidential nominees.
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