Congress hits books, crams to finish for year
A chief task is wrapping up the 13 annual spending bills
 |
Story Tools
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
|
Follow the news that matters to you. Create your own alert to be notified on topics you're interested in.
Or, visit Popular Alerts for suggestions.
|
|
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Many members of the U.S. Congress suddenly look like college students cramming to finish their work in the waning weeks of a semester.
They work late into the night, gather behind closed doors and swap notes as they try to wrap up legislation on subjects like prescription drugs, Internet taxes and overtime regulations.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers know what is on the line: a final grade for 2003 from their constituents as they push to complete their work for the year by Thanksgiving and jockey for political position in the 2004 congressional elections.
"Members, and more so their young staffs, feel like they are back in college -- pushing to get the last book read, the last report in, all to make the final grade," Hess said.
President Bush prods both sides to find common ground so they can craft and send to him final bills to sign into law.
There have been bipartisan efforts to do so, such as on legislation to give consumers new tools against identity theft. But there have been some celebrated partisan scuffles on fronts like energy, health care and judicial nominations.
Republicans plan an around-the-clock session beginning on Wednesday to dramatize their complaint that Democrats have engaged in obstructionism to block four of Bush's most conservative judicial nominees. Democrats reject such charges, noting they have helped confirm 168 others.
"We will make our case," vowed Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a member of the Republican leadership.
"It's going to be a carnival," said Senate Democratic Whip Harry Reid of Nevada, who took the chamber floor on Monday to talk at length about job loss under the Bush administration.
Ethan Siegal of The Washington Exchange, a private group that tracks legislation and politics on Capitol Hill for institutional investors said, "In the final weeks of the year, everything becomes more political because the focus is how will the votes play out in the next election."
A chief must-do task is wrapping up the 13 annual spending bills needed to keep the government running for the fiscal year that began on October 1.
Just four have been signed into law so far, forcing Congress to approve a series of temporary spending measures as lawmakers seek to resolve the others.
Complicating efforts are White House veto threats against some of the bills because of certain provisions. They include a bipartisan effort to lift a ban on U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba and a Democratic amendment to block a business-backed proposal that organized labor warns could costs millions of Americans overtime pay.
The Republican-led Congress may avoid a showdown with the administration by bundling the spending bills into a huge catch-all measure, from which the troublesome issues could more easily be stripped.
Democrats charge that on some topics Republicans have largely locked them out of negotiations.
This has happened, they say, on sweeping energy legislation and a bid to provide a prescription drug benefit under the Medicare health insurance program for the elderly.
Democrats responded by opposing House-Senate conferences on other legislation, including a bill to reduce the threat of wildfires.
Copyright 2003
Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
