GOP lawmaker: House should skip summer break until spending bills done

Rigell also said that if the question of going on August recess came up for a vote, he would vote against it.

{mosads}”I’ll encourage every member of this body to vote ‘no,’ Democrat and Republican,” he said. “When an organization is facing profound challenges, you do what you must do to set it in a better course.

“I really believe we ought to be in session six days a week. Start it at 8 a.m., earlier if it was up to me, and ending it around 7 p.m.,” he said.

“Six days a week. I’m convinced that just that pressure alone would help us find some common ground that I know exists in this place.”

So far, the House has passed three spending bills for Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, and Energy and Water, and it’s expected to pass a fourth later today, the Defense Department spending bill. But that leaves eight more to go with just 15 legislative days left before Sept. 30.

The Senate is in even worse shape; it started work on its first spending bill this week, for the Department of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development.

The slow pace has led to expectations that Congress will once again be forced to pass a continuing spending resolution that largely mirrors 2013 spending. But Rigell said this is a bad idea, and other Republicans have said continuing resolutions lock in place bad programs that need to be reformed.

“Make no mistake here, a continuing resolution is wholly inadequate as a financial vehicle to fund this government,” Rigell said. “It has serious adverse consequences.”