Montana GOP Sen. Steve Daines is among a group of senators calling on Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to cancel the five-week August recess in order to get what he called a backlog of work done before the Sept. 30 budget deadline.
“If we are complicit, we are on track for another last-minute spending battle come September,” the 16 senators wrote in their May 10 letter to McConnell, R-Kentucky. “However, if we take action now, we can break the cycle of continuing resolutions and omnibus spending deals.”
In a telephone call Wednesday from Washington, D.C., with Montana reporters, Daines said the Senate has 12 weeks to get a dozen appropriation bills out of committee and on to the floor and to vote on 276 nominations.
“It’s hard to find a good rationale or argument for why we recess Congress when there is so much work that remains to be done,” Daines said.