It isn’t worth much now, but Republicans are getting the last laugh as Democrats abandon the “five-day week” in favor of something that makes more sense. So far, House Democrats only plan on eliminating Friday votes. Not counting spillovers from Thursday evenings, there have been 93 Friday votes this year to pass five bills into law (two of those bills received attention on a Friday only because Congress was bailing out for its August recess).

The 68 Monday votes have been far more absurd, and as a result all have suffered from bipartisan absenteeism — about 50 members are missing for each one, on average. It is little wonder: 62 of the Monday roll calls were for “suspensions” — non-controversial bills that can pass easily on any day of the week with two-thirds of the vote. Only one Monday vote has ever failed this year. Monday votes account for nine newly named post offices and eight national honorary “months,” “days” and “weeks” to promote awareness of something (such as “bullying prevention”). Two votes pertained to re-naming the same river in Connecticut.

“We’ve never said that it’s all about the number of days we spend here,” said Stacy Bernard, spokeswoman for Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.). “But you need to be here to get things done.” She said that the Monday evening votes still give members some time to travel back to Washington during the day, and ensure that members are around for committee work on Tuesdays — although a search of old committee schedules shows that they did meet on many Tuesdays during the last Congress.

The House has now taken a record-setting 1,009 recorded votes this year. It has produced just 107 public laws, 46 of which involve naming or re-naming facilities, at least 12 of which extend current law, and five of which involve land transfers. Only one — the minimum-wage increase — represents a substantive accomplishment (as opposed to the purely symbolic accomplishment of the “ethics bill”). Despite its five-day weeks, this Congress is about to finish October without sending a single spending bill to the president for the fiscal year that began October 1. It will be the first time this has happened since 1987.

A dearth of new laws from this Congress is not necessarily a bad thing. But it is worth noting that it is on pace to enact fewer laws than any Congress since at least 1973 — as far back as the electronic records go on the Library of Congress website. That includes not only last year’s Congress, but also several Congresses that faced presidents from the opposite party during the Clinton, Bush, Reagan and Ford years.

In defense of this Congress, they probably had a lot more unnamed post offices back then.

— David Freddoso is a staff reporter for NRO.
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