August 03, 2017 12:04 PM UTC

Recess! Senate Wraps Up Unproductive First Six Months

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• by: Colorado Pols

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is letting the kids go out for recess until after Labor Day. From CBS News:

The Senate is slated to go on recess for the rest of August on Thursday and not return to Washington until early September.

The Senate Press Gallery tweeted that the votes the upper chamber took Thursday afternoon were the last of the day and of the month.

An aide to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said leadership still needs to nail down some nominations, but they almost certainly likely to leave by the end of Thursday.

As the Washington Post notes, this was not the summer ending that McConnell had planned:

Soon after Memorial Day, McConnell (R-Ky.) drew up a game plan around approving a rewrite of the Affordable Care Act by the end of June. The benefits were twofold, providing House Republicans a few weeks to approve the Senate version and send it to President Trump.

Also, McConnell wanted to create separation between the conclusion of the health-care debate and the start of the annual August recess, providing the month of July to wrack up victories on other legislative matters. Such wins would give some Senate Republicans, wary of tackling the health-care issue back home, something else to tout with their voters.

Instead, everything got consumed by the health-care storm, which culminated in the bill failing by a single vote last week. The Senate plans to leave town Thursday for a five-week break with no major legislative accomplishments to show for the first seven months of unified Republican control of Congress and the White House. [Pols emphasis]

The calendar is already packed for the post-Labor Day session, with most of the schedule dedicated to approving funding for federal agencies and to discuss a potential raising of the debt ceiling.