Legislative Law Bulletin

The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund reports in his daily Political Diary ($) that several Republican Congressmen “are promoting longer work weeks punctuated by more lengthy and frequent breaks back home.” The House currently sits Tuesdays thru Thursdays, with Members spending the remainder of the time in their districts. This abbreviated work schedule, Fund writes, makes effective oversight of the Executive branch very difficult. And “[w]hen Republicans last controlled the U.S. House of Representatives, one of their bigger failings was allowing oversight of the executive branch to wither.” One suggestion, first floated back in July by Republican Rob Bishop of Utah,  is to have one week in D.C., followed by a week back in the district, which “would be more time than we spend here now,” said Bishop. Majority Leader-apparent Eric Cantor reportedly favors such a plan. Fund reports that he “found that many freshmen are already lamenting the weekly commute back to their districts [and would welcome a chance to do real legislating for a whole week and then have more flexibility to hold town halls and field hearings back in their districts.”

Perhaps an even better idea would be to sit for six weeks, with a three-week break in between sessions and no sittings during the summer or in December unless exigent circumstances dictate otherwise. Most state legislatures meet for a few months and then adjourn for the rest of the year, or as in Texas, for the rest of the biennium.