U.S. Sens. Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Steve Daines (R-MT) said on Tuesday they support Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) decision to delay the August in-state work period until the third week of August.
Both lawmakers, along with U.S. Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA), Thom Tillis (R-NC) and David Perdue (R-GA), sent a letter June 30 urging McConnell to consider truncating or completely foregoing their scheduled August recess in order to complete their work on Capitol Hill.
“I’m glad that Leader McConnell agreed to our request to remain working in Washington, D.C., for part of the scheduled August in-state work period,” Rounds said. “This will give us the opportunity to continue working on issues that impact all Americans such as health care, tax reform and passing a responsible budget.”
Daines pointed out that there were only 31 scheduled days remaining in the session until the end of the fiscal year and still no bill to fund the government has been approved.
“If you were failing school, you wouldn’t take a summer vacation — you would be going to summer school,” Daines said. “We have a long list to accomplish and I’m glad that at my urging, the U.S. Senate is staying in session to work on behalf of the American people.”
Rounds and several colleagues participated in a press conference on Tuesday to follow up on the June 30 letter to McConnell.
“[The American people] expect us to get our work done in a timely fashion,” Rounds said during the press conference. “We can’t do that without spending some extra time here … this is our way of expressing to leadership our support for their interest in extending that time period.”
Rounds added that the recurring message lawmakers receive from the public is that “they sent us here to fix things. They didn’t send us here to let the status quo just continue on. And part of the way that you do that is you actually get together and you get things done,” he said.
The members said that the Senate plans to work on five imperatives, which were outlined in the letter to McConnell: complete the first phase of Obamacare repeal and replace; reform the tax code; fund the government; deal with the nation’s debt limit; and reform taxes.
“Each of these issues is challenging in its own right,” the congressional members wrote in the letter.