• Congress recessed for about a week to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday and returned to face a full plate of pending legislation before recessing again from July 26 through early next month. As of June 25, the bill count in the House of Representatives rose to 4,753 and, in the Senate, to 2,606, which certainly gave legislators plenty to debate.
• November’s Election Day is coming ever closer, and legislators up for election can be counted upon to concern themselves with bills calculated to bolster their campaigns. Congress also faces its annual dilemma for dealing with appropriations for 13 government agencies by Sept. 30, 2004. In spite of good intentions, Congress has not met this deadline for the past several years, and that failure has led to an “Omnibus” bill that lumps into one bill the funding for unfunded agencies. And that, traditionally, gives birth to any number of “pork” amendments.
