A group of Republican senators are urging Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to cancel the August recess in order to catch up on funding the government and a backlog of nominees.
“We stand ready to work Mondays and Fridays, nights as well as weekends, to ensure the funding process is not used to jam the president with a bad spending deal,” more than a dozen GOP lawmakers wrote in the letter.
They added that they are even willing to “forgo the August recess” in order to make progress on funding legislation and nominations.
The letter, which was organized by GOP Sen. David Perdue (Ga.), was first reported by The Washington Post.
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said on Tuesday that he and other Republicans would be submitting a letter to McConnell this week urging the GOP leader to keep the Senate in longer, including into the late summer recess if they are behind on their workload.
“That letter basically, again, encourages the leader to keep us here on weekends, on Mondays and Fridays when necessary and certainly during the August break if we haven’t funded the government by then,” Perdue told reporters at the time.
The letter is part of a broader effort by conservative senators, allied outside groups and even the White House to meet the Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government with 12 individual spending bills instead of another omnibus spending bill.
The GOP senators added in their letter that getting the bill through before the August recess is “an impossible task.”
“When combined with the crucial need to confirm more nominees, it is clear we do not have enough time,” they wrote.
Trump railed against the last mammoth spending bill. Though he backed down from his veto threat, he also warned that he would not sign similar legislation.
GOP senators sent a similar letter to McConnell last year, who ultimately delayed the start of the August recess by two weeks.
In addition to funding legislation, conservatives and the White House are growing increasingly frustrated at the pace of confirmation for Trump’s nominees.
Perdue and White House legislative director Marc Short railed against “obstruction” from Democrats at the event on Tuesday.
Short argued that Democrats are using nominations to eat up floor time and “not get to the Senate’s business.”
“The only way to stop that is to actually force members to stay on weekends and to stay during the summer months,” he said.
Updated May 11 at 11:41 a.m.
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