Lame Duck Session May Be Ahead

The amount of work left to do, and the short amount of legislative working time available already has many on Capitol Hill predicting that Congress will return for a post-election lame duck session to finish up work for the year. Congress returns this week for three weeks of work but then will recess until early September. The target adjournment date for the year is October 1-meaning only about a month of working time after the recess–although that schedule could slip by several weeks. Many of the spending bills for fiscal 2005, as well as some other legislation might be candidates for such a session in order to get controversial decisions past the voting, officials say. In the upcoming weeks, the House likely will craft, among other spending bills, the Transportation-Treasury bill that likely will serve as the vehicle for an attempt to boost the January 2005 federal raise to 3.5 percent from the 1.5 percent the White House recommended.