Senate Republicans are offering lawmakers the opportunity to stay in Washington nights, weekends and through the August break to get their work done in passing bills and nominations, Sen. David Perdue said Tuesday.
"First of all, the nominations are backed up because of obstructionism from the Democrats," the Georgia Republican told Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "We have 12 weeks to get there. We're offering leadership the opportunity to stay here nights, weekends and through the August break to get that work done."
There are 70 total working days until the end of the fiscal year, according to a graphic shown on the program. However, members of Congress generally come in on Monday night or Tuesday and are finished by noon on Thursday.
"They're working in the state, but the point is, we're not voting on funding bills here in Washington," said Perdue. "The history over the past 44 years is that Congress only voted two-and-one-half appropriation bills per year. That is the average. We're supposed to do 12."
The goal is to avoid the "last-minute disaster" that has happened in the past few years, said Perdue, and the way to do that is to get those bills passed now.
He said last year, senators did the same thing, and four days into the period "we got Democrats to agree to 77 confirmations. We think that will happen this year."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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