House Schedule: Recent Practices and Proposed Options

Publication Date: February 2001

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Government

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Abstract:

House scheduling practices have been criticized frequently in recent years for bringing about compressed workweeks, protracted daily sessions, conflicts between floor and committee work, pressure on family life, and inefficient use of time generally. Especially in the context of reform efforts in the 103rd and 104th Congresses (1993-1996), several alternatives have drawn support and objection. These discussions indicate that current practices are strongly related to Members' weekend commutes to their home districts. Members generally arrange their schedules so as to devote to these trips as much as possible of the time when no recorded floor votes are expected.

These practices tend to result in a "Tuesday-to-Thursday" week, with three afternoons generally available for floor business and only two mornings for committee work. As a consequence, committee meetings extend into afternoons and floor sessions into the morning, creating scheduling conflicts for Members. Floor sessions also extend into the evenings, taking time from personal life for Members with families in the Washington area. To address these conditions, some Members have suggested that convening the House earlier in the day, making the floor schedule more predictable, and similar practices, could reduce the need for evening sessions, and thereby make it more feasible to continue to schedule extended weekends for travel to the district.

A different approach to these problems proposes to adopt a full five-day workweek. The first session of the 104th Congress attempted such a schedule. Even then, however, Members' travel schedules made it generally impracticable to conduct floor votes before the end of Monday afternoon or after the middle of Friday afternoon. Also, under the rigorous conditions of that session, even this schedule did not eliminate frequent resort to evening sessions.

A third alternative proposed has been to provide a week of recess after each third workweek of five full days. In a four-week period, this schedule would afford more working days, and more available mornings, than would continual three-day workweeks. The intent of this plan is that Members concentrate their trips home in the recesses, rather than between consecutive weeks in which the House meets. However, Senate experience with a similar plan suggests that Members are likely to continue commuting on short weekends even when longer recesses are also provided.

A fourth alternative, proposed as a middle course among the preceding, has been to establish a four-day workweek. This plan would afford more time for floor and committee sessions than currently, without making weekend commutes impracticable. In one version, the workweeks would be staggered so as to provide a four-day weekend every other week. Although this plan could still increase the time available for Washington work, it might yet fail to reduce Member commuting on the short weekends.