Reid Toying With Keeping Senate In Session

By Mike Hothi

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Monday that he may keep the Senate in session next week to work on the first individual component of President Obama’s jobs bill.

“I’m happy to keep the Senate in session for as long as necessary to get this done,” he told reporters during a conference call. “I hope my Republican colleagues will not put their desire to play political games or to even go back home next week, to avoid our responsibility to create jobs.”

Currently, the upper chamber is scheduled to be off next week. The House is off this week, but will be back in session next week.

The bill in question, called the Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act, would provide aid to state and local governments. Senate Democrats estimate that the legislation would keep 400,000 teachers, firefighters and policement on the job.

The bill represents a part of Obama’s American Jobs Act, which was rejected by Republicans and a pair of Democrats in the Senate last week. As a result, the President has asked lawmakers to pass the job package in piece-by-piece installments. Earlier today, he suggested that doing so would perhaps be easier for Congress.

Reid said he would bring the bill up today and decide when to vote on it in the next day or two. “We’re going to do our utmost to get this done as quickly as we can.”