Pelosi Blasts Boehner Ahead Of House Vote

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) responded today to criticism over her decision to call her chamber back into session to vote tomorrow on a bill that aims to help states avoid making layoffs.

“Why wouldn’t House Republicans want to keep 310,000 teachers, first responders and private sector workers on the job instead of on the unemployment lines?” Pelosi rhetorically asked.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) commented on NBC’s Meet The Press yesterday that the $26 billion measure is another example of Democratic over-spending.

“The American people are screaming at the top of their lungs to Washington, ‘Stop, stop the spending, stop the job-killing policies,’ and yet Democrats in Washington refuse to listen to the American people,” he said.

Pelosi, however, said Boehner is ignoring the fact that the legislation would not add to the nation’s debt, and accused her GOP counterpart of “opposing a fully paid-for jobs bill that reduces the deficit and keeps teachers in the classroom and police officers on the beat.”

The House will convene tomorrow at 10:00 am, with a final vote on the bill expected to take place in the afternoon.

Van Hollen: No Major Legislation During 'Lame-Duck' Session

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the third-ranking Democrat in the House, told reporters today that he does not anticipate the House voting on anything big during the brief session of Congress following this November’s elections.

“It’s very clear that there’s not gonna be major legislation during that period,” he said, citing Republican “scare-tactics” as the source of such speculation.

Nonetheless, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), has filed a resolution, to be considered this coming Tuesday - the same day the House will vote on a bill to send emergency aid to states - that would prohibit Congress from voting during the two-month session.

Price defended his resolution on the floor of the House last week.

“Americans are sick and tired of their elected leaders making backroom deals to ram through unpopular, 2000-page bills that no one has read,” he said. “They are sick of out-of-touch politicians, and they are tired of being ignored.”

Van Hollen, however, rebuked Price’s notion, saying the decision by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to call the House back into session was motivated by the need to preserve jobs.

“We’re coming back because it makes no sense from a jobs perspective and…from the prospective of our children’s education to have an insufficient number of teachers in the classroom,” he said.