Senate Barely Legislating as Partisanship, Attendance Slow Work

Legislating in the Senate has slowed to a crawl so far this year as partisanship, absences and other distractions have thwarted substantial floor action.

The chamber’s business has so far largely been confined to confirming President Joe Biden’s nominees and dispensing with Republican-led challenges to administration regulation.

While the Senate has always been the more deliberative chamber by design, the current sluggish pace underscores the difficulty in making laws with a recently divided Congress. Protracted negotiations over government spending during the debt-limit stand-off stalled the appropriations process, and Republican objections to even routine nominations has prompted Democrats to expend more ...