What if you could prolong today to avoid making an uncomfortable decision tomorrow?
For most human beings, that’s not possible. But in the alternate reality that is Congress, which operates according to its own arcane rules and precedents and is exempt from the statutes that bind the rest of us, a day can be as long or short as the laws of political gravity demand.
That is how it came to pass that House Republicans in recent weeks declared the rest of the year one long day when it came to considering a challenge to President Trump’s tariffs. They would prefer to avoid votes on whether to scrap the levies, but the law says the House must consider them within a set period of time.
The obvious solution? Stop time.
It was hardly the first time congressional leaders have meddled with the laws of the universe for the sake of political expediency. By bending legislative time, House and Senate leaders have long found ways to buy themselves wiggle room for negotiation, preserve their prerogatives and shield their members from votes they would rather not have to cast.
Four years ago, Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker, kept the House in recess overnight rather than adjourning to stretch a single “legislative day” across two calendar days. The move allowed her to claim she had kept a promise that she had made to moderate Democrats that she would hold a vote on a $1 trillion infrastructure bill by the end of the month.
Speaker Mike Johnson’s recent efforts to freeze time have been more conspicuous — and longer lasting. Last month, he quietly pushed through a provision that contained a calendar gimmick ensuring that no lawmaker could force a vote this year to end Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico. He used the same trick on Wednesday to head off a vote until at least October on the global tariffs Mr. Trump announced last week and then partially paused.
The first measure stated that “each day for the remainder of the 119th Congress shall not constitute a calendar day” for the purposes of the emergency Mr. Trump declared on Feb. 1 to impose the tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico. The resolution approved on Wednesday used the same language to stop any member from forcing a vote on the rest of Mr. Trump’s tariffs through Sept. 30.
“When is a day not a day?” Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who was the only G.O.P. member to oppose both moves, wrote on social media. “Answer: when Congress circumvents the law requiring a vote on Presidential National Emergencies within 15 days.”
Democrats were also outraged.
“Republicans changed how time itself works in the House to prevent a vote on tariffs that is allowed under the law,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts.
Mr. Johnson also used a legislative time warp this month to buy himself room to put down a rebellion in his ranks over House rules. When a bipartisan majority used a complicated maneuver to force a vote on a proposal to allow lawmakers to vote remotely following the birth of a child, the speaker had two legislative days — days when Congress is conducting legislative business — to allow their measure to come to a vote.
Instead, he abruptly called off House business for the week, stopping the clock to give himself time to negotiate with the measure’s Republican architect, Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida. By the time he reconvened the chamber this week, he had cut a deal with Ms. Luna to kill her proposal.
Senate Democrats planned a similar scheduling tactic more than a decade ago to afford themselves time to negotiate with colleagues who wanted to force a vote on curtailing the use of filibusters. Proponents planned to move on the first day of the new Congress in 2011, so Democratic leaders prepared to put the Senate in recess before they could act and then keep it that way — instead of adjourning as scheduled — for the next three weeks while they tried to reach an agreement with those demanding changes.
At the time, the Senate Historical Office said that Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, who died the previous year after serving a half-century in the Senate, had set the record for defying the calendar in 1980. That year, Mr. Byrd, then the majority leader, kept the Senate in the same legislative day for 162 days — from Jan. 3 to June 12 — to head off filibuster changes.
Content Source: www.nytimes.com