Congress Plays Hooky on Fridays Despite Pledge by Democrats to Work All Week

If you want to talk to members of Congress on a Thursday or Friday, don't bother going to Capitol Hill.

Try Reagan National Airport, where they've probably already picked up a snack near the boarding gate for their flight back to their home districts.

Democratic leaders promised when their party regained control of the House three years ago that lawmakers would work five-day weeks.

But that plan apparently didn't work.

"We will, then, not plan to be here on Friday. I know that disappoints all of you," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said to applause and groans on Thursday.

But a recent analysis found that after a fairly energetic first half of this year, the House has settled into what Politico calls a "rather leisurely routine" of two-and-a-half day workweeks.

For example, only one vote has been held on a Friday since the House returned for its fall session Sept. 8.

"What we ought to be doing five days a week, six days a week, is bring these health care reform bills to the floor of the House and the Senate," Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., said.

The slower pace comes as a new Fox News poll shows that 66 percent of Americans disapproved of the job that Congress is doing.

Asked why the House isn't in session Friday, Hoyer blamed the Senate, where key spending bills have been held up.

"I'm not going to hold people here to twiddle our thumbs," he said.

The issue even made a rare appearance on the House floor this week.

"We don't have some other bills, because, frankly, we can't get 60 votes to consider them on the floor of the United States Senate," he said. "I think that's lamentable."

"You have the power to schedule the floor and move forward," Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., shot back.

Aides to the Democratic leadership contended that, for lawmakers, time spent off the House or Senate floor, or back in home districts, hardly amounts to a holiday.

And they said that under GOP leadership, the House work ethic was even worse.

With members breezing in on Tuesday afternoons, working hard on Wednesdays an jetting out of the Capitol by Thursday afternoon.

Fox News' James Rosen contributed to this report.