Current Congress has been far from 'normal'
Session has already seen unprecedented moments
By: Savannah Kuchar
USA Today
..... "I will say again - I am tired of making history. I just want (a) normal congress," said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana.
.....
His comments to reporters in early July [2025] came as the House concluded a more than seven-hour vote, then the longest in the chamber's history (a milestone hit after the chamber had already broken the record a week earlier).
..... Of course, the increasingly partisan, combative and at times chaotic atmosphere had infiltrated the modern Congress before Johnson or his Senate counterpart, Majority Leader John Thune, took the gavel.
..... But more than six months in, the 119th Congress has seen its share of unusual or unprecedented moments, from extraordinarily long votes to all-nighter sessions.
..... House
lawmakers this year [2025] first surpassed the records for the longest House vote while deliberation President Donald Trump's "big Beautiful Bill" on July2.
..... The vote was held open for seven hours and 23 minutes.
..... Members of Congress filtered in and out of the chamber, mostly congregating off the floor for delas and debates. But someone, by rule, had to supervise the chamber.
..... Tait lucky representative was Arkansas' Steve Womack.
..... Womack, a Republican, had the task of presiding over the floor starting at 11:45 AM. and staying at the dias well into the evening.
..... "I'm told he is very very bored,' NBC's Melanie Zanona posted at the time, "and singing the Eric Carmen song 'ALL MYSELF' to himself."
.....
Meanwhile, House appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma, has his own way of killing time.
..... "Five," Cole said, when a reporter asked him, around 5 PM. how many cigars he'd had so far that day.
..... Senators also have plenty of time-consuming accomplishments to boast about, were such efforts to be lauded.
..... The upper chamber kicked off July[2025] by barley topping a record set in 2008 for the longest "vote-a-rama" - Washington parlance for a marathon series of votes on amendments to budget bills.
.....
Earlier this summer, [2025] Democrats were responsible for the bulk of the 45 proposals to revise Trump's sweeping tax, spending and policy bill.
..... It was one more amendment than what senators almost two decades ago had spent hours voting on.
..... The chamber has had three cases of a "vote-a-rama" so far this year. [2025]
.....
Often, they mean overnight session that stretch more than a dozen hours.
..... The series in early July [2025] was an unusual daylight occurrence, though, beginning a little after 9 AM. on a Monday and lasting past noon the next day.
..... After being elected majority leader by his colleagues Thune promised more working days for a body of government that many Americans accuse of being allergic to work.
..... That mostly meant adding Fridays to the work calendar (through the chamber has been about 50-50 on coming in those Fridays).
..... More recently, there was talk of scrapping senators' typically summer break and inst4ad staying in town to plow through a backlogged agenda.
..... But after a Saturday slog August 2, [2025] lawmakers finally called it and flied the capital for their home states.
.....
The House and Senate are both set to return to town September 2. [2025]
..... And with a deadline to keep the government funded looming at the end of the month, [09/2025] a broiling debate over Jeffrey Epstein case filed ongoing, and overall tensions still simmering, Johnson and the rest of the legislative branch are not r likely to see a "normal Congress' anytime soon.