Optional Attendance in U.S. Senate May Soon Be Official

From the June 27 Roll Call comes this:

As some party leaders are cracking down on absenteeism among their respective rank and file, a provision included in the Senate version of the legislative branch appropriations bill passed out of committee last week strangely enough makes it financially easier for Members to miss work.Of course, nobody obeyed the old law anyway.

The proposed measure seeks to strike Title 2 Section 39 from the U.S. Code, a rarely used and mostly forgotten provision dating back to the pre-Civil War years that directs the Secretary of the Senate and Clerk of the House to deduct pay for each day a Member is absent from work except for illnesses.

Explaining that the 150-year-old measure hasn’t actually been enforced since the 1860s, Jenny Manley, press secretary for Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), called the effort to strike the provision as it applies to the Senate “a clean-up provision. More of a technical provision than anything else.”

Jim Specht, press secretary for House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), said although the committee had not considered whether a similar provision could be worked out on the House side, it would be an item to be discussed in conference…

There’s more here (subscription required).Backers of repealing the law say that when a Senator isn’t on Capitol Hill, that doesn’t mean he isn’t working.



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