STEVE INSKEEP, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And Im Renee Montagne.
Members of the House are spending almost all this month campaigning for re-election, and you could think of today's session of Congress as an extension of that.
INSKEEP: Speaker Nancy Pelosi called lawmakers off their summer break for a one-day meeting. The House will vote on aid to states, including money for teachers.
MONTAGNE: Pelosi's party is in a hard fight to hold on to its majority. If Democrats fail, she loses her job as speaker.
INSKEEP: And as they vote today, plenty of lawmakers are thinking about how the public will vote in November.
Here's NPR's Andrea Seabrook.
ANDREA SEABROOK: What's important enough to pull a bunch of endangered politicians off the campaign trail? Teachers, says Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen.
Representative CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (Democrat, Maryland): Well, we have to get this done before kids go back to school. Because there are people who are making hiring and firing decisions as we speak, and we want to make sure that when the kids get back to school, there's a teacher in the classroom.
SEABROOK: Van Hollen is the guy in charge of getting Democrats re-elected.
The bill includes $26 billion to help states keep operating. The White House estimates it could save the jobs of some 300,000 teachers and other civil servants.
Representative DAVID DREIER (Republican, California): I just - I dont get it.
SEABROOK: David Dreier is the top Republican on the Rules Committee, and had to jet back from Los Angeles. He says it's amazing how sloppy the Democrats are.
Rep. DREIER: It's unfortunate to me that they've ended up resorting to this kind of action now. You know, we thought we could go for six weeks without massive spending continuing. But just a week after we take this break, we end up coming back for this.
SEABROOK: But it's not the House Democrats' fault, says Van Hollen. They passed the bill months ago. It's the Senate that didn't get around to it until last Thursday.
Rep. VAN HOLLEN: But the good news is, they've acted in time to get this money into the classrooms, to make sure that there are teachers there.
SEABROOK: Okay, says Dreier, but if this were really important to Democrats, they should have put in a budget and gotten it done earlier. They didn't even bother to pass a budget, says Dreier.
Rep. DREIER: A budget establishes priorities. And the fact that we've ended up coming back here, to me is an indication of the worst combination imaginable. And that is arrogance combined with ineptitude.
SEABROOK: To which Van Hollen says: Psshaw.
Rep. VAN HOLLEN: What's really concerning is that our Republican colleagues intend to vote against this, even though it's entirely paid for - again, paid for by closing down these tax loopholes that encourage corporations to ship jobs overseas. I mean, this is a win-win.
SEABROOK: And so on. As you can hear, the campaign atmosphere is coming back with the politicians.
The August recess is a congressional tradition dating back to 1790. There have been times when it's been scuttled or interrupted, but only rarely in recent decades. In 2005, lawmakers returned from the summer break to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
But otherwise, summer is a time when workers can do some building maintenance, technicians tinker with the underground subways and all the escalators, and tourists stroll freely around the rotunda.
So what do citizens think of this unplanned session? Is it worth bringing the House back to Washington for some unfinished business?
Mr. JIM HENDERSON: Sure, yeah. It's just like school. The principal says come back to school, everybody comes back.
Mr. FRED LEVINE: Thats what they're hired to do.
Ms. MARILYN LEVINE: If business needs to be done, they've got to come back. Too bad.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. CINDY RENAULT: Whatever they're voting on must be that important that they have to come in to a special session, so I think it's great. I think it's what they should do.
SEABROOK: That was Jim Henderson, of Minneapolis; Fred and Marilyn Levine, of Port Jefferson, New York; and Cindy Renault, of Kenosha, Wisconsin.
None of them is bothered by Congress's interrupted recess. But if Americans thought they could get through August without a heavy bout of partisan bickering from their lawmakers, they've got another thing coming.
Andrea Seabrook, NPR News.
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