Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) on Wednesday once again threatened to derail the Senate’s planned recess in order to protest Democrats’ lack of a budget plan.
The Senate is currently scheduled to go out on a weeklong break for the Fourth of July holiday starting on Thursday.
“Until we work on the budget, on the debt limit, on the people’s business we don’t have a right to go home and adjourn,” Sessions said from the Senate floor.
Sessions leveled a similar threat prior to the Memorial Day recess and attempted to force an embarrassing vote on the Democrats on whether or not to take a break while budget work for fiscal 2012 remained incomplete.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) circumvented Sessions’ move back in May by keeping the Senate in pro-forma sessions. Reid was skewered on the right, however, for avoiding that vote.
At this point it is unclear how Democratic leadership will respond to Sessions’s latest threat. A senior aide to Sessions, however, told The Hill on Wednesday that the next move is Reid’s.
Sessions, however, was not the only senator to threaten the legislative recess.
On Tuesday, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) staged a protest on the Senate floor in which he said he would hold up Senate proceedings until Democrat’s promised to produce a budget. On Wednesday he held a press conference to express his opposition to adjourning for the holiday.
“Our country is going bankrupt, we shouldn’t be going home on a holiday,” said Johnson.
Several other Republican senators joined Johnson at his press conference including Sessions, Marco Rubio (Fla.), Pat Toomey (Pa.), Jim DeMint (S.C), Rand Paul (Ky.), Mike Lee (Utah), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), David Vitter (La.) and John Cornyn (Texas).