This Week in Congress: House in recess, Senate tied up with cloture votes. No, seriously.

Programming note: We'll be pausing to regroup a little bit on Daily Kos radio, but are preparing to return next week, with a slightly less hectic schedule.

Recapping Last Week in Congress

Last week, the House completed work on the Energy & Water Development, Homeland Security, and Legislative Branch appropriations bill, and voted to eliminate the tax on medical devices put in place by the Affordable Care Act. I believe every single one of those things is under veto threat.

The Senate waited around for a cloture motion to ripen on the motion to proceed to the Paycheck Fairness Act, but it "failed" by a majority vote. They then burnt most of the rest of the week waiting for a cloture motion on the motion to proceed to the farm bill to riper. That motion was adopted, cloture was invoked overwhelmingly, and while the Senate began to run the clock on the 30 post-cloture hours of debate, amendments began to pile up, and a deal to find some limit to them was sough, but never reached.

This Week in Congress

The House is not in session this week.

The Senate is scheduled to burn the bulk of the day finishing up post-cloture time on the motion to proceed to the farm bill, before ultimately adopting the motion under the terms of a unanimous consent agreement. And at 5:30, they'll vote on cloture on the nomination of Andrew David Hurwitz to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. That's how the Senate handles Monday travel time these days. They keep the clock running on post-cloture, and use the time to travel back to DC.

Word is that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) will be attempting to offer a resolution calling for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate alleged security leaks in the administration, some time later in the week.

Full floor schedule below the fold.