The House meets in pro forma session only today. No votes are scheduled.

In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:

Convenes: 10:00am Morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each. 1:00pm Filing deadline for all first degree amendments to S.23, the America Invents Act There will be no roll call votes during Friday's session.

Woooooooooo! Weekend! Paaaaaaaaaaarrr-TAY!

What? You're still at work? Well, at least you have government subsidized health insurance! What? You don't? Well, you're probably more concerned with abortion than getting a job or treating that cancer or whatever, anyway.

I haven't got much for you today, and that's because Congressional Washington hasn't got much. The House will meet in pro forma session. What's that?

A daily meeting of the House or Senate during which no votes are held and no legislative business is conducted. The session "in form only" is held for purposes of meeting the 3-day rule in the Constitution. It requires each House to gain the permission of the other for recesses longer than 3 days. When the permission is not forthcoming, or not requested in time, the affected chamber convenes briefly with hardly anyone in attendance [the opening prayer, routine announcements, and sometimes short non-legislative speeches are conducted], and then adjourns.

The Senate, on the other hand, will also be meeting without holding any votes, but they're not in pro forma session. They're just not doing anything in particular. Which is to say that they're in regular session. They're just not doing any of that voting stuff. But in case anybody wants to come to work and talk to an empty chamber, the topic of the day is ostensibly S. 23, the patent reform bill. Still.

Not that there's any requirement that they actually stick to the subject or anything.

There are a couple of committee hearings scheduled for today, though. Mostly budget-related hearings in the House Appropriations Committee. I wonder what kind of attendance they'll get, considering that the majority thinks everything should be eliminated, anyway.

That committee schedule appears below the fold. Have a great weekend, everybody! Hey, why don't you call in and tell the boss you're working pro forma today?