Illustration by Matt Wuerker Lawmakers get back to doing nothing

With the convention pomp and pageantry over, another production now begins on Capitol Hill — this one featuring meaningless show votes and theatrical hearings.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) will hold an oversight hearing this week titled: The Obama Administration’s Abuse of Power. House GOP leaders will try to pass a bill to roll back automatic defense cuts — a bid to undo a law many of them supported in the first place.


And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will continue to push a central plank of the Romney-Ryan campaign: a vote to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law. Democrats will engage in the game, too, putting up jobs bills that have no Republican support and little chance of passing.

To add more fuel to the “do-nothing Congress” label, at least one chamber — the Democratic-led Senate — could adjourn as early as Sept. 21 for another seven-week recess, coming on the heels of the five-week August recess. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will be playing “prevent defense” through the Nov. 6 election, GOP aides said.

“Taking their cues from a president who recently said the single greatest regret of [his] tenure was that he didn’t tell the American people enough stories,” McConnell wrote in an email to POLITICO, “Democrats appear ready to ride out the rest of the year spinning tall tales that the economy is doing fine while doing virtually nothing about the problems we face as a nation.”

Don’t blame us, Democrats say. The show votes are an “example of Republicans wasting time that should be spent on finding solutions to the country’s problems,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told POLITICO. “We’re up to zero votes on Obama’s jobs bills and more than 30 votes to repeal Obamacare.”

California Rep. Mike Honda, a Democratic National Committee vice chairman, said not even returning to Washington could dampen his mood after last week’s celebration in Charlotte, N.C.

“It’s like coming from a summit or church retreat. I come back home reinvigorated and ready for the next 60 days,” Honda said in a phone interview. Republicans “will try to distract us from our main mission,” but Democrats will not be “deterred, disappointed or discouraged.”

“Bring it on,” he said.

Even the votes that sound well intended have a political twist.

For example, Reid will hold a procedural vote Tuesday — the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — on a bill to help put veterans to work. The legislation, part of Obama’s “to-do list” for Congress, would specifically help vets returning from Afghanistan and Iraq leverage their military skills and find work as cops, firefighters and other public-sector positions.

The bill’s sponsor? Florida Sen. Bill Nelson , one of the most vulnerable Democrats this election cycle. The bill will very likely stall on procedure, and Republicans believe it’s just a ploy to give Nelson and Obama a political boost.

The House will also have its share of votes that will get more airtime on the campaign trail than in the Capitol.

This week, House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor will bring to the floor a measure that would halt the sequester, the massive automatic cuts to defense and domestic spending slated to hit the government in January. Of course, that would happen only if Congress can come up with an alternative plan to significantly cut the deficit.

The National Security and Job Protection Act — sponsored by Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), an Iraq War veteran — will surely die in the Democratic-held Senate without tax hikes. But it’s a way for Republicans to underscore their 30-plus House-passed jobs bills — most centered on rolling back federal regulations — and the 8 percent unemployment rate under Obama’s watch.

The bill’s “important not just for national security but also for jobs, especially in states like Virginia and Florida and North Carolina where military makes up such a sizable portion of the economy,” said Cantor spokesman Doug Heye.

Hearings, too, will be designed for maximum campaign airtime and minimal legislative traction. A top Obama foe, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), will lead an oversight hearing Tuesday examining a new report about the Justice Department’s Operation Fast and Furious. The highly publicized gun-walking scandal has been a yearlong headache and black eye for the Obama administration, though an Issa spokesman insisted there was nothing political about the hearing’s timing.

On Thursday, Smith, the House Judiciary chairman, will hold a hearing on what the GOP sees as the Obama administration flouting the Constitution and giving itself “imperial powers.” Republicans will bring forth a list of grievances: They say the Obama administration abused its executive power when it halted deportations of young illegal immigrants known as DREAM-ers, made controversial recess appointments in January and issued new Internet regulations with Congress’s authority.

On Aug. 2, just before the Senate adjourned for its summer recess, McConnell requested that the Senate vote to repeal the health care law no later than Sept. 28. But Reid objected, saying the Supreme Court had already ruled, 5-4, that the law was constitutional.

McConnell is expected to continue his public push for a vote to repeal “Obamacare,” which he sees as the gravest threat to job creation. But Senate Democrats already rejected a repeal last year on a 51-47 party-line vote.

McConnell’s push for another vote might offer little more than a chance to cut another campaign ad attacking Democrats who stick with the health care law.