Reid says Congress has ‘accomplished nothing’

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, June 7, 2005 | 9:56 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Congress returned Monday after a weeklong recess and promptly resumed the partisan bickering that has slowed legislative business this year.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the Senate had wasted five months arguing over a few judicial nominations.

"This whole legislative year we have yet to spend one minute debating health care, debating education, debating the environment," Reid said at a Capitol Hill press conference. "We have accomplished virtually nothing in this Congress."

To underscore the point, Reid flipped through a calendar that has red Xs marked on the work days of the first five months. "Nothing," Reid repeated as he flipped.

Reid and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, also invited to the microphone Sherry Strother, a Maryland nurse and mother who urged lawmakers to get to work on issues that matter to middle-class Americans.

"Please stop all this infighting," she said.

But the Senate on Monday went right back to fighting over President Bush's most controversial nominees. The Senate is expected to spend another week on judges, with votes likely this week on at least two U.S. Appeals Court nominees -- California judge Janice Rogers Brown and former Alabama Attorney General William Pryor.

Democrats agreed to allow votes on the two, despite their objections, as part of an agreement reached two weeks ago in order to avert Democratic filibusters and Republican use of the "nuclear option."

Democrats say Brown has a record of decisions that hurt civil rights and the rights of workers.

Republicans defend her rulings. Brown has a long record of accomplishment, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said.

"She is tough," Frist said. "She is smart. She is principled."