'Hitchhiker's Guide' to Reid bringing the Senate back early over Syria

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was bringing the Senate back on Friday for a brief legislative session. Here's some background on why, and what happens after Friday:

The move will break a nearly interminable, five-week congressional recess a few days early. Neither the Senate nor House has conducted any legislative business nor opened the doors to their respective chambers since early last month. Both bodies were long scheduled to return to action next Monday at 2 p.m. ET.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee raced on Wednesday to forge an agreement on a revised resolution which would assent to the president's plan to hit Syria. A markup session by the panel produced the reconfigured resolution on a vote of 10-7 with one member voting "present."

But despite the machinations and a lengthy, classified debate Wednesday morning which delayed the markup session, the Foreign Relations Committee successfully authored a Syria resolution and aimed to send it the floor.

Which it could do ... if the Senate floor were open for business.

Via: Fox News

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Senate delays Syria test vote

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is delaying a Senate test vote to authorize the use of force against the Syrian regime.

Reid said Monday evening that he would not take a procedural step that would have officially begun the Senate’s debate and set up a test vote on Wednesday. He added that he consulted with the president, fellow Democrats and the Republican leadership before slowing the timeline for the vote.

The shift came as major news networks aired interviews with President Barack Obama, who told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie that a Russian proposal to shift Syria’s chemical weapons cache to international control is a “potentially positive development."

Via: NBC News

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