What the Snow Means for Washington: More Delay

WASHINGTON (Feb. 8) -- For a capital city already prone to delay, a week's worth of snow is the last thing Washington needs.

The Blizzard of 2010 threw the District of Columbia into disarray, blanketing streets with impassable mountains of snow and shuttering schools, airports and even the Postal Service. With another blast of snow forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday, the wintry weather threatens to wipe out an entire week of political activity.

The federal government shut down today, a day and a half after the last flakes fell on Saturday. The Senate, which closed early Thursday to allow lawmakers time to get out of town before the storm, has postponed all votes until Tuesday at the earliest. And the ripple effect extends further: A Senate hearing on child prostitution and sex trafficking scheduled for Tuesday morning has already been postponed.

Congress is in even more of a time squeeze because it is running up against another one of its frequent vacations -- er, recesses (officially termed "state work periods"). Whereas most of America gets one day off for holidays -- in this case, Presidents Day on Feb. 15 -- lawmakers usually take the whole week.

The biggest legislative victim of the winter deluge could be the president's self-described No. 1 priority for 2010: a jobs bill.

In his State of the Union address last month, President Barack Obama urged lawmakers to send him legislation with incentives for job creation "without delay." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had hoped to bring a bill up for a vote before leaving for the Presidents Day recess.

The measure, which is likely to include tax cuts for small businesses and credits for employers who hire new workers, had already faced delays as Democrats try to lined up Republican support and pass a rare bipartisan bill. And because of the complex procedural hurdles needed to reach "cloture" and overcome a filibuster, the legislation might now have to wait until Congress returns Feb. 22.

A spokesman for Reid, Jim Manley, said this morning that no decisions had been made about plans for voting on the jobs bill, including whether the majority leader was considering pushing back or canceling the upcoming break. As much as delay is a fact of life in the Senate, lawmakers have been known to act when they really want to.

Witness the health care bill. After months of debate and several missed deadlines, senators worked through an earlier December blizzard to finish the legislation and delayed their winter recess to hold a final vote on Christmas Eve. (Of course, legislative life returned to normal after the holidays, and protracted negotiations between House and Senate leaders allowed Democrats to lose their filibuster-proof majority before they could hold a final vote.)

With jobs legislation now getting a taste of the health care Senate slowdown, at least Democrats and Republicans can finally agree on someone to blame: Mother Nature.