Legislation gap grows

When the Senate returns from its summer break in September, lawmakers will have quite a full plate of legislation to address: 372 bills, to be exact. That's the number of bills passed by the House that are awaiting action in the Senate.

And with the midterm elections in high gear and partisan rancor already poisoning a potential lame-duck session after November, it's likely most of the House-passed bills will stay on the shelf. A large legislation gap between the House and Senate is not unusual; the Senate was designed, in the famous description by George Washington, as a cooling saucer. But food left out to cool too long will spoil, and so will federal legislation: By law, if a bill is not passed by both chambers in the same Congress, it must be re-introduced in January.