WASHINGTON — As Congress recessed early Saturday for the homestretch of a bruising midterm campaign, Republicans left town with a record of accomplishment that paled in comparison to the grand ambitions they laid out following their 2004 election triumphs.
It remains uncertain whether the gap between what the GOP set out to do and what it achieved will haunt its bid to retain control of the House and Senate -- elections are decided by many factors beyond legislative scorecards. Still, the tally for the 109th Congress looms as a potential burden for Republican candidates.
During the two-year session, President Bush and his party abandoned or scaled back the groundbreaking initiatives they once promised voters: a remake of Social Security, a federal ban on gay marriage, strict new limits on special-interest political influence, and a broad overhaul of immigration law that would find a place for many illegal immigrants already in the country.
And, instead of returning home on the high note they expected after passing a key national security measure last week, spirits among GOP lawmakers clearly were soured by a new scandal: the sudden resignation of Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) amid revelations of sexually explicit communications he had with teenage male former House pages.
Questions about whether House Republican leaders knew of Foley's improper advances months ago and failed to act seem a likely distraction for the party and its message in the short term. And as November's vote nears, Democrats can be counted on to eagerly portray Congress as dysfunctional in general.
"This is the do-less-than-the-do-nothing Congress," House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said recently, drawing from President Truman's famed attack on Republicans in 1948.
Nonpartisan analysts also have been critical of Congress. Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein -- two think-tank scholars who have written a book about the workings of Capitol Hill titled "The Broken Branch" -- calculate that lawmakers have set a modern record for brevity by sitting in session fewer than 100 days this year.
Given lawmakers' penchant for three-day workweeks, Ornstein and Mann like to quote comedian Mark Russell's line about what members of Congress tell their colleagues every Wednesday: "Have a nice weekend."
Republicans fiercely dispute the do-nothing label, pointing to several key accomplishments. Last week, these included enactment of a new system for prosecuting suspected foreign terrorists and authorization of a 700-mile fence along the Mexico border.
