Caught on a clerk’s microphone as the roll call for a vote on the Highway Trust Fund patch was read, the senator tells the clerk it is time for “summer vacation.”  

“We have a plane home … [at] 9:30,” the senator says to the clerk. “Bags are packed, ready to go … leaving on a jet plane.”  

Although the Senate is in session today, the next vote series is scheduled for Sept. 8,  when senators return from a five-week recess.