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Tentative Senate calendar for 2024 available

Like their House counterparts, senators plan to be away from D.C. quite a bit

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., walks down the steps outside the Senate side of the Capitol on Wednesday.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., walks down the steps outside the Senate side of the Capitol on Wednesday. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

The Senate will begin the new year on Jan. 8 and end it on Dec. 20, according to a tentative schedule circulated Friday.

Unlike the House — which could still change its plans — the Senate is slated to be in session the week of Jan. 22, when a second spending package for fiscal 2024 is in theory going to be considered ahead of a Feb. 2 deadline in the stopgap spending law President Joe Biden signed late Thursday.

But the Senate will make up for that time spent in Washington during what would ordinarily be a recess in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday by taking a two-week Presidents Day recess the following month.

And the rest of the election year is heavy on recesses as well, if the tentative schedule holds, including two weeks in late March and early April; another week in late April; two weeks around the Fourth of July; and the typical August recess, set to run for five weeks next year.

The entire month of October would be spent campaigning rather than legislating, and the chamber would then be in session for a post-election lame duck session for two weeks in November and three in December.

The combined House and Senate legislative calendar for next year can be seen here.

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