After one of the shortest legislative sessions on record, the 110th Congress has scheduled substantially more days in session for 2007. Hoping to avoid the "do-nothing" label that haunted the 109th Congress, Democratic leaders are hoping the additional time will not only allow for the adoption of their initial "100 hours" agenda, but also the timely completion of all appropriations bills before the start of the next fiscal year. Despite the additional days in session, however, it may still be difficult for Democrats to enact their priorities. After Democrats won back control of both the House and Senate in the 2006 elections, the incoming leadership of the House promised to put an end to the typical three-day workweeks that left little time for actual legislative business in 2006. Incoming Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said the first step was to return to a full five-day work week, including scheduling votes on Mondays. This change gives members a reason to return to Washington at the start of the week or risk missing votes. Hoyer and the Democratic leadership crafted a legislative schedule for 2007 that included a 28 percent increase in the number of days in session (from 125 to 160), and more importantly, a 54 percent increase in days where legislative votes will be held (from 72 to 111). The Senate has a net of three more days in session through Labor Day and is likely to have a schedule similar to the one published by the House for September and October. The extra time in Washington seems to be making a difference already. After the election, House Democrats pledged to enact legislation to address critical priorities within the first 100 legislative hours. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) vowed that, "Democrats will get to work immediately to restore civility, integrity, and fiscal responsibility to the House, while increasing prosperity, opportunity, and security for all Americans." Since Jan. 4, they have passed six bills as part of that "100 hours agenda" (H.R. 1 - H.R. 6) by healthy majorities - attracting at least 24 Republicans on each bill. The Senate, traditionally a slower moving body, has also had similar success, passing a major overhaul to ethics and lobbying rules last week in its first bill (Click here and here for summaries of that bill). The Senate will move to debate a raise to the minimum wage this week and hopes to pass an increase by the end of January. Despite the increased days in session and early success, it may be equally hard for the Democrats to fully enact their top agenda items and all the FY 2008 appropriations bills on time. With only a one-vote majority in the Senate and a president from the other party in the White House, Democrats will have to craft moderate legislation that not only attracts sufficient support to overcome a possible filibuster in the Senate, but that will also be acceptable to President Bush. This tenuous balance may create long delays and roadblocks centered around controversial issues such as supplemental funding of the Iraq war, stem cell research, tax policy, and adequately funding domestic programs to meet the increasing needs in communities around the country. While the Democrats may not be able to pass as many of their top priority items as they would like, the increased time Congress will spend working in Washington will certainly allow them the opportunity to conduct more thorough oversight of government and investigate troubling and unacceptable performance in a wide variety of areas and topics. Congressional oversight has been almost nonexistent during the Bush presidency, continuing a downward trend that started in the late 1960s. Joel Aberbach, a political scientist at UCLA reported the overall number of oversight hearings in the House fell from 782 during the first six months of 1983 to 287 during the first six months of 1997 — a drop of 63 percent. The falloff in the Senate between 1983 and 1997 is equally large — 59 percent (from 429 to 175). Last fall, Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann cited a steady drop in committee and subcommittee meetings and hearings overall as one of the main impediments to proper congressional oversight. "In the 1960s and 1970s, Congress held an average of 5,372 committee and subcommittee meetings every two years; in the 1980s and 1990s, the average was 4,793; and in 2003-4, it was 2,135." A longer legislative session has provided the opportunity for Democrats to stay true to their campaign pledges to conduct rigorous oversight and pass appropriations and other legislation in a timely manner, but does not assure them success in either endeavor. It still falls to the leadership and committee chairs to actually hold hearings, find compromise and move legislation before the new Congress can truly be judged a better functioning institution than the last one.