Four senators skip weekend votes

Four senators decided not to work during a rare Saturday session.

{mosads}Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.) missed all of Saturday’s votes, including one to avert a shutdown and fund the federal government through September.

The Saturday session took most senators by surprise. Late Friday night, most believed a deal had been worked out to move weekend votes to Monday evening, but Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) thwarted the plan.

None of Saturday’s votes were close enough that the missing senators would have made a difference. The final vote to send President Obama the $1.1 trillion “cromnibus” was 56-40.

Coburn has been battling cancer and retiring at the end of the year — Chambliss is also retiring.

This was the first weekend session of year for the Senate. The upper chamber is expected to adjourn next week after completing work on a tax extenders package and confirming 24 of President Obama’s nominations.

“Rather than playing Majority Leader Reid’s game of staying in Washington for procedural votes that don’t require a single Republican, I chose to be home with more than 30,000 Oklahomans in meetings and events,” Inhofe said. “I am returning Sunday, eager to vote for the tax extenders package and other serious legislation that awaits passage in the Senate.”

— This article was updated at 9:50 a.m. on Dec. 15.