With homeland security being such a national priority, one would expect Congress and the Department of Homeland Security to have a well-organized relationship.

Unfortunately, that is not the case.

On Wednesday, the House Homeland Security Committee marked up a bill that would reauthorize the Department of Homeland Security for the first time since 2002, when the department was conceived.

Why has Congress put off the task for so long? In large part because over the past 15 years, Homeland Security has reported to between 80 and 120 different committees and subcommittees in Congress.

This complicated oversight arrangement exists because the committees that originally had jurisdiction over the department’s component organizations refuse to give up their power.

When portions of 22 different organizations, spanning from the Department of Defense to the Department of Transportation, were consolidated following 9/11 to form the Department of Homeland Security, they all continued to report to their original congressional committees.

Ultimately, this fractured reporting process complicates the reauthorization process. Why do eight committee chairs have to work together to authorize a single department?

In addition, Congress’ impracticable way of organizing its jurisdiction lends itself to producing an oversight process that is duplicative and contradictory.

For example, the homeland security committees could provide guidance to the Department of Homeland Security on how ports or border crossings should be improved. The agriculture, finance, judiciary, and other committees, however, could have completely different opinions, forcing Homeland Security to reconcile multiple views from Congress.

Not only does this harm Homeland Security operations, it lessens the impact of congressional oversight.

Further, because the department reports to around 100 committees and subcommittees, it spends countless work hours and millions of dollars testifying before Congress on its progress and status.

This repetitive and wasteful habit must be eliminated in order to allow the department to return to its primary mission of protecting the homeland.

In order to resolve the oversight conflict, the Department of Homeland Security’s reporting system must be streamlined.

The department should only report to six congressional committees: the House and Senate Homeland Security, Intelligence, and Appropriations Committees. In doing so, Homeland Security would be following the model of the Department of Defense.

After all, it’s a bit ridiculous that Homeland Security, which has a budget one-tenth the size of the Department of Defense, currently reports to over three times as many committees.

The current Department of Homeland Security oversight structure that Congress has in place prioritizes politics over security. Countless bipartisan organizations and individuals have acknowledged that the prevailing system is outdated and only remains in existence to satisfy narrow parochial interests.

As such, it is pivotal that these power politics are put aside in order to protect the interests of the American people.

Streamlining congressional oversight would allow both Congress and the Department of Homeland Security to function more efficiently, and the U.S. homeland will be safer because of it. (For more from the author of “How to Resolve Tangled Relationship Between Congress and Homeland Security” please click HERE)

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Hours before the federal government’s spending authority expired Friday at midnight, the Senate advanced a one-week continuing resolution by voice vote, putting spending on autopilot and avoiding a looming government shutdown.

The Senate action followed a 382-30 House vote to pass the one-week extension. Without the measure, the government would have run out of money as Friday turned to Saturday.

The makeshift spending agreement allows lawmakers in the House and Senate to negotiate until next Friday to come to a deal and pass a huge, omnibus spending bill to fund the government through the rest of fiscal year 2017, which ends Sept. 30.

“It really bothers me that we’re so late in getting this thing done,” Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., said of the 11th-hour spending resolution in an interview with The Daily Signal.

Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., a member of the House Appropriations Committee, told The Daily Signal that the omnibus bill, expected to be introduced Monday, is progressing well.

“My understanding is that the omnibus bill is nearly complete, that … we may actually be able to combine all the separate appropriations bills into that omnibus bill, and that’s good news,” Harris said in an interview.

Votes on the omnibus spending bill are expected on Thursday.

Funding for President Donald Trump’s border wall is not included. Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate have said they prefer to put off a fight with Democrats over beginning to pay for the wall until the fall, rather than as part of funding the government for the rest of the current fiscal year.

“Full border wall funding can’t be there at this point,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., a supporter of the wall, said in a recent interview with The Daily Signal. “It’s not designed, prototypes have not been created.”

Biggs said he is preparing an amendment to defund Planned Parenthood for inclusion in the omnibus spending bill. He said it mirrors Vice President Mike Pence’s amendment to defund Planned Parenthood that the House passed in 2011, when Pence was a Republican congressman from Indiana.

National defense must be a priority in the omnibus bill, Harris said.

“I look forward to a very lively discussion for the next year’s appropriations bills on the president’s plan to begin to prioritize funding within the nonmandatory side of the ledger and to re-emphasize defense of the nation and homeland security as a top priority,” Harris said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., predicted controversy for the omnibus bill currently being discussed.

“There are probably still 70 poison pills in the bill that we can’t live with,” Pelosi said Wednesday on CNN.

“One party now controls the White House and both chambers of Congress,” Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, said in a prepared statement about the one-week extension. “It is incumbent upon them to ensure that the government of the American people stays open and is fully funded.”

Biggs, however, sounded cautiously optimistic about what those crafting the omnibus will produce.

“I hope they produce something in writing soon because I don’t know how they expect people to vote on stuff they don’t have time to read,” the Arizona Republican said. (For more from the author of “Congress Gives Itself Another Week to Craft Spending Bill” please click HERE)

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I have rarely been one to argue that Congress spend more time in Washington. In general, the less they are here to create new laws and new regulations and other busybody measures telling the rest of us how to live, the better.

But in order to get less government, we need the current Congress to put in a little more time rolling back the one we have.

As of the end of February, the House of Representatives has spent a total of 31 days doing business in Washington and the U.S. Senate has spent 30. If nothing changes, they are basically on track to meet the same monthly Washington workload as the 114th Congress where the House averaged a whopping 13 days a month in both 2015 and 2016, and the Senate’s monthly average was 14 days across the same time period.

Now I know many members will say that just because they aren’t in Washington doesn’t mean they aren’t working. They are busy, busy back in their districts and states staying in touch with their constituents and learning about issues they need to address.

But let’s be honest. In this brave new connected world of phones, email, the internet, and social media, let’s just say it’s not quite as hard for lawmakers to reach out and touch the folks back home—and vice versa—as it used to be.

Second, what’s the point of learning about new problems to solve when you have yet to deliver on the very ones you’ve already promised to fix?

For more of an “apples to apples” comparison, let’s look at the last two periods where Congress was dealing with a new chief executive.

In 2001, the House was only in session 14 days over the first two months of President George W. Bush’s presidency, and the Senate was here for 25. Republicans, at that time, had majorities in the House and Senate.

In 2009, during the first two months of President Barack Obama’s presidency, the House spent 27 days in session, the Senate was here 34. Democrats controlled both the House and Senate.

Notice a difference? When Democrats have majorities, they tend to run with it.

A look at the legislative history over the first 100 days of the Bush and Obama presidencies provides further evidence.

Congress introduced mostly minor legislative proposals during Bush’s first 100 days, and even his signature legislation, the No Child Left Behind Act, was only introduced—it didn’t actually pass Congress until the end of 2001.

In fact, Bush signed no legislation until June of that year. And that was before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, which understandably altered the Bush administration’s agenda.

Contrast that to the record of Obama, who signed six pieces of legislation in his first 100 days. That’s right, six. And they included some big-ticket items for the left.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was teed up by Democrats in Congress before Obama even took the oath of office, and the new president signed it on Jan. 29. Both the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization and the “stimulus” deal, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, were passed and signed by mid-February.

And none of these bills were bipartisan, unity-building exercises. They got through with mostly Democratic votes.

Fast forward to 2017, when two months into President Donald Trump’s administration, no major legislation has been passed. There is no excuse. Legislation to repeal Obamacare made it’s way through both the House and Senate in 2015. All it needed was a Republican president to sign it.

Republicans could have simply reintroduced that legislation in early January of this year, passed it, and had it ready for Trump to sign his first day in office. But they didn’t.

And, as has been widely reported, even by the mainstream media, Trump’s Cabinet confirmations have gone through at a much slower pace than previous recent administrations. On Day One of the Bush administration, seven Cabinet nominees were confirmed. Six were confirmed on Day One of Obama’s administration.

But on Trump’s? Only two.

Additionally, according to one tracking service monitoring 550 key positions, out of approximately 1,200 across the government that require Senate confirmation (deputy and assistant secretaries, general counsels, chief financial officers, etc.), only 18 of Trump’s have been confirmed as of this writing. Eighteen.

That means the political appointees from the previous administration still hold majority of those positions. And if you think many of them aren’t using every last day they have on the job to block the new administration’s agenda, then you haven’t been following stories about government leaks.

This brings us back to the congressional calendar, particularly the work schedule of the Senate.

Yes, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and company have been using all the parliamentary and procedural tricks they can find to block confirmations and stall the process. Yes, that is very frustrating.

But even more frustrating is that Republicans aren’t doing all they can to put a stop to this.

The Senate does not have a constitutional right to go home. They can be kept in session for as long as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell keeps them there. They can even be forced to work every week, and six or seven days per week, if that’s what it takes to stop this nonsense.

Democrats want to filibuster? Fine. They should be forced to do it all week, Sunday through Saturday.

These folks are public servants, after all, and they would better serve the public by staying in session and getting the people’s business done rather than flying home after three and half days of work each week and complaining at a local ribbon cutting or town hall about all the gridlock in Washington.

Perhaps the problem is that while voters sent a very strong message in the 2016 election, business as usual for Congress hasn’t changed—they typically fly in on Monday mornings and leave on Thursday afternoons.

The idea that at this rate they will succeed in repealing Obamacare, protecting the border, reforming the tax code, overhauling regulations, and making good on other campaign promises they made is increasingly questionable.

According to Gallup, American adults who work full time average 47 hours a week, which breaks down to about six days a week.

If Congress can do its job in half the time it takes the rest of us, great. But there is little evidence to suggest that’s what’s going on.

It’s past time for Congress to realize business as usual isn’t going to get the job done. Congress should do what regular Americans do when a job is left unfinished: work overtime. (For more from the author of “Note to Congress: Light Work Schedule Isn’t Getting the Job Done” please click HERE)

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