House To Return From Monthlong Vacation To Grueling, 9-Day Work Month

After taking almost the entire month of August off, House leadership has penciled in just nine workdays for September.

The official calendar has been out since January, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called attention to the House's sparsely populated schedule in a press conference Thursday.

Reid's reminder came just hours after Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) attempted to push back against reports that have found decreasing levels of productivity in Congress over the past few years. Reviews of the total number of bills passed in the 112th Congress showed that it was the least productive session since the 1940s. The 113th is currently on pace to get even less done than that.

While September may not be a particularly busy month, the Washington Post reported earlier this year that the 126 workdays scheduled for 2013 were actually an increase from the 2012 calendar.