SEN RICK SCOTT: Americans work five days a week, why can’t the Senate?

Rick Scott's math isn't complicated. Most Americans clock in five days a week, fifty-some weeks a year, and don't get to vote on their own attendance. The Senate, meanwhile, treats a three-day work week like an entitlement, even as a government shutdown deadline sits on the calendar and a voter ID bill that a majority of the country actually supports gathers dust. That's not a scheduling quirk. That's a choice about priorities.

The SAVE America Act isn't some fringe proposal. Requiring proof of identity to vote is the kind of thing that polls well across party lines because it's common sense to most people who've had to show ID to board a plane, buy cough syrup, or open a bank account. Yet it can't get floor time, while the calendar keeps filling up with recess weeks. If the Senate can find time to leave town, it can find time to vote.

None of this is new, and that's the problem. Every cycle it's the same complaint about a body that moves slower than the country it's supposed to serve, and every cycle the response is a press release instead of a schedule change. Scott is right to say it plainly: Americans don't get to skip Fridays because the work is hard. Neither should the Senate.

At some point the excuse-making runs out. A body staring down a shutdown deadline while sitting on election integrity legislation isn't overworked. It's under-motivated, and voters notice the difference.