A wild presidential primary has overshadowed the Senate’s work, and big-ticket items such as the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal and criminal sentencing reform have been shelved.

That means Senate Republicans planning to tout their majority’s accomplishments will have to lean heavily on their 2015 record.
“This has been one of the least productive Congress’s in decades,” said Darrell West, director of governance studies at the left-leaning Brookings Institution. “They went into election mode very early in the cycle.”

Only 50 legislative days remain until Congress breaks for the political conventions in July, a shorter calendar than in recent presidential cycles.