House Has Quiet, Final Say as 104th Congress Adjourns

WASHINGTON — The Republican 104th Congress adjourned Friday after a tranquil 52-minute session, with only a handful of lawmakers and aides and about 150 tourists in the cavernous House chamber when Rep. Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.) gaveled the two years of labor to an end at 2:52 p.m. EDT.

Friday’s end to House business marked the earliest Congress had gone home since 1976, another election year, when the final gavel fell on Oct. 1. The Senate had finished Thursday.

Given the two years of often vehement grappling between the two parties, Friday’s session was markedly amicable, with members of the rival parties shaking hands and even embracing.

As the House finished its final bill, designating Colorado’s Cache La Poudre River a national water heritage area, the liberal, vocal and retiring Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.) joked to her GOP rivals: “You would wait for last, wouldn’t you, to bring this up.”

From across the chamber, the conservative Rep. Gerald B.H. Solomon (R-N.Y.) drew laughter by replying: “I just wanted to make sure the gentlelady had the last word.”