Updated: 4:06 p.m.

Acknowledging the scant time available to clear spending bills and other must-pass priorities before Election Day, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) put Senators on notice that he will reconvene the chamber for a lame-duck session on Nov. 15, according to his office.

The Senate will adjourn this week until Sept. 13, then work for four weeks before leaving Oct. 8 to campaign for the Nov. 2 midterm elections.

The Senate will work the week of Nov. 15, recess for the week of Thanksgiving and come back Nov. 29 — with an adjournment date to be determined, according to Reid’s schedule.

Some Senators and interest groups have held out hope that Congress could take up a sweeping climate change measure or immigration reform in the lame duck. However, the most likely candidates for action after the election are measures funding the federal government and possibly an extension of expiring tax cuts.

House Democrats have not yet said whether they will have lame-duck session.

“We are still working to get as much done before targeted adjournment as possible,” said Katie Grant, spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

“We have completed our work in the House to begin to dig our economy out of the massive hole left by the Bush Administration and Congressional Republicans and despite opposition from House Republicans and obstruction from Senate Republicans,” said Nadeam Elshami, spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “Next week we will vote to keep tens of thousands of teachers on the job instead of on the unemployment line — which is exactly what Congressional Republicans prefer to do.”

However, House Democrats will have to contend with a vote on a lame-duck session Tuesday, with Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (Ga.) planning to push his privileged resolution on the matter to the floor.

“Congress should pledge to those who have elected them that they will not circumvent the basic rule of accountability by pursuing, after the fact, legislation that the American people do not want and which our economy cannot afford,” Price said in a statement Thursday.