It seems that our fearless leaders are planning all sorts of stuff for the waning months of the current Congress. Union Card Check, a modest cap and trade energy bill to be seriously upgraded behind closed doors in conference, a universal federal voter registration program that would override state laws, a lot of new taxes, and a lot of spending including a lot of pork.
As the clock ticks relentlessly on and the stomach turns, it's anybody's guess how much of it they'll get done, but since everybody seems to be resigned that it is the Democrats' last chance to do it, they're going to try to do a whole lot of it.
Or of couse they could take the statesmanlike approach and hear the people and not act hastily and without careful thought.
What do you think the chances are of that?
Odds anyone?
As the clock ticks relentlessly on and the stomach turns, it's anybody's guess how much of it they'll get done, but since everybody seems to be resigned that it is the Democrats' last chance to do it, they're going to try to do a whole lot of it.
Or of couse they could take the statesmanlike approach and hear the people and not act hastily and without careful thought.
What do you think the chances are of that?
Odds anyone?
The Obama-Pelosi Lame Duck Strategy
By JOHN FUND
WSJ - July 9, 2010
Democratic House members are so worried about the fall elections they're leaving Washington on July 30, a full week earlier than normal—and they won't return until mid-September. Members gulped when National Journal's Charlie Cook, the Beltway's leading political handicapper, predicted last month "the House is gone," meaning a GOP takeover. He thinks Democrats will hold the Senate, but with a significantly reduced majority.
The rush to recess gives Democrats little time to pass any major laws. That's why there have been signs in recent weeks that party leaders are planning an ambitious, lame-duck session to muscle through bills in December they don't want to defend before November. Retiring or defeated members of Congress would then be able to vote for sweeping legislation without any fear of voter retaliation.
John Fund discusses the Democratic agenda for the lame duck Congress, including cap and trade, card-check, and pork.
"I've got lots of things I want to do" in a lame duck, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W. Va.) told reporters in mid June. North Dakota's Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, wants a lame-duck session to act on the recommendations of President Obama's deficit commission, which is due to report on Dec. 1. "It could be a huge deal," he told Roll Call last month. "We could get the country on a sound long-term fiscal path." By which he undoubtedly means new taxes in exchange for extending some, but not all, of the Bush-era tax reductions that will expire at the end of the year.
In the House, Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters last month that for bills like "card check"—the measure to curb secret-ballot union elections—"the lame duck would be the last chance, quite honestly, for the foreseeable future."
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, chair of the Senate committee overseeing labor issues, told the Bill Press radio show in June that "to those who think [card check] is dead, I say think again." He told Mr. Press "we're still trying to maneuver" a way to pass some parts of the bill before the next Congress is sworn in.
Other lame-duck possibilities? Senate ratification of the New Start nuclear treaty, a federally mandated universal voter registration system to override state laws, and a budget resolution to lock in increased agency spending.
Then there is pork. A Senate aide told me that "some of the biggest porkers on both sides of the aisle are leaving office this year, and a lame-duck session would be their last hurrah for spending." Likely suspects include key members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Congress's "favor factory," such as Pennsylvania Democrat Arlen Specter and Utah Republican Bob Bennett.
More here:
John Fund: The Obama-Pelosi Lame Duck Strategy - WSJ.com
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