Thread: Beware the lame ducks

[quote]Congress is postponing huge issues until after the elections and there’s a danger in that.

Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) sounded a warning in 2006 when the last big majority shift happened on Capitol Hill, but Congress then returned for a lame duck session:

“It would be a huge mistake to overlook the potential for damage in the lame duck session. A lame duck session doesn’t sound like anything to worry about, but this lame duck may be a lot more dangerous than people think. We can expect Republicans to try to jam through as much of their agenda as they can while they have the chance.â€

I have been concerned about this as well; for instance, John McCain voting for amnesty should he lose the election.

I think this is our main danger. Several Republican senators are retiring who voted against amnesty legislation before only because they were pressured into it by their constituents: personally they supported it. These include Bond (R-MO); Brownback (R-KS); Gregg (R-NH); and Voinovitch (R-OH). Democratic Senator Bryon Dorgan, who also is retiring, worked hard with Republican members to defeat amnesty before because he strongly disagreed with the guest worker provision which Republicans insisted be part of the legislation. The same is true of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE). Whether Sen. Dorgan will be willing to put the same amount of energy into this when he only has a few months remaining in office is questionable; and, of course, Sen. Ben Nelson's name now is "under a cloud". The same is true of Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), one of the strongest opponents of amnesty last time. Sen. Robt. Byrd (D-WV), who also opposed it, is quite ill now; and Sen. Mary Landieu (D-LA) may not vote against her leadership a second time because her state is so dependent upon "federal clean up" money now.

Maine Sens. Collins and Snowe only changed their votes to "No" at the end under overwhelming pressure from their constituents and the rest of the nation, and Republican leaders Sens. Cornyn (TX) and Kyl (AZ) are pro-amnesty and a new guestworker program, as is Sen. Hutchison (R-TX) and influencial Republican Congressman Mike Pence (IN).

We still have Sens. Jeff Sessions and Sen. Jim DeMint to lead opposition, but not the strong bi-partisan line-up there was before. Guiterrez himself said that he was counting on the lame-duck session to pass his legislation, and Schumer has come out saying that CIR will be passed by "March, 2011". Of course, President Bush also said he "would see us at the bill signing", so hopefully the Dems. will be proven wrong, too.