In one of the most activist lame-duck sessions ever,
Democrats and President Barack Obama appeared on the
verge Tuesday of pulling off a series of stunning
legislative victories during a term that can’t end soon
enough for Republicans, who are increasingly frustrated
that November’s landslide has given way to what one
senator described as GOP “capitulation.”
The latest Democratic victory: a 67-28 vote Tuesday
closing off debate on the New START with Russia limiting
nuclear arms. Despite a tense, closed-door meeting among
GOP senators before the vote, 11 Republicans agreed to
close off debate on the New START agreement.
Observers say that means the treaty is very likely to be
ratified as early as Wednesday.
Speaking on Fox News radio Friday, Sen. Lindsey Graham,
R-S.C., blasted members of his own caucus for not
fighting more effectively to thwart the Democratic
agenda.
"When it's all going to be said and done, [Senate
Majority Leader] Harry Reid has eaten our lunch," Graham
said. "This has been a capitulation in two weeks of
dramatic proportions of policies that wouldn't have
passed in the new Congress."
Most lame-duck sessions take up stopgap spending
measures, symbolic resolutions, and minor pieces of
legislation. But for Republicans, the lame-duck Congress
of 2010 may be one they’d rather forget.
Republican senators opened the lame-duck session by
stating that, beyond a continuing resolution to fund the
government and the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts,
they wanted to “kick the can” on any other legislation
down the road until a much more conservation 112th
Congress could take office in January.
GOP leaders were able to cut a deal with President Obama
on extension of the Bush tax cuts. But that bargain came
at a steep price — billions in unemployment benefits and
tax breaks. Some pundits say the tax-cut compromise
effectively handed the president the second stimulus he
so desperately needed to try to revive the economy. And
some grass-roots conservatives grumbled because there
were no corresponding cuts in spending.
Other than taxes, the big victory for Republicans in the
lame-duck session was the defeat of the $1.2 trillion
omnibus spending bill, which contained more than 6,600
earmarks. Reid thought he had the Republican votes he
needed, but a last-minute backlash from tea party
supporters put the kibosh on the nearly 2,000-page
funding bill.
On Tuesday, several Republicans — including Sens. Scott
Brown of Massachusetts, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee,
Dick Lugar of Indiana, Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Bob
Corker of Tennessee — appeared ready to line up and vote
to approve President Obama’s nuclear arms agreement with
Russia.
News that some Republicans would cross the aisle to
support the New START prompted one major GOP
fund-raising group, the National Republican Trust PAC,
to pledge to recruit primary opponents to run against
any Republican senator who votes to approve the deal
with the Russians.
Several other key pieces of legislation passed during
Democrats’ lame-duck revival:
- A repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which
political wags say will fire up the liberal base
whose energy was markedly lacking in the midterm
elections
- Completion of a food safety bill that grants the
federal government broad new power to inspect food
processing plants, while raising the standards for
food imported into the United States
- Republicans agreed to ease a blockade that had
stopped about 20 of Obama’s judicial nominations
from being seated on the federal bench
- The continuing resolution to fund the government
includes an amendment that institutes Obama’s
proposal for a two-year freeze in federal worker pay
- In an administrative rather than congressional
decision, the FCC moved Tuesday to impose limited
“net neutrality” regulations on Internet providers,
a move strongly opposed by Republicans. The ruling
is widely expected to be challenged in the courts.
On the other side of the ledger, Republicans were able
to block the DREAM Act, which would have provided a
limited route to amnesty for illegal residents who
enroll in college or serve in the military. The fate of
a bill providing benefits to 9/11 first responders
remained undetermined Tuesday.
Sarah Binder, a Brookings Institution senior fellow,
told ABC News that Democrats were united by the
knowledge that a much more conservative Congress was
poised to take the reins in Washington come January.
“The prospect of sharing the gavel with Republicans
seems to have motivated Democrats to keep up a
relentless push to the end – knowing that many of these
legislative efforts would be dead on arrival in the new
Congress,” said Binder.
As reported by TheHill.com, Graham lamented in his
interview with WTMA radio that some Republicans appear
to be almost as afraid of the new incoming Congress as
Democrats.
"I can understand the Democrats being afraid of the new
Republicans. I can't understand Republicans being afraid
of the new Republicans," he said.
A lame-duck session, Graham complained, is not an
opportunity “to take everything you couldn't do for two
years and jam it. It's literally what they're doing,
across the board. And after a while, I stop blaming
them, and I blame us."
Graham blamed a handful of outgoing Republicans for
letting Democrats have their way in the lame-duck
Congress.
“And that's what makes me so upset," he said. "It makes
me disappointed that, with a new group of Republicans
coming in, we could get a better deal on almost
everything."
American Enterprise Institute scholar Norm Ornstein told
ABC News 2010 may be the most productive lame-duck
session ever.
“It’s a smashing set of achievements, whether you like
them or don’t like them,” he said.
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