N.H. Delegation Sees Quick Lame Duck
By Dennis Mayer
WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 – New Hampshire’s congressional delegation expects a quick and easy lame-duck session when Congress reconvenes next week to take care of pending legislation.
During the session, so called because congressmen who were not re-elected will attend, Congress needs to act on the nine of the 13 spending bills that have not passed. Congress also is expected to raise the federal government’s debt ceiling, currently set at $7.4 trillion, which was reached last month. Legislators also may pass an intelligence reform bill that would reorganize the intelligence community and create a national intelligence director. A conference committee is currently working to reconcile the different versions of the bill passed by the Senate and the House.
Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said he hoped that Congress would quickly finish its work.
“We have to pass a debt ceiling and an appropriations bill, which we should be able to do without a lot of controversy, and it would be nice to get the intelligence bill, done,” Gregg told reporters in a conference call.
Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., one of the legislators trying to hammer out a compromise between the House and Senate versions of the intelligence overhaul, said he expected action on the appropriations bills, but that the intelligence bill had only a “50-50” chance of passing, due to a “small but vocal minority” of House conferees who disagree with the spending powers the Senate version of the bill would bestow on the new intelligence director.
Sununu added that he thought the debt ceiling needed to be adjusted, and that he expected a measure to pass.
“I think that will be addressed without much fanfare,” he said.
Congressman Charlie Bass, R-2 nd District, said he expected that during the lame-duck session, the Republican leadership would focus on organizing the 109 th Congress, which will convene in January.
“That’s going to take a lot of time and attention from the leadership,” he said.
As such, he said he expected that most pending legislation, including the intelligence bill, would be deferred, especially considering that the Republicans will have a bigger majority next term in both houses.
The situation of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who lost his re-election bid to John Thune on Nov. 2, makes any significant legislative action even less likely, Bass said.
“How is the Senate going to operate with a minority leader being a lame duck?” he said.
Bass said he expected that Congress would pass a debt ceiling, and a “continuing resolution” that would provide for the government to continue operating with spending at fiscal 2004 levels. Congress already passed such a resolution – the new fiscal year actually started October 1, and a continuing resolution has kept the government running since then. That resolution expires on Nov. 20, and will need to be extended for any appropriation bills that do not pass, or the federal government will shut down.
Rep. Jeb Bradley, R-1 st District, said he thought most of the work done in the lame-duck session would be on the intelligence bill, and that a resolution of the differences between the two bills was possible.
“There are some differences between the House and the Senate” versions, he said. “Everything I’m hearing is that the conference committees have been working to resolve them.”
