Congress Extends Its Year
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15- Before the 109th Congress arrives in January, the current group of lawmakers will meet to deal with unfinished business in a lame-duck session that begins tomorrow and will likely end Friday.
Budgetary issues and intelligence reform are the most pressing concerns lawmakers face, but it is unclear how the House and Senate will move to act on issues they failed to resolve over the past two years.
The lame-duck session also will provide a glimpse into party strategies before the new Congress convenes in January with strengthened Republican majorities in both the House and Senate and under the direction of Republican President George Bush, who has pledged to accomplish more bipartisan work during his second term.
Majority Leader Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and the 108th Congress passed only four of 13 appropriations bills during the last session, leaving it unknown how much funding will go toward areas like energy, agriculture and education.
Three of the four bills that did pass before the election involved military spending: the defense bill, the Homeland Security bill and the military construction bill.
Republican leadership will also likely push to increase the current $7.4 trillion federal debt ceiling by roughly $650 million to accommodate government spending, a move Democrats will point to as an example of Republican fiscal irresponsibility.
“It’s slam-dunk evidence of the dysfunctional Republican Congress that they have to call a special session to extend the nation’s borrowing limit in the face of bloated deficits and debt spiraling out of control,” said former presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
Steve Schwadron, spokesman for Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., added that Republicans have failed to level with the American public about their massive spending habits.
“This leadership insisted on tax cuts, insisted on this bogus prescription drug plan and the war is very costly,” said Schwadron. “If you’re going to do all this, let’s stop pretending. We’ve hit the legal limit for the public debt. If they don’t want to raise it, then we shouldn’t be spending at this pace.”
“Omnibus” bill may be next
Republicans may avoid a direct vote on the debt ceiling by rolling the increase into an “omnibus” spending bill for legislators to vote on. The umbrella package could encompass multiple appropriations and provide a quick fix to avoid wrangling over separate, detailed appropriations bills.
Congress also could pass a continuing resolution, which would allow spending to continue at its current level until a designated January date when the new members would be forced to address appropriations bills. The current continuing resolution ends Saturday.
According to Vanderbilt University political science professor Bruce Oppenheimer, author of several books about Congress, omnibus spending bills often result in a mixed bag – and frequently, lawmakers don’t even know what they’re voting for.
“The fine print gets lost,” Oppenheimer said. “There will be stuff slipped in and slipped out at the end. I usually think of it as a ‘Clint Eastwood bill.’ You get the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
Regarding intelligence reform, the House and Senate have sparred over specific terms that would address recommendations from the Sept. 11 commission.
Intelligence budget secret
Last Monday, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, author of the Senate bill, announced an important concession to House Republicans by agreeing to keep the size of the nation’s overall intelligence budget secret. Formerly, the Senate version of the bill followed commission recommendations to publicly disclose the figure.
Both the House and Senate already have responded to one of the commission’s primary recommendations by passing bills to create a national intelligence director post that would improve coordination between the CIA and FBI. Differences in the extent of that authority, however, continue to hamstring progress.
While his office remains hopeful that intelligence reform will be accomplished, Schwadron said “an intra-Republican meltdown” may prevent the bill’s passage before the lame-duck session ends, as Republicans in the House and Senate cannot agree on certain terms of their respective bills.
Kerry, who claimed that Republican leaders are “preparing to set aside intelligence reform,” said that the majority party has failed to execute two central aspects of its platform.
“Can they even claim with a straight face to be fiscal conservatives or security hawks?” Kerry asked. “We need to offer strong reforms for our security and a blueprint for restoring fiscal responsibility.”
Four lame-ducks in a row
Despite an amendment to the Constitution in 1933 that shifted congressional and presidential calendars to minimize the frequency of these sessions, this is the fourth consecutive lame-duck session.
While unfinished appropriations work is the most frequent cause of the extended sessions, associate Senate historian Donald Ritchie said there have been noteworthy lame-duck moments.
In 2002, legislation for the creation of the department of Homeland Security and the Sept. 11 commission was passed. Bill Clinton was impeached by the House in a 1998 lame-duck session, only to be acquitted later by the Senate. And former Sen. Joseph McCarthy was censured by the Senate in a December lame-duck session in 1954.
According to Ritchie, there are many reasons Congress may not finish its business before elections, from disagreements between the House and Senate to making sure the president’s agenda is taken care of by his congressional leaders.
“The congressional schedule has always worked a little like an accordion,” Ritchie said. “There are times when it spreads out and not a lot gets done, and there are times when it’s packed in and very intense.”
It also helps that the pre-election pressure is gone.
“They have certain work to get done,” Ritchie said. “And they can operate with more speed and efficiency when they’re not looking over their shoulder.”
