I find this “lame duck” session of Congress fascinating. President Obama and the Democrats want to pass all kinds of things* that they apparently didn’t want to vote on before the election because they were afraid they would lose votes if they did so and that they think can’t pass in January once the new Republicans are seated.
In other words, they didn’t vote on these issues before the election because they thought the voters would vote against them if they did. Now that they have lost over 60 seats in the House of Representatives and six in the Senate, they want to hurry up and try to pass them because they figure that the representatives and senators who were actually elected on November 2 would defeat them.
Back in January of 2009, President Obama said, in response to what some ideas Republicans were suggesting to help the economy, that he wasn’t going to do what they were suggesting because he won the election. Which was true.
Well, President Obama and the Democrats lost the election on November 2, 2010. But they want people who were elected over two years ago to pass bills that can’t get passed once the people we just elected are sworn in.
I know that all those defeated, and retiring, senators and representatives are still technically in office. But, in the spirit of what President Obama said in January of 2009, they lost the election. And passing things that they didn’t have the political guts to vote on before the election and that they know won’t pass in January is wrong, even if it is within the rules.
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* Tax hikes for the rich (i.e., extension of the Bush tax cuts for only some people); getting rid of “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the military; etc.
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