Opinion
The Big Tent
WASHINGTON — Whatever voters decide on Tuesday, the 119th Congress is not finished. Lawmakers return on Nov. 9 for a lame-duck session with a long list of unfinished business, and the temptation for the party in power will be to treat the weeks before January as a last chance to jam through whatever it could not pass in the light of day.
That would be a mistake, for Republicans and for the country.
Start with the basics. Government funding runs only through Dec. 11, and the House has passed just three of the 12 annual appropriations bills, according to The Hill. That is the core job of Congress, and it is badly behind. The first priority of the lame duck should be to keep the government open and fund it for the full year through regular, bipartisan bills that both chambers can actually pass.
A third party-line bill is the wrong priority
Republican leaders are instead openly weighing another round of budget reconciliation, the procedure that lets the majority pass tax and spending bills in the Senate with a simple majority and no filibuster. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has been candid that the votes are not there yet. “Right now, we don’t have the votes to get on a third recon bill,” he said, adding, “We might have them after,” according to The Hill.
Think about what that means. The plan, in effect, is to wait and see whether members who lose their seats on Tuesday, and who no longer answer to voters, become more willing to go along. That is precisely the kind of maneuver that erodes public trust in Congress. Reconciliation was designed for budget questions, not as a way to rush sweeping policy through in the final weeks of a session.
Democrats have abused procedural shortcuts too when they held power, and I have said so. But the standard should be the same regardless of who holds the gavel: major legislation in a lame duck should be the kind that can draw votes from both sides of the aisle, not the kind that can only pass because some members are on their way out.
Do the work that has bipartisan support
There is plenty of that kind of work available. More than 30 nominees are pending before the Senate, according to The Hill’s reporting, and many of them are routine positions that should be filled. Permitting reform, including H.R. 2347, has drawn interest from members of both parties who want to build transmission lines, pipelines and clean-energy projects faster. The annual defense authorization and the remaining appropriations bills have historically been bipartisan.
These are the things a responsible Congress finishes before handing the keys to the next one. They are not glamorous, but they are the difference between governing and campaigning.
Respect the voters
The deeper principle is simple. On Tuesday, Americans will deliver a verdict on the direction of the country. Whichever party wins, the next Congress, seated in January, will carry the most recent mandate from voters. A lame-duck majority that tries to lock in partisan priorities in the weeks after that verdict is, in effect, telling voters that their choice matters less than the outgoing majority’s wish list.
Democrats should hold themselves to the same principle if they win and the roles are reversed in some future session. Institutions work when both parties believe the rules will not be bent against them the moment the other side has a short window to do it.
There will be pressure from activists on the right to “finish the job” before January. Party leaders should resist it. Fund the government. Confirm the nominees who have broad support. Pass the bipartisan bills that are ready. Then let the new Congress, with its fresh mandate, take up the big fights in the open.
That is not weakness. It is what a serious governing party, of either stripe, ought to do.
Margaret Hollister is the pen name of a Washington Inquisitor opinion columnist writing from an establishment Democrat perspective. The views expressed are the author’s own and not those of The Washington Inquisitor.
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