It wasn’t such a lame-duck session after all. Despite predictions that the final weeks of the 111th Congress would produce little significant legislation, lawmakers pushed through a number of major initiatives in the final days of the session, most of them from the Democratic wish list.
The crowning achievement of the postelection session occurred Wednesday, when the Senate voted 71-26 to ratify a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia. Ratification of the START treaty, which required 66 votes, was for weeks thought to be out of reach because of Republican opposition.
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“The fact that Democrats and Republicans came together to support this common sense measure to keep our nation safe sends the right message to our country and the world,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said.
Approval of the treaty came hours after President Obama signed into law the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on gays serving openly in the military. That measure cleared Congress earlier this week, again defying predictions that it could never overcome Republican opposition.
Congress also managed to push through a massive package of tax cuts and unemployment benefits that Obama negotiated with Republicans, staving off a tax increase in January that would have harmed Democrats politically. In addition, lawmakers approved a food safety bill, a measure to compensate emergency workers injured after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and a slew of judicial nominations that were stalled for months.
Democrats even attempted to pass an immigration-reform measure that would have provided a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who arrived here as children, passing it in the House only to come up short in the Senate.
Democratic strategist Doug Schoen called the lame-duck session a “huge win” for Democrats, pointing specifically to the $858 billion tax cut and unemployment package.
“In exchange for a temporary, two-year extension of tax cuts for upper-income Americans, the president and Democrats got almost $900 billion in new stimulus,” Schoen said.
Republicans, on the other hand, Schoen said, “played a strong hand horrifically.”
Republican strategist Ron Bonjean, however, called the tax cut package a GOP victory and predicted that Democrats would actually suffer at the polls for many of the initiatives they passed.
“Preventing tax increases was forced on the White House by Republicans who could simply pass it again in January,” Bonjean said. “Focusing on gays in the military, immigration and nuclear treaty issues will not win independent voters over.”
Ratification of the treaty came after more than a week of debate, during which Republican opposition slowly melted away as lawmakers realized they could not block a vote on the pact. Many Republicans were unwilling to go on the record in opposition to the treaty despite wanting more time to debate it.
The treaty halves the number of nuclear missile launchers in both countries while increasing inspections and verification programs. Republican opponents argued that the treaty leaves the United States vulnerable by limiting its ability to build missile defense programs and by failing to address tactical nuclear weapons.
