Evenas the Senate prepared to deal with a massive package of tax cuts and unemployment benefits, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday pulled out a long list of other Democratic priorities that have stalled in Congress and said lawmakers may have to remain in session through the holidays to deal with them. While many had speculated the Senate would leave town in the coming days, Reid, D-Nev., said he wants the chamber to deal with a variety of other issues that many had all but written off in the face of Republican opposition, including a $1.1 trillion plan to fund the federal government and the ratification of the New START nuclear arms treaty. If necessary, Reid said, the Senate could remain in session until Jan. 5, when the new Congress, in which Republicans will have expanded control, is sworn in.
Among the measures Reid wants to resurrect is the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who arrive in the United States as children, and a bill that would overturn the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on gays serving openly in the military. Neither had enough support to pass last week, but Democratic leaders want to try again this week.
Reid said he also wants to take another crack at a bill that would compensate emergency workers injured by the dust created in the aftermath of the collapse of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The bill failed a key test vote last week.
Reid blamed Republicans for the year-end pileup of bills, saying the GOP repeatedly blocked efforts to get things done. The tax bill, for instance, could have been taken up much earlier, Reid said, if Republicans had agreed to a faster timetable. The arms agreement between the United States and Russia, Reid added, was initially slated for floor debate in the summer but was stalled by Republican objections.
“I know how much time we have before Christmas, but remember, there is still Congress after Christmas,” Reid said, “So if the Republicans think that because they can stall and stall and stall, that we take a break, we’re through, we’re not through. Congress ends on Jan. 4. So we’re going to continue working on this stuff until we get it done.”
Republican leaders scoffed at the threat of a post-Christmas session and called Reid’s agenda “impossible” to achieve in the remaining days of the lame duck session.
“At some point you can no longer, with a straight face, I think, carry the proposition that we are going to do this whole long list of things before the Christmas recess,” said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. “It’s simply impossible to have the time to do them right.”
The Senate on Wednesday is expected to take up both the New START treaty and a bill to fund the federal government through fiscal 2011 that Republicans claim is loaded with wasteful spending.
“I am working actively to defeat it,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “I do not think this is the appropriate way to run the Senate.”
