Democrats should pledge now to refrain from approving controversial legislation during the lame-duck session.
Barack Obama’s considerable political capital, earned on Election Day 2008, is spent. Well spent, mind you, on the enactment of a highly ideological agenda of Obamacare, financial reform, and a near trillion-dollar stimulus that will significantly transform the country. But spent nonetheless. There’s nothing left with which to complete his social-democratic ambitions. This would have to await the renewed mandate that would come with a second inaugural.
That’s why, as I suggested last week, nothing of major legislative consequence is likely to occur for the next two-and-a-half years. Except, as columnist Irwin Stelzer points out, for one constitutional loophole: a lame-duck Congress called back into session between the elections this November and the swearing-in of the 112th Congress next January.
Leading Democrats are already considering this as a way to achieve even more liberal measures that many of their members dare not even talk about, let alone enact, on the eve of an election in which they face widespread backlash to the already enacted elements of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda.
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