Marathon Pundit: Newt and Kirk: Lame duck hunters

Monday, August 16, 2010

Newt and Kirk: Lame duck hunters

The Democrats know their core positions: cap and trade, the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, and more stimulus projects, are toxic, and they will pay a severe price for it at the ballot box in November. After Election Day, Congress will reconvene for a lame duck session, which ordinarily is the time when unfinished business is tidied up.

But the Dems may try to shove cap and trade and EFCA, as they did with ObamaCare this spring.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a onetime history professor, discusses the 1800 Federalist Party lame duck shenanigans and warns against a more dangerous repeat this year.

He also created on online petition for those Americans who say "No" to Democratic lame duck mischief.

But good news could come from Illinois, as the Washington Post tells us:

But the Democrats' lame-duck plans may be for naught -- thanks to Rod Blagojevich. In the wake of the corruption scandal over the former Illinois governor's efforts to sell President Obama's Senate seat, a federal court ruled in July that Illinois must hold a special election this November. That means voters will cast ballots in two Senate races on Election Day -- one for a senator to serve a new six-year term and another for a senator to serve out the final 60 days in Obama's Senate term. As Rep. Mark Kirk, the Republican candidate in both races, explains, "It's actually legal in Illinois to vote for Senate twice now."

If Kirk wins that special election, he would ask to be seated immediately -- thus becoming the 42nd Republican senator. And that, Kirk told me, "is a total game-changer in the numbers of the Senate." What is his view of a lame duck? Kirk says, "The only legitimate thing for the Congress to do is to pass a short-term continuing resolution to keep the doors open -- and let the voice of the American people as communicated through their new representatives and senators speak in January."

Barring an emergency, Kirk would oppose passage of any major legislation before the new Congress is seated. "There is something unseemly about defeated congressman and senators exercising any significant power," he said. Asked if he would oppose a lame-duck session even if the GOP leadership was pushing for one, Kirk said, "Yes. But I would strongly expect it would only be [Majority Leader Harry] Reid wanting to do that."