Lame-duck sessions supposed to be a thing of the past, historians say
20th December 2010
“The big mistake of the crafters of the 20th Amendment was that they didn’t really anticipate airplane travel,” said Bruce Ackerman, a Yale University law professor. “It takes a lot of time to go from a district in Texas by train to Washington, D.C. Who’s going to schlep there?”
Still, for the next 47 years, the amendment seemed mostly to work as intended. There were some lame-duck sessions, often in wartime, but no grand legislative agendas.
Then, historians say, things started to change.
Fighting over the lame duck
In 1980, Democrats came back after losing the presidency and the Senate and passed major bills, including one that created the Superfund toxic-cleanup program.
“We wouldn’t need to be doing all this in the lame duck if the Republicans had not obstructed and delayed everything that we had been trying to do,” said Regan LaChapelle, a spokeswoman for Reid. “I don’t see anything wrong with working for the American people to get things done.”
Uh, guys, the Democrats had a majority. Even if every Republican voted NO, it wouldn’t matter — if you weren’t being sandbagged by your own party. ODF.