U.S. House Speaker John Boehner told Republicans that they would make a "closing argument" to midterm election voters in the session of Congress that begins today. It's shaping up to be a lousy one. On the other hand, the Democrat-controlled Senate is not likely to do much better.
Operating on the notion that the public prefers political theater to authentic accomplishments, the House and Senate are preparing to achieve almost nothing when they reconvene. The legislators appear to be pushing hopes of any serious lawmaking off into the safety of a postelection, lame-duck session — and that's if they move relatively quickly.
In a memorandum sent to House Republicans on Thursday, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy promised a "busy September." The GOP, he wrote, will bundle and pass again a series of bills that the House approved earlier but that never made headway in the Senate. And Republicans don't have to worry about the Senate sending any of the bundles back for final consultations before they go to the president's desk. They contain so many proposals that are both unwise and toxic to Democrats, such as blocking environmental regulations, that the Senate will dismiss them for what they are: measures meant to make Republicans appear as though they are advancing a conservative agenda when, in fact, they are advancing nothing at all.
Senate Democrats aren't going to be above such maneuvering. The Washington Post has reported that Senate leaders might hold votes on bills calculated to appeal to women and working-class voters — if not to pass Congress. The Senate, for example, could vote on raising the federal minimum wage or on an expensive student loan refinancing scheme, neither of which has a chance in the GOP House.
It's too easy to dismiss the dueling bill-passing as the natural results of deep party disagreement. There are many areas of prime national concern on which the parties have the capacity to agree now. These include reforming National Security Agency spying, adjusting the patent system, repairing the Voting Rights Act, shoring up the U.S. Postal Service and adding protections to private data saved online in cloud-storage and e-mail services such as Gmail. If they grew a little backbone, legislators could even tackle major issues such as transportation funding, a matter on which the right answers are known and favored by members of both parties.
