The lame-duck Congress has a lot of work to do

The 2020 election will have enormous consequences for the pandemic, the planet, the economy, our democracy and people's lives. And that will be true even before the next Congress and administration take office.

After the vote, the current Congress will have an additional six weeks or so in office.

For some members, it will be a lame-duck session — their last weeks before heading back to corporate boards and the private sector. For others, it will be a chance to finish some unfinished business.

Nearly a quarter of a million Americans have already died of COVID-19. The pandemic continues to ravage this country, destroying lives, our economy and vulnerable communities. Congress's first job in its last weeks will be to provide the relief we so desperately need.

That includes restoring the lapsed $600/week supplemental unemployment insurance, funding our cities and states so they can pay for health care workers and supplies, and expanding job support and emergency access to health care and food.

In the wake of the Trump administration's efforts to destroy the United States Postal Service to undermine mail-in voting during the pandemic, those last weeks could also see some initial efforts to rebuild the battered agency. Some repair efforts could gain even veto-proof majorities — starting with a multibillion-dollar appropriation to return the USPS to financial security.

Looking beyond our own shores, Congress should also take those in-between weeks to re-examine the global nature of the pandemic and what it's going to take to end it.

Luckily, most of the rest of the world understands the need for international connection. People around the world are watching us, recognizing that our elections will have enormous consequences for them — almost as much as for us.

Authoritarian governments in Brazil, the Philippines, Hungary and beyond have relied on cues from the Trump administration, including its disdain for the virus and necessary preventive measures. Congress can move quickly to reverse that, calling on the State Department to immediately rejoin the World Health Organization and authorizing funds to pay all our back dues. It can also allocate funds to join the U.N.-sponsored COVAX coalition ensuring a globally equitable allocation system for vaccines.

All that would be a welcome down payment for the next Congress and administration, which will have the enormous task of repairing our relationships with the rest of the world.

That should begin by reversing the militarized initiatives that have undermined U.S. standing and caused so much death and destruction. For instance, Congress will have to work to end U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia as a step toward ending U.S. involvement in Yemen's civil war, the world's worst humanitarian disaster.

It will need to cancel the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force that have been used to justify the ever-expanding "war on terror" for almost 20 years, despite near-universal agreement by experts that there is no military solution to terrorism.

They've got six weeks. And even a lame-duck Congress must remember their actions have global consequences too.