Corker challenges Dems to swear off moving major bills during lame-duck

President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress should swear off any major action during a lame-duck Congress, a Republican senator said Friday.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said if Democrats want to add stability to the economy, they should pledge not to move legislation that might not otherwise pass during the congressional session following Election Day.

"I think one of the great things the administration can do to cause people to settle down is to say, absolutely, that they would oppose any great activity in a lame-duck session," Corker said during an appearance on CNBC.

Republicans have expressed worry that Democrats might look to move some of their top legislative priorities that have stalled over the past year and a half in a lame-duck Congress, when retiring or defeated lawmakers might feel more liberated to cast their vote in favor of some measures.

Adding to those fears have been some Democrats and the White House itself, who have signaled that a lame-duck session could be useful. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has said elements of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, or "card-check") could move during such a session, and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs suggested on Thursday that a lame-duck session could be used to pass a free trade agreement with South Korea.

Corker called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), the Democratic leaders in their respective chambers, to make a similar pledge.

"I think for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to say the same thing — that they're not going to try to use the lame-duck session as a place to do things that otherwise would not pass," he said. "That type of thinking, that concern about ... cap-and-trade and other types of policies just feeds into this whole unpredictability issue, the issue of what's going to happen in Washington. We need to move away from that uncertainty."

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