Lawmaker News

Washington is in transition — the traditional graceful, peaceful, seamless transition of power between political parties. Though this is only a partial transition of power, it is still awe-inspiring.

As President Obama famously said, “Elections have consequences.” And the consequences of the last election are already becoming apparent. On Jan. 5, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who made history in 2006 by becoming the first woman to hold the Speaker’s office in American history, will stand at the podium in the House chamber and graciously hand over the gavel to the new Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-Ohio) — despite the four years of relentless personal attacks she has endured at the hands of her successor and his cohorts.

All that hurtful talk about “Republicrats” scorning them as squishy-brained and sheeplike, a Congress of Easter Peeps despised by up to 89 percent of the country; the middle age, the mid’lin, the mediocre and mauve — what novelist Curtis White called (scornfully) the “middle mind.” Now they who seek to be neither masters nor men have a name: “No Labels.” And it even claims its own generation, a conspicuously multicultural chorus that sits passively in the pew and looks selected by elder churchmen.

But the young’uns don’t seem to be jumping in. Gawker calls it “the most boring political movement of all time.” Maybe they try passing out cookies at the airport. Or how about the phrase, “Have you heard the good news?”

It’s been a good few weeks.

Not just for President Obama — but also Democrats and Republicans — as “Washington” demonstrated that it actually can compromise, agree, disagree and move forward on the nation’s business.

In the long run that is good all around.

In the flurry of lame-duck victories for President Obama and the Democrats, the ratification of the START Treaty probably tells the most important story about the coming two years. The GOP opponents of approving START insisted there wasn't enough time, though the first START in 1992 and its successor in 2003 both passed in a week or less on the Senate floor. There was ample time. And with 13 Republican senators joining the Democrats to ratify the arms-control agreement — four more than the necessary nine to reach a required 67 votes — there was ample support as well.

Saturday's historic vote on “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was a big day for President Obama and the base of the Democratic Party — disappointed by the tax-cut package signed into law Friday, but triumphant over the long-sought repeal on the ban on gays serving openly in the military.
 
Eight Republicans crossed the aisle to support a repeal of the DADT policy the Pentagon had asked the Congress to undo. While it nearly died many times, and ultimately could not be passed by attaching it to the "must-pass" defense authorization bill, a clean up-or-down vote brought out more support than even proponents knew they had.

Christmas is coming. But apparently the Senate Republicans didn’t get the memo.

Despite getting everything they wanted by securing $800 billion in tax cuts for the richest 1.5 percent of Americans when they should have received a sock full o’coal for holding hostage tax cuts for every American to secure their deal, the Republicans are still in a very grumpy and non-Christmassy mood.

Now that the expiring Bush tax cuts have been extended another two years, it’s an interesting exercise to return to the debate and analyze some of the reasons given for not supporting the measure.
 
Democrats proffered the usual class-warfare lines, but not many paid attention to them. Republicans, sensing they claimed the high ground on the overall argument it’s not wise to raise taxes on anyone during these harsh economic times, simply ignored them.

One would have thought that Sen. Roland Burris (D) would leave Washington and come home to Chicago and just keep quiet. His boneheaded decision to lobby Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) for an appointment to Barack Obama’s Senate seat landed Burris the appointment, but ruined his reputation. Blago was soon arrested and impeached, and the FBI released tapes of Burris appearing to offer Blago a donation and a fundraiser in exchange for the seat.

The Democrats tried to deny Burris the seat until the optics of barring an elderly African-American from a body in which he would be the only African-American became too ugly.

In political campaigns, rule No. 1 is never doing anything that ends up hurting your campaign. It’s pretty simple. If you want to attack your opponent for unpaid parking tickets, you’d better have paid all yours.
 
In the earmark-ban era we are in now, Republicans are conflicted by their past support for — wait, I mean drunken spending on — earmarks. Last week I wrote about reports that the House GOP is considering repealing and replacing its ban on earmarks with something that allows what they call “member-directed spending” and exemptions for transportation and other priorities. The disarray on earmarks at the federal level is trickling down into nascent races for the U.S. Senate.