None Shall Pass

This should come as a surprise to no one. The Democrats in Congress are adjourning early this year, to have extra time to campaign against the tsunami headed their way. The last thing they want to do is pass even more unpopular legislation before the election (and the second-to-last thing they want to do is pass popular legislation that doesn’t advance their big government takeover of everything that moves and most things that don’t), so they’re stacking the lame duck session (after the election in November but before the new, improved Congress is sworn in in January) with as much as they can possibly cram in. None of it is popular with the majority of Americans (who oppose amnesty and want the Bush tax cuts renewed across the board for everyone) nor does any of it have broad support from the Republicans (who will have far more influence in the Congress next year), so this is a pure power play by Democrats to get as much of their agenda in as possible while they still hold the reins. Fortunately, it looks like at least one Senator is prepared to play Horatius at the Bridge to stop the onslaught: Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC).

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint warned Monday evening that he would block all legislation that has not been cleared by his office in the final days of the pre-election session. Bret Bernhardt, DeMint’s chief of staff, said in an e-mail to GOP and Democratic aides that his boss would place a hold on all legislation that has not been cleared by both parties by the end of the day Tuesday.

He’s already being preemptively attacked by the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) for acting “unilaterally” to block the Senate. However, it’s perfectly reasonable to insist that any business to be voted on after the election be first brought up and approved, on the record, before the election; or, failing that, be put on hold until after the new Senate is sworn in in January – especially given the current Democratic leadership’s propensity toward ramming bills through which no one has even been given the chance to read (or in one case, name) yet.