Do-Nothing Congress

[Time for change]

Do-Nothing Congress
The Washington Spectator
September 15, 2006

Our current Congress, upon returning to work after a five-week summer vacation, could follow the lead of Congresses past and whisk through a flurry of bills before leaving town for another month in the run-up to the November midterm elections. But if the last year is any indication, it won't. The House of Representatives, in particular, "is on pace to shatter all records for inactivity," wrote the Washington Post's Dana Milbank. The 1948 House of Representatives, famously dubbed "do-nothing" by President Harry Truman, passed 1,191 measures in 110 days of session. Today's 109th House, by comparison, will spend fewer than one hundred days in Washington and will barely approve 400 pieces of legislation, most of them largely insignificant—naming post offices, honoring dead Presidents. The sloth of this Congress may come back to haunt the GOP. In the 1948 election, House Republicans lost 75 seats.

Debates over gay marriage and flag burning, during the summer, trumped any on immigration reform, Congressional corruption, an exit strategy for Iraq, or even assembling a budget for 2007. In its first week back, this September, the House spent considerable time debating a bill banning the sale of horse meat.

GOP leaders, facing their lowest approval ratings in a decade, had hoped to make this month "Security September." …