111th CONGRESS WAS ONE TO REMEMBER

With 2 new Supreme Court Justices, a $787 billion stimulus package and more, 111th Congress ends as one of most productive in U.S. history

Washington, D.C. -- However history judges the 535 men and women in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate the past two years, one thing is very clear: The 111th Congress made more laws affecting more Americans since the “Great Society” legislation of the 1960s. The Voice Reporter believes this is probably the most productive session of Congress in fifty years. And, it’s all the more impressive given how polarized and partisan Congress has been.  Additionally, the lame duck session defied all the naysayers who believed nothing could be accomplished at the end of the year.

Health care legislation was monumental

For the first time since President Teddy Roosevelt began a quest for a national health care system more than 100 years ago, the Democrat-led House and Senate took the biggest step toward achieving that goal by giving 32 million Americans access to insurance. We at the Voice Reporter agree that health care for all Americans is a right, not a privilege for those who can afford it.  Getting a comprehensive health care bill passed has been a long term commitment of the AFL-CIO for decades.

Lost in the the health care legislation debate were provisions for insurers including WellPoint Inc. of Indianapolis and drug makers such as Pfizer Inc. of New York, who will now have millions of new customers by requiring that all Americans have health insurance. These industries, as well as medical device-makers, will also face billions of dollars in new fees, and hospitals face a host of new standards designed to help curb soaring costs.

The health care law is facing legal challenges too, with the required insurance provision a key dispute. Many of the benefits of the law will not be implemented until 2014. It was a step in the right direction benefiting American consumers and will hold the insurance industry more accountable-- but we still have a long way to go.


Wall Street reform and 9/11 workers

The 111th Congress rewrote the rules for Wall Street in the most wide-ranging effort since the Great Depression.  An overhaul of the rules governing the financial services industry, approved in July, aims to prevent a repeat of an economic collapse that led to the failures of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Washington Mutual Inc. It included $4 billion in aid to help thousands of unemployed property owners avoid foreclosure, while most would agree the program has fallen short of its goals because banks have become unwilling participants.

Congress also spent more than $1.67 trillion to revive an economy on the verge of a depression, including tax cuts for most Americans, jobs for more than 3 million, construction of roads and bridges and investment in alternative energy.

And just before the 111th Congress adjourned for the very last time, they approved legislation to help American first responders and clean-up crews suffering from illnesses linked to the wreckage caused by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. The Senate approved it on a voice vote, the House by a vote of 206-60. Our New York Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, in a statement just before Obama signed it into law, called it a “Christmas miracle.”

Ambitious Obama agenda riled Tea Party and Conservative voters

For all of its ambitious achievement, the 111th Congress also witnessed a voter-backlash driven by a 9.6 percent unemployment rate that cost Democrats control of the House and diminished their Senate majority. The GOP and Tea Party enthusiasts spun misinformation and peppered voters with vicious attack ads fueled by American Crossroads, the big-spending political outfit conceived by Karl Rove. Rove and his associates started a spinoff group primarily to use secret contributions to fund political ads, a phenomenon that became more common – particularly on the right – in the wake of the Citizens United v. FEC decision.

According to Politico, American Crossroads and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (or Crossroads GPS, for short), were the most active independent advertising groups on either side, pouring cash into ads attacking Democratic Senate and House candidates. Together, they raised more than $70 million, with most of it - $43 million – going to Crossroads GPS.

In the Nov. 2 elections, Democrats lost 63 House seats, costing their party control of the chamber in next year’s Congress. In the Senate, the Democratic majority was shaved by six seats; the party will have 53 votes in next year’s session, Republicans 47.

“What we did was work, and our reward was, ‘Get out of here,’” said Representative Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat and outgoing chairwoman of the House Rules Committee. While Slaughter won re-election, five of her New York colleagues were among Democrats defeated.

One casualty was local New York Congressman Dan Maffei. Maffei has been a terrific representative for our working families and especially for members of CSEA. We wish him well and hope he returns to Washington, D.C. very soon.

Partisan divide was the rule not the exception

Party-line votes on most of the major measures engendered ill will among Republicans and helped stall in the Senate initiatives requiring significant bipartisan support. At one point, the House passed nearly 400 bills that died an ugly death in the Senate.  And, the rise of the filibuster was one of the most annoying developments of this congressional session which led to gridlock and brought the legislative branch to its knees.

Blocked legislation included limits on greenhouse-gas emissions that affects global warming, a bill the House passed in June 2009, a measure offering undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship and the administration’s attempts to curb growing income inequality with tax increases for higher earners.

Those issues are unlikely to be tackled next year, when the House’s Republican majority will turn its attention to dismantling the health care law and cutting domestic government spending by $100 billion. Congress this year was also unable to approve a single one of the 12 annual appropriations bills that fund the government.

Here are some revenue facts

As lawmakers wrap up the session, Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. are positioned to complete their best two years in revenue, General Motors Co. has emerged from bankruptcy with more than $23 billion repaid to the U.S. Treasury, and American International Group Inc. was able to sell $2 billion of bonds in its first offering since the company’s 2008 bailout.

Stimulus spending saved American jobs

Stimulus money created and saved jobs across the country, helping strapped state governments retain their workforces, according to government analyses. President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers said that in Ohio, for instance, the legislation created 122,000 jobs for teachers, police officers and construction workers. These policies carried the economy along during a period when the private sector was not engaged.

3.3 million jobs created or saved by Obama

Congress scored its first big accomplishment weeks after Obama’s inauguration with passage in late February 2009 of an $814 billion stimulus bill. It has created or saved 3.3 million jobs, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while also steering more funds to road construction, broadband technologies and renewable energy ventures.

Pay equity, earmarks and the Supreme Court


Obama signs Lilly Ledbetter
Fair Pay Act in 2009.

Congress also passed laws to help ensure pay equity by enabling women to pursue lawsuits claiming they were underpaid, and to empower the federal Food and Drug Administration to regulate the tobacco industry, which includes restrictions on cigarette marketing.

Additionally, lawmakers expanded state programs for health insurance for children, and they confirmed two Supreme Court justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Sotomayor became the first Latino to serve on the court, and the pair increased to three the number of women among the nine justices.

Lame duck was anything but

Following the November elections in which voters handed Democrats what Obama termed a “shellacking,” Congress in a lame duck session made significant additions to its accomplishment list. Lawmakers approved an $858 billion measure that continues for two years Bush-era tax cuts for all income levels, extends aid for 13 months to the long-term unemployed, provides estate tax relief and cuts by two percentage points worker payroll taxes during 2011.

Shortly after the election, Senate and House Republicans announced a voluntary ban on earmarks, the funding for pet projects added to bills by lawmakers.  However, most GOP lawmakers backtracked and proposed them for their districts anyway.  The incoming House Republican leadership also promised to turn the focus of the Appropriations Committee from funding government to identifying spending cuts and at the same time pushed for tax cuts for the rich.  The measure added 700 billion dollars to the federal deficit with no return on our investment.  These actions were completely counterintuititve to American progress, but then again, GOP lawmakers have never been known for their compassion for average Americans.  This was clearly about taking care of their corporate donors and rich friends who will keep them in a position of power.

DADT, the FDA and the Arms Treaty

Congress in its last days also voted to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ban on military service by openly gay men and women.  Many civil rights and workplace rights advocates call this development a giant step forward for the American people.  Congress also cleared the biggest food-safety overhaul in more than 70 years, giving the FDA more enforcement power. And the Senate ratification vote of 71-26, the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty gives Obama a key foreign-policy victory.

Looking back and looking forward

Pelosi, Reid and the Democrats say it will take years before the public recognizes their achievements. Many of the measures that passed were designed to forestall a bleaker recession, an argument that’s little comfort to many American working families as the nation’s unemployment rate has remained at 9.5 percent or higher for more than a year.

After a few years have passed, we predict most political historians will agree that the 111th Congress was one of the most productive and progressive legislative sessions despite a bitter and unparalleled partisan divide. It was truly a remarkable lame duck session and a remarkable last two years.

The Voice Reporter predicts that many of the GOP House efforts to dismantle the  health care bill and enact spending cuts will only be symbolic in nature and will likely fail in the Senate which will still be controlled by a Democratic majority. Plus, the president has veto power.  It is likely that the party split between the two chambers will bring the recent record of congressional productivity in the lame duck session to an abrupt end in January of 2011. 

All the momentum President Barack Obama picked up at the tail end of the 111th Congress means he'll hit the partisan wall that much harder when the 112th Congress opens, according to liberal and conservative lawmakers who are bracing for political warfare next session.