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Sunday, Jan. 3, 2010 | 2 a.m.
Around the Senate historian’s office, the rule of thumb is it takes about seven years for an idea to go from concept to law.
Immigration reform. Climate-change policy. Wall Street oversight. Card check for labor unions. Some of the top legislative issues heading into the New Year are old ones, ideas that have been kicked around the halls of Congress for years.
This year will tell whether their moments arrive or whether those issues will be overshadowed by the health care debate that consumed Washington in 2009.
As the first year of the 111th Congress comes to a close, it feels more like a half-time pause rather than a tidy wrap on President Barack Obama’s inaugural year with Democrats running both houses of Congress.
The start of 2009 could not have been headier. Obama rode the train to his inauguration in Washington, retracing then-President-elect Abraham Lincoln’s journey, with Las Vegas schoolteacher Rosa Mendoza and dozens of other community leaders on board.
The sound of a million mittens clapping welcomed Obama to his chilly inaugural ceremony on the National Mall.
This New Year begins more soberly, with the economy, terrorist threats and wars overseas continuing their emotional and financial drain on households across Nevada and the nation.
Accomplishments
The legislative work in 2010 will determine whether Washington is seen as able to govern or whether the 111th Congress will become just another dysfunctional also-ran that fizzled in the face of conflicting goals and a looming midterm election.
“It could wind up to be one of those record congresses or it could be frustrated in the second year,” Senate Historian Donald Ritchie said of the 111th Congress. “That part of the story hasn’t been written yet.”
Midway through last year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid liked to say that in less turbulent times the accomplishments of Congress during Obama’s first year would merit mention in the history books.
Congress released a logjam of bills, resembling the first full-term of the Lyndon B. Johnson administration in 1965 or the New Deal legislation under Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933.
Obama held a flurry of bill signing ceremonies in the Rose Garden and stately White House rooms: an expansion of the children’s health insurance program that former President George W. Bush vetoed twice; the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which ensures women are not discriminated against in the workplace; credit card reforms to end industry practices of double-cycle billing and shifting statement due dates; a tobacco law that will require bolder health warnings on cigarette packages; and the largest public lands release in a decade.
Closer to home, Congress slashed the Yucca Mountain budget to its lowest level in years, beginning the end of the long-fought proposed nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Bush’s fired U.S. attorney, Daniel Bogden, got his job back. Nevada’s growing Hispanic community watched as Sonia Sotomayor became the first Hispanic on the U.S. Supreme Court.
To stem the foreclosure crisis, the Obama administration launched a $75 billion housing rescue plan to modify and refinance mortgages to mixed reviews.
The passage of the $787 billion economic recovery act, the largest injection of fiscal stimulus since the Great Depression, showed the force that can be unleashed when elected officials face a crisis — and exposed a deep partisan divide that will follow Democrats into the midterm elections.
Nevadans benefited from extra unemployment checks and money to preserve teaching jobs and launch roads projects. But earmarks were forbidden in the bill. (Remember the uproar over the mob museum in Las Vegas possibly benefiting from stimulus funds?)
Without pork for Nevada, Gov. Jim Gibbons and other Republicans complained that Reid had not done enough for the state — outlining a campaign issue sure to dog the majority leader and the state’s Democrats in 2010.
The to-do list
Ritchie said that after the “do nothing” Congress of 2005-06 and the deadlocked Congress of 2007-08, when Democrats had a much slimmer majority, 2009 looks much more productive.
But even the arrival of Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota over the summer — giving the Democrats a 60-member, filibuster-proof supermajority unseen since the Carter administration — did not give the Senate the momentum needed to move other priorities.
Labor’s top goal — changing the law to allow unions to form by card check rather than secret ballots — remains on the to-do list. Climate-change legislation passed the House in a tough vote for Democratic Rep. Dina Titus and other freshman lawmakers from politically split swing districts, only to stall in the Senate.
Immigration rights advocates who were instrumental in electing Obama want to revisit the comprehensive reform bill that failed in 2007, potentially reopening that divisive debate.
Obama decided to send more troops to Afghanistan, escalating a war that Democrats once hoped to end.
Which of these issues Washington will take on this year remains to be seen.
A difficult midterm election is on the horizon for Reid and other Democrats, as the party in power typically loses seats in the off-years and Republicans are motivated to halt Obama’s agenda.
In Nevada, the state’s struggling Republican Party hopes to tap into the national GOP resurgence. It calls 2010 “A New Dawn,” after enduring a rough year that saw little resources and a top leader, Republican Sen. John Ensign, sidelined after disclosing an extramarital affair.
Nevada will be a battleground state in 2010 as Republicans nationwide seek to topple Reid.
The defining issue
Yet health care, Obama’s top domestic priority, will define this Congress, the administration and could sway the midterm elections.
If the historians say it takes seven years for an issue to morph into law, health care is long overdue. Administrations dating to Theodore Roosevelt have considered national health care plans, never to succeed.
As the New Year begins, Congress will try to merge the House and Senate bills into one that can arrive on Obama’s desk by late January.
Polls are mixed on health care in Nevada, with respondents opposed to the current bills but wanting changes in the health care system. Even if health care reform is sent to Obama, Democrats will need to successfully sell it to voters if they want to win in November.
But most political analysts agree that passing health care reform would be better than not passing it for the party in power. Former President Bill Clinton’s inability to pass his priority health care legislation became a defining moment in his first term — and Congress suffered as a result, seen as a dysfunctional body that was ousted in Republican electoral sweep of 1994.
“That’s what it’s remembered for — what it didn’t do,” Ritchie said. “If indeed the health care bill is actually enacted into law, then this Congress will probably get good grades for starting out to accomplish what the president asked for and what the majority was seeking.”
Congress surely has a full plate. They have a revolt from the American voter and are pressing on to cram Obamacare down our throats. Congress has exposed the underbelly of health care. This institution has become the puss boil of Reid/Polosi/Obama, on the ass of American citizens. Never in the history of this Republic has a congress been so disconnected with the voter and so connected with vote buying; back door deals; fanny patting; tax raising and socialistic agenda's as the 111th Congress. It is destine to go down in history as the most corrupt and ill gotten legislative passing body in the history of America
This congress is astoundingly tone deaf. They are pushing an agenda that is not supported by the majority of Americans. There will be a price to pay when it is there turn for re-election. Fortunately, the damage they are doing can be repaired. This congress will probably be remembered as the worst for representation of their constituents.
Two words for Obama: One Term!
Three words for Reid: Hit The Road!
I believe that the article is weak. Lisa seems to be a fan of earmarks. Reid has not done enough for Nevada!!!!!!!!! He is the most powerful Senator and we are 49 out of 50 states when it comes to federal funding. We are a donor state and we only receive 65 cents on every dollar the feds take. I'm sorry Lisa, but that is a really, really bad investment.
Those federal dollars should never have left the state. You want to talk about jobs, Nevada could really benefit from the billions we have lost because of federal programs.
With SEXUAL PREDATORS like John Ensign in Senate, how can anyone take the GOP seriously?
Nick, you obviously don't know what a sexual predator is but democrats are certainly not immune to cheating on their spouse.
As for the MrA, you don't seem able to listen to a solution that comes from anyone but a liberal (of which no "solution" dems have offered addresses the countries financial problems). In addition, you have provided no solution.
The federal funding is a serious issue.when we are losing millions and billions to other states. Nevada feels the wrath of redistribution of wealth on a state level. Their are several states that get almost double what they put into the federal government and that leaves Nevada with less money every year.
The ultimate solution is the cut the hell out of many federal programs (reasonable road and infrastructure need to continue). Cut over sees funding of abortion,scale back foreign aid until the economy has recovered, cut back education (since the union take a good chunk), scale back welfare programs(section 8 food stamps, medicaid, WICK), cut funding of the useless UN(US pays over 75% of the bill) In addition, cut back the congress perks. That includes staffers, plane rides, over inflated free health insurance, and get back to the basics. Perhaps the senate and the house could even read the bills they propose.
mrability may not understand my proposal but the same thing happens in out own home. We get overwhelmed by monthly bills (obligations) telephone line, mortgage, car, insurance (health, car, life, disability), cell phone, satellite, electricity, sewer, water, garbage, gas, alarm, internet, magazines, fruit of the month, wine of the month, netflix, etc. Although we were financially healthy and could afford it at the time something happened and now the money isn't flowing like it used to. There are essentials and non essentials that need to be cut out of the budget until I get to a sustainable level. Food is essential but is my $500 a month on food essential or can I make it on $250/month.
Democrat and republican politicians are both such cowards because they believe America to be so shallow and so caught up in things as they are that if they make cuts, they will lose votes and the expensive perks they enjoy. These twerps have no problem taking more money and lower the standard of living for the public middle class and upper class as long as they don't have to give up anything. Your precious democrats through out the GOPs piece of the health bill that would have added congress to the health bill.
Why would they not want to be a part of the great bill???
It's not anyone's fault if you don't want to hear possible solutions mrability.