Dems Hold Another Lame Duck Saturday Session To Vote On Liberal Priorities

Update 2:36 PM CST - Senate voted 65 to 31 to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" law.
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Update 10:37 AM CST - Fight Over, for now! The US Senate blocked discussion of DREAM Act, sending the bill to defeat. Democrats could not get 60 votes to support the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, a measure that would have created a pathway to citizenship for undocumented illegal immigrants who were brought to this country as children. The mood of the country "shifted on the issue of illegal immigration, support among Republicans and some Democratic senators evaporated, with many decrying it as backdoor amnesty for lawbreakers. Even a former co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), voted against it." [Source: Washington Post]
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Around 11 AM, the Senate will begin a series of roll call votes. The first will be cloture on the motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 5281, the House-passed version of the DREAM Act, followed by cloture on motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 2965, the House-passed bill to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law.

After the cloture votes, the Senate will then vote on the confirmations of Albert Diaz to be a judge on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and Ellen Hollander, to be United States District Judge for the District of Maryland.

While there were positive developments in Congress this week, with bipartisan votes to prevent tax hikes and Democrats dropping their $1.1 trillion omnibus bill, once again, Democrats are showing that their priorities are not those of the American people in their Saturday session today.

The Wall Street Journal editors today cheer some good news for a change, pointing to “a Democratic Congress extend[ing] the Bush-era tax rates,” “the demise of the $1.1 trillion ‘omnibus’ spending bill,” and “and a federal court declar[ing] ObamaCare to be unconstitutional.” They explain, “[T]he arc of these events reveals a break from the helter-skelter government expansion of the past four years. Private growth is suddenly good again, profits are recognized as crucial for job creation, and even card-carrying Keynesians (White House aide Larry Summers) have admitted that tax increases would inhibit economic recovery.”

In the Weekly Republican Address, Sen. John Cornyn noted that these things didn’t happen in a vacuum. “This week, even before [newly-elected Republicans] have taken their seats, Republicans showed the American people that we got the message. And everyone can see how your choices have already changed the terms of the debate here in Washington.”>

Sen. Cornyn notes, “First, Republicans prevented a massive, job-killing ‘New Year’s Day tax increase.’ . . . “This bipartisan agreement was made possible because voters gave Republicans much more leverage at the negotiating table. Our leverage forced the White House to abandon its ‘class-warfare’ rhetoric; stop pandering to the President’s left-wing base; and do the right thing for American taxpayers and job creators.” And Republicans also “[held] the line on reckless federal spending,” Sen. Cornyn says “Despite their willingness to work with Republicans on taxes, Senate Democrats went their own way on spending by proposing a nearly $1.3 trillion omnibus bill on the American people and by insisting we’d have to vote on it before anyone had the time to figure out what was in it.”

But Americans spoke out, and as Sen. Cornyn says, “Senate Republicans stood together but we did not stand alone.” The message from the American people to rein in the out-of-control spending in Washington “helped strengthen the resolve of the Republican Caucus and rattled the nerves of the big spenders on the other side of the aisle.”

And yet, 6 weeks after an historic election repudiating Democrats’ headlong rush to enact a liberal wish list of policies to the exclusion of what was foremost in the minds of the American people, Democrats are back today with more liberal agenda items. Now that tax hikes have been prevented, all that remains is to fund the government and send Congress home. Instead, Democrats are using their lame duck session to push for more left-wing priorities.

Republicans seemed to have heard the message of voters on November 2^nd: stop the tax hikes, get spending under control, and focus on the priorities of the American people. Yet Democrats have demonstrated again and again since then that the wish list of their liberal base comes first. But as we saw this week, when the American people stand up and say “enough,” positive things can happen.

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