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There, the year is done. Congress has met in Washington and concluded the year actually doing the people’s business. Can you imagine that, members of the United States House and Senate actually working when other Americans were partying? They were passing legislation that meant something to the entire planet.
And although this last act of the 112th Congress was done under an ”over my dead body” attitude of many republicans, it was a necessary stop gap measure to undue an act of Congress approved a decade ago.
The 113th Congress now in session will be more representative of the United States of America than ever before. More women, Asians, and Hispanics will take their seats. The voting margin in the House will be 200 Democrats to 233 Republicans. The voting margin in the Senate will be 50 Democrats, 2 Independents, and 45 Republicans.
This margin will augur well for future votes based on the method used to take the country off the 2012 Fiscal Cliff. The next votes will depend on the majority, not the minority. Yes, there will be a considerable amount of time taken by each side to argue its point. That, after all is politics. But the New Year’s Eve vote showed that in the end, the majority will rule, even if, in the case of the House of Representatives, the minority is the majority.
What have we learned so far in this odyssey? There are many members of the Republican delegation who will not vote for anything proposed for, or that will enhance the agenda of THIS President. And by the way, that is the new term-THIS President.
The words of Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader of the Senate, who declared that the top agenda item from 2009 to 2012 was to defeat THIS President still rings true from 2013 forward. Only the reality of a national catastrophe will slow this agenda. Short of defeat, the republican minority will continue the politics of delay, criticism, demagoguery, and delay again, as they seek to find a better way to defeat THIS President.
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