Kill The Lame Duck

Governance: It is an anachronism a constitutional amendment tried to kill. It lets defeated legislators wreak political and economic havoc without consequence. Like the dodo, the lame duck should be extinct.

Elections are supposed to have consequences, one of them being occasionally throwing the rascals out. Yet here the rascals we threw out on Nov. 2 are still running the roost and deciding the fate of our republic in ways we have already rejected.

Enter the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Ratified on Jan. 23, 1933, it was designed to end forever the excesses of lame duck sessions, but because of the way it was written utterly failed to accomplish one of its main purposes.

We forget that in the early days of a growing nation it was not easy to get around. Presidents were inaugurated in and Congresses lasted until March largely because newly elected representatives of the people had difficulty getting back and forth between their districts and states to Washington, D.C.

This unfortunately let defeated legislators work their mischief, such as in 1801 when members of the New Federalist party saw it as a good opportunity for the wholesale appointment of judges.

In 1922, Warren G. Harding and defeated Republicans tried to use it to pass unpopular bills, just as today's Democrats have tried to do.

By 1933, we had trains and automobiles, if not jet planes, but travelling cross country was still time-consuming and not without its difficulties. Yet it was thought that the reason for such a huge gap between election and taking office was no longer necessary.

Besides, moving the presidential inauguration from March to Jan. 20 and the start of Congress to early January, it was also thought, would end lame duck sessions forever. It was believed that legislators would be unwilling to travel to Washington for a few weeks after Thanksgiving.

"This amendment will free Congress of the dead-hand of the so-called 'lame duck,'" argued Rep. Wilburn Cartwright in support of the amendment in 1932. A Washington Post headline at the time assured Americans, "Present Lame Duck Session Will Be Last."

Well, it seems to have risen from the grave in recent times with a vengeance.

It now is seen as a chance to ram through gargantuan spending bills, ratify weapons treaties on the fly, pass a de facto amnesty bill and to set tax policy by defeated legislators. We the people be damned.

"The big mistake of the crafters of the 20th Amendment was that they really didn't anticipate airplane travel," says Yale University law professor Bruce Ackerman. They thought technology of the time would do the trick and failed to ban them outright.

We can rectify that mistake. And it should be a prime task of the new Congress to do so.

The whole point of elections is to express the will of the people through their representatives. If voters decide to throw candidate A out in favor of candidate B, doesn't a lame duck session effectively deny the consent of the governed? As one blogger put it, lame duck sessions ignore the voters' "restraining order" on Congress.

A presidential inauguration, whenever it occurs, marks the peaceful and instantaneous transfer of power from one administration to another. We cannot function as a democracy without a president. We can, however, function for short periods without a Congress.

Some would say it is preferable since, as it has been observed, neither liberty nor property is safe when the legislature is in session. We propose a 28th amendment to end the term of a Congress at one minute after midnight on the day of the election.

If two years isn't long enough to get the people's business done, they should find another line of work. Senators and congressmen the voters sent home should do just that: Go home.

The only reason for legislators to be in Washington between November and January should be to move in or move out.