Democrats in the 111th Congress: Opportunity for Unprecedented Influence
Today, the heavily Democratic-controlled 111th Congress, which will serve for two years, is sworn into office. Per Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:
"The 111th Congress will hit the ground running in January with an ambitious schedule that corresponds with the opportunities and challenges that we face as a country. The opening days of the Congress will be intense."
By all rights, 2009 and 2010 should be years of unprecedented Democratic influence in Congress:
- Democrats hold 256 House seats (59%) to 178 held by Republicans, which is a Democratic pick-up of 21 seats in the 2008 election cycle. Democrats have gained 54 House seats since 2004.
The seat vacated by Rahm Emanuel will be filled by Illinois special election in April 2009.
- Democrats hold 57 Senate seats, assuming that Franken from Minnesota and Burris from Illinois are seated after legal challenges. Also, both Independents, Lieberman of Connecticut and Sanders of Vermont, plan to caucus with Democrats.
Senate Republicans occupy only 41 Senate seats, a catastrophic drop of 14 seats in four years, and 7 less seats than in the 110th Congress.
- For the first time in almost a decade, Congress will be working with a Democratic administration.
And top Congressional Democrats are experienced, longtime leaders, well-seasoned at navigating rough political waters.
Interestingly, most Senate and House Committee Chairs are more liberal than Obama's cabinet picks for the corresponding areas, which could lead to tensions, particularly on domestic policy, between Congress and the Obama administration.
- Congressional Democratic leaders and chairs, and their plans, in the 111th Congress are:
- U.S. Senate Democratic Leadership Team
- U.S. Senate Committee Chairs
- U.S. House Democratic Leadership Team
- U.S. House Committee Chairs
Now, if Congressional Democrats can only get past their unproductive soap opera ways, and get down to the urgent business of changing the wayward course of our post-Bush country, as Speaker Pelosi urges...
- Related Reading
- Profile of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House
- Profile of Sen. Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader
- Profile of Rep. James Clyburn, House Majority Whip
(Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Comments
In January 2001, President Bush by Executive Order created the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, no Congressional funding, on ruse it would carry the homeless, immigrants, and hard-pressed with money and acts of kindness corporations, neocons, and others would pile on…as Bush worked as a master of intelligence and otherwise to rid the world of poor infrastructure, dwindling employment/income opportunities, dwindling educational funds, fraud, lost savings, high prices, bona fide terrorists, corruption, and the like.
What resulted was quite the opposite, including leading the pack in global government-authoring of religions to preach “those badly off or innocently brushed away are vessels of wrath doomed by God from birth anyway, and that’s why Allah/Jesus/Lao Tzu/Buddha/Brahma/et al let US sin like crazy and go to Paradise”…of course, every other faith belief or lack of one became a threat to this or that nation’s officials, then chased away on ruses like “practicing unlicensed psychology”, or outright outlawed even in countries with religious guarantees and despite the UN charter on religious freedom…see, anyone peaceful but not a globally commingled government religion contains “those of MOST interest” rather than say those Prince Harry’s Britain or Bush’s USA fund, as in al-Qaeda haven Pakistan or “Destroy Israel As Part Of Manifesto” Hamas, or Janjaweed in Darfur, or on the list goes.
In a word, Bush and neocons and many global leaders replaced, not augment, the delivery systems of social programs, in a lopsided way such that they are always of say-so, if not Divine, powers, whereas anyone at all not them was curious just for not wanting to be satisfied with a culture that tells people to be satisfied with “house arrest” ala living in a habitrail with television, DVD’s, treadmills all you need to be happy in this life. Worse, rather than identify terror or any crimes as the personal mentality of actors (whoever and wherever found), Bush and Prince Harry types kept on funding Janjaweeds and terror havens like Pakistan, as if a deal were struck to all perpetuate themselves via calling ALL of each others’ races and religions this or that “bad people”…when everyone knows that’s not true…why then would Bush, or especially Prince Harry (or his Pater, Grand Mater, or Prime Ministers, or Parliament) want Muslims waved into European and American New Urbanism at a rate almost identical to Hispanics in the USA? Sounds more like a way to keep large populations under suspicion while you design a permanently more…sedentary?…culture sterilized of democracy.
And the capper, of course: shouldn’t Presidential or government-faith clergy control standards of news, media, and re-educational contents, so no “national securities” are disturbed and the “real targets of the terror war” get no voice or hope (sure isn’t Bin Laden, Mumbai killers, Janjaweed, Hamas, and so forth…hey, those dudes kill Muslims and others too, as if even OTHER races and faiths had “useless vessels of wrath”; gosh, they sound like only they can see Muslims who need scourging together with Jews and everyone else, ala the way USA and European Calvinist/Small TRUE Church of Christ officials and their clergy preach).
For these reasons, as a traditional Conservative, believer in a universal God, respecting person of ALL peaceful faith’s right to freely practice (and atheists to abstain), believing in NO religious OR secular Calvinisms or racisms at all, I respectfully look forward to the hope and potentials of incoming USA President Barack Obama.