by Tom McClusky and Erika Ahern
While a majority of Democrats are looking at a pink slip on November 8, the legislative capabilities of the current Congress won’t be over until after the new year.
America is facing a “lame-duck” Congress, as both the House and Senate plan to meet prior to the new Congress’s swearing-in on January 3, 2023. It’s a time for retiring or ousted legislators to bite off as much of the pork-pie for themselves as they can, while also inflicting maximum damage on their ideological opponents as they depart Washington.
And historically, lame-duck sessions are bad news for American – and Judeo-Christian – values.
In 2010, the departing 111th Congress used their last days to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” opening the door to our current “woke” military and its floundering recruitment efforts. In 2014, the evicted 113th Congress passed the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, allowing employers to target anyone who rejected so-called “same-sex marriage.”
Here are the 6 departing shots – and bills – to watch for from the 2022 lame-duck Congress.
The Omnibus Spending Bill
The key to the Democratic agenda for the lame-duck session is the massive, omnibus spending bill being crafted by retiring Senators Patrick Leahy, D-VT, and Richard Shelby, R-AL.
Because Congress has failed to fund the American government through a regular process of appropriations, keeping the lights on can only happen in two ways: short-term “continuing resolutions” that simply maintain the status quo, or bloated “omnibus bills”.
The last omnibus bill to head to the Senate totaled 2,741 pages and allocated $1.5 trillion in spending. Packed into every omnibus are billions of dollars in hand-outs and bills that, were they to be debated on their own merits, would ordinarily fail on the Senate floor.
No living person can read the bill, let alone challenge its contents, in the two or three days Senators are given to decide whether or not to vote. It’s a “you’ll know what’s in the bill once you pass it” scenario, and gives Congress a Sophie’s choice: either pass this bill or be responsible for a government shut-down right before Christmas.
The lame-duck omnibus on the table will act as a Trojan horse for extreme Democrat policies (see the next 9 bills) while also determining the government’s budget well into the new Congress’s term. It’s the perfect way to hamstring the incoming party before they even set foot on the Hill.
Drafting America’s Daughters
This past June, Democrats added compulsory registration for females for Selective Service to the proposed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The Senate Armed Services Committee added a requirement for women to register for the draft in a 20-6 vote. Supporters of the provision claim that drafting women is a “necessary and fair step” towards equity and equality.
Drafting America’s daughters is a pet project of many exiting Democrats, and inserting the NDAA into the omnibus is a likely priority after the midterms. The Military Times reported on October 13 that the Army will be 25% short of its recruiting goal for 2022.
Passing the (Dis)Respect for Marriage Act
Democrats have vowed to bring the deceptively-named H.R. 8404 “Respect for Marriage Act” (RFMA) to the Senate floor. If there is a “red wave” and power in the Senate turns pro-family, however, the omnibus will be the perfect vehicle for passing the RFMA into law.
As CatholicVote reported, RFMA goes further than simply codifying “same-sex marriage” into law. It would mandate every state to recognize any and all marriages contracted in other states. But not just same-sex “marriages.” Any legal “marriage.”
Furthermore, RFMA imposes brand new and sweeping enforcement mechanisms, threatening Americans who hold and live by the sincere belief that marriage is between one man and one woman for the sake of children.
You WILL Pay for Contraceptives
After Dobbs overturned Roe vs. Wade’s abortion-on-demand federal mandate, Democrats immediately threw hysterics, claiming that now access to contraceptives and interracial marriage were on the chopping block. Stepping into the breach, Rep. Kathy E. Manning, D-NC, offered American women H.R. 8373 Right to Contraception Act, in which she accuses federal and state governments of obstructing access to public funding for contraceptive products and services.
The act codifies contraception as “a fundamental right, central to a person’s privacy, health, well-being, dignity, liberty, equality, and ability to participate in the social and economic life of the Nation.”
In layman’s terms, this means that any employer, business, or medical professional whose sincerely held religious beliefs prohibit them from prescribing or paying for contraceptives is depriving Americans of a fundamental right.
And will be prosecuted.
Enshrine Abortion in Law
Three bills that passed the House but never made it through the Senate are waiting in the wings for the lame-ducks.
H.R. 8297, the ”Ensuring Women’s Right to Reproductive Freedom Act,” was the July 2022 follow-up to the defeated Women’s Health Protection Act (H.R. 8296). Together, the two bills represent the most extreme abortion legislation on record, enshrining the so-called “right” to abortion into federal law, undoing all existing limitations to abortion through the states, and essentially making pro-life legislation illegal.
The United States bishops have warned that this legislation “would force all Americans to support abortions here and abroad with their tax dollars,” and “would also likely force health care providers and professionals to perform, assist in, and/or refer for abortion against their deeply-held beliefs, as well as force employers and insurers to cover or pay for abortion.”
The deceptively-named “Equality Act” (H.R. 5) contains language that would change federal law to undercut the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits funding abortions with federal taxpayer dollars. Even supporters of the bill admit it is about far more than LGBT “rights.”
“We need to make sure we don’t seem to be sneaking anything [illegal] into a bill while at the same time we need to… understand that the reproductive rights movement [is one of our] greatest allies,” noted Mara Keisling of the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Ensure a Leftist Takeover of the Election System
Outgoing Democrats will likely push for bills that shift the goal posts ahead of the 2024 election cycle. Two acts in particular, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (H.R. 4) and the For the People Act (H.R 1) are crafted to limit the voice of grassroots organizations and activists.
H.R. 1 places onerous burdens on political organizations that request their supporters to contact Congress or a government agency to voice their opinions or concerns.
“In a business where the best way to mobilize grassroots efforts is through simple, one step requests, the bill adds so many steps and regulations that it would essentially stifle activists across the country,” said CatholicVote Director of Government Affairs Tom McClusky.
“Everything that favors conservatives and free speech is penalized in these bills, and everything that statistically favors leftist politics is expanded.”
Destroy Small Business in the Name of Women’s Lib
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, D-CT, of the House Education and Labor Committee, sponsored the Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 7) to address “wage discrimination on the basis of sex, which is defined to include pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.”
The mechanism by which DeLauro proposes to achieve wage equity is to further micromanage how businesses determine what to pay their workers.
For example, the bill forbids employers from pointing to an employee’s wage history when justifying pay differences in wage-discrimination claims. It places damaging legal burdens on hospitals, schools, and small businesses without addressing the issue of wage gaps.
Put simply, the bill does more to increase the salaries of elite corporate lawyers than it does to ensure just wages for blue-collar women.
Stay tuned for the midterms – but don’t forget to keep watching the current Congress. The lame-ducks will still have time to kill before leaving office.
(NB: Because proxy voting is still in play, Democrats don’t actually have to show up in Washington, DC, to push these agendas through. These ducks will be voting from the comfort of their holiday homes.)
