Q: What is a lame-duck session of Congress?
A: Each congressional term has two, one-year legislative sessions. A lame-duck session refers to a period of time when Congress meets after an election is held – prior to the end of its constitutional term – and before freshly elected lawmakers are sworn into office. The 20th amendment to the Constitution effectively narrowed the lame-duck window to the two months between an election and the beginning of the new Congress. It moved the start of each Congress from March to January. Ratified in 1933, the terms of members of Congress begin and end on Jan. 3 of odd-numbered years. Since its implementation in the 74th Congress, federal lawmakers have met in lame-duck session 24 times to wrap up unfinished business. When Congress adjourns sine die, a Latin phrase that translates “without a day” to convene, lawmakers typically won’t meet until Jan. 3 at the start of a new legislative session. However, Congress may decide to enter a conditional sine die adjournment to give either the upper or lower chamber the flexibility to reconvene to override a presidential veto. Since 2000, both the Senate and House of Representatives have reconvened after every federal election. This year, Congress will wrap up the second session of the 118th Congress in a lame-duck session.
Q: What issues will Congress take up in the lame duck?
A: In the last decade or so, Congress has returned post-election to tackle spending and revenue measures to keep the government open for business. With increasing frequency, Congress meets in lame-duck sessions right up to the new session that starts in January. For example, the most recent lame-duck session following the mid-term elections in 2022, Congress considered appropriations bills and disaster relief. Despite my efforts to rein in Washington’s Wild West Ways and hold lawmakers to a timeline to complete the dozen annual appropriations bill by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, Congress once again is perched atop a fiscal cliff and operating under a continuing resolution that expires on Dec. 20. I’d like to see Congress complete government funding bills and enter the New Year on a clean slate with a new Trump administration. At the very least, I expect Congress to pass the National Defense Authorization Act, extend certain rural health care programs, including telehealth flexibilities, and replenish disaster assistance funding.
During my annual 99 county meetings this year, passage of a new farm bill gets raised at nearly every meeting. Earlier this year, I pushed Majority Leader Schumer to make passage of a five-year farm bill reauthorization a legislative priority. And yet, lawmakers have been at loggerheads this entire Congress. That’s why we passed a one-year extension of the 2018 farm bill last year, and with only a few weeks remaining until the end of the year, I expect another one-year renewal will pass during the lame-duck session. Don’t forget, the Democrat-led Senate hasn’t even passed a farm bill through the Agriculture Committee. This is consequential legislation and every voice deserves to heard and amendments offered and considered, rather than having it written behind closed doors and rammed through in a lame duck. Regardless, I won’t stop working to ensure farmers’ concerns and priorities are addressed. Specifically, we need more farm in the farm bill. More than 85 percent of funding in the farm bill pays for nutrition assistance. Farmers are struggling with high input costs and low commodity prices. The new farm bill must reflect these fiscal realities, raise reference prices for commodities and strengthen crop insurance. When work on the new farm bill gets underway in the 119th Congress, I’ll continue spearheading those priorities, as well as my efforts to help pork producers impacted by Prop 12, enact reasonable farm payment limits, fix overpayments in SNAP (food stamps), tighten fiscal controls for the Commodity Credit Corporation and protect U.S. farmland from foreign adversaries. Food security is national security. Farmers make up only two percent of the population, who put in the work 365 days a year to help feed the other 98 percent. It’s imperative our farm safety net helps ensure America’s farmers stay afloat and mitigate natural disasters and the cyclical nature of the markets.
