OCR Text |
Show ' T"s otIsm !lp arw n ert pin j 5 of congress to convene after elections since the 20th or lame-duck" amendment was ratincd ,n 1933. -The 80th congress con-gress reconvened for a. few 'ours on December 31, 1948 tor a formal adjournament only, so it could qualify as a lame duck session. It usually takes a couple of weeks to get congress into action so with the time of this session .limited to not more than four weeks, no one here expects any action to speak of. The rpmn. With i Congress back in session, the nat.on's capital once more 712-aunuHl 712-aunuHl its stride, for although many here breathe a sigh of relfef is t Tms bourns, the city is not the same with the big plant on Capitol Hill idle and 111 the employees absent from the city. And even though this is a so-called "lame duck" .session and likely will accomplish ittle, the wheels of legislation legisla-tion are again turning, albeit slowly and ereakingly As a matter of fact this' is the full-dress lame duck session house, will want to woo, if possible the southern bloc and renew a tight southern Democrat-Republican coalition for control. Senator Taft of Ohio, back with a handsome 400,-000 400,-000 majority vote tucked under his belt, is cool to the whole lame-duck session idea. His answer to the question of what the session shoidd do was one . word "Adjourn." Then there is the nostalgic side to a lame duck session, for despite des-pite their political squabbles, members mem-bers of the senate form a very exclusive club and over the years these friendships run deep. crats, despite the optimism of President Truman and the statistics statis-tics which show Democratic losses smaller in this off-year election than any party in power since 191b, are disheartened. And while the Republicans are jubilant, they are looking ahead toward 1952 and will not risk any decision on major legislation until they come up with their new full strength in the new 83rd congress which opens January Janu-ary 3. The first bill on the calendar calen-dar is the railway labor act amendments in the senate, which made it unfinished business bus-iness when it closed up shop in September. As to President Truman's requests re-quests for military appropriations, they will likely come through, but only after the Republicans get their fill of what Senator Tatf called a "re-examination" of our foreign policies. There probably will be a $10,000,000 appropriation for the defense department for the Korean war and other defense measures; aid probably will be voted for Yugoslavia in the form of a loan or food grant; Hawaii and Alaska statehood bills, both already . through the house, likely modified, clamping down on cotton cot-ton experts. And with cotton selling sell-ing for around 40 cents a pound, too! Then, too, the Republicans, still short of control in either will get shoved aside; a watered down excess profits tax measure will get through the house, but likely will not clear the senate; rent control may be extended, but only on a sixty-day basis; if the Kefauver crime investigators want to risk another filibuster by Senators Sen-ators Malone of Nevada, the anti-slot anti-slot machine bill might get through the senate. The bill already has passed, but Senator Malone, it will be remembered, - blocked adoption of a conference report by a one-man one-man filibuster. Another reason why as little action as possible will be taken, tak-en, is that both house and senate will return to meet in cramped quarters, the senate in the old supreme court room and the house in the larger ways and means committee room. Both senate and house chambers are torn up with the modernization program, but will be in shape for the opening open-ing of the new congress. In the meantime, there will be headhunting by the GOP membership mem-bership with their whipping boy, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, the butt of most of their criticism. Some, however, also are demanding demand-ing the resignation of Secretary of Agriculture Brannan and even of Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall. Even some Democrats of the southern variety ant Bran-nan's Bran-nan's scalp for his order, later |