This week starts the “lame duck” session of congress, something any citizen should be leery of. A Lame duck session of congress happens in even numbered years when congress gets back together after the November Mid Term elections, some of the returning members have been elected out of the offices that they currently occupy, however they are responsible for returning to attend to unfinished matters. We the people should be leery of this sessions for one of two reasons, either the member that has been voted out just attends for the sake of attending and isn’t invested in making sure that their job is accomplished to best serve us, or they work their tails off to achieve their agenda, possibly one that doesn’t best serve us. Every administration talks the talk, of working together to best serve the nation.
In Barack Obama’s acceptance speech when he was elected President he stated "In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people," Obama said. "Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long."
"I reject the ugly politics of division," George W. Bush said in 1999 when he first ran for president. "I'm a uniter, not a divider."
Today we send our newly elected representatives to be schooled or in the jargon of the office “orientated” in the how to of the system to which we have elected them. I have a great concern that the old dogs that we have rejected in the latest election, by not voting for them again, are teaching the new dogs the same old tricks. There was a large movement by the tea party to encourage the new recruits to avoid some aspects of the training. So that they may keep a clear eye on job we have sent them to do or their eye on the prize so to speak. While for the moment the president still has the upper hand in the numbers on the house, soon the winds of change will blow and we certainly hope for the better. We the people have shown our true dislike for the way things were, and now we can certainly hope that by electing fresh people with fresh ideas to the capitol we have regained the upper hand.
Alas this conversation will continue as it has for centuries and there will always be two sides. Someone will always feel like they have the “upper hand” let’s look back to the inaugural address of Thomas Jefferson where the one of the most controversial and debated, taught and discussed lines “we are all republicans: we are all federalists.” The battle to work together has been raging for centuries; presidents have used the promise of bipartisan leadership in inaugural speeches for as long as we have been a country.
Let your vote be your voice, let your voice be heard, stand true to your values and ethics, vote with those ideals and stand firm, and then perhaps we will see the walk being walked as much as the talk is being talked.
