Is no Congress at all better than the one we'll have between Election Day and the swearing in of the winners? According to a resolution offered today by Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Georgia), the answer is most definitely yes. The resolution calls on Congress not to hold a so-called lame duck session to pass unpopular legislation such as card check, cap & trade, tax increases and more deficit spending bills.

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"Americans are sick and tired of their elected leaders making backroom deals to ram through unpopular, 2000-page bills that no one has read," said Chairman Price. "They are sick of out-of-touch politicians, and they are tired of being ignored. A number of Democrats, including members of their leadership, have recently expressed a desire to ignore the public will and use a lame duck session to pass liberal legislation Americans do not want. Today I gave my Democrat colleagues an opportunity to show they are finally ready to listen to the American people.

"Our system of government rests upon the consent of the governed, but it is quite clear that Democrats no longer have Americans' consent. The public's trust in this Congress has been repeatedly broken. Voting for a national energy tax and other items on the liberal wish list in a lame duck session would shatter it beyond repair. Republicans are fully prepared to do what is necessary to restore Americans' trust in their elected representatives. We know it will be a long road, but it is one well worth traveling." (source)

The resolution calls for Congress not to assemble on or between November 2, 2010 and January 3, 2011 except in the case of an emergency requiring immediate action. It cites reasons including the 111th Congress' loss of the public's trust "by engaging in unprecedented political procedures to advance a partisan agenda." (View the full text of the resolution.)

Is Chairman Price just being paranoid? It doesn't sound that way when you hear what many Democrats have been saying about their plans before a likely Republican majority takes over:

• "I've got lots of things I want to do” in a lame duck, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) told reporters in mid June.
  
  
• Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota) wants a lame-duck session to act on the recommendations of President Obama's deficit commission due to report on December 1. "It could be a huge deal," he said last month. "We could get the country on a sound long-term fiscal path." By which he undoubtedly means new taxes.
  
  
• Representative Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona) told reporters last month that for bills like card check (the measure to curb secret-ballot union elections), "the lame duck would be the last chance, quite honestly, for the foreseeable future."
  
  
• Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said during a radio interview in June that "to those who think [card check] is dead, I say think again...We're still trying to maneuver" a way to pass some parts of the bill before the next Congress is sworn in. (source)
  
  

An up or down vote on the Price resolution would force these and other lawmakers to either agree to abide by the voters' decisions on Election Day or admit they will ignore what the majority of Americans want and keep on pushing the far-left Obama agenda until the last possible second.

Not surprisingly the House Democrats' choice was to simply delay a vote on the resolution.