The representative-elect for Florida’s 10th Congressional District is used to being the youngest person in the room.
Florida is one state where a big red wave did hit in the 2022 midterms, producing a banner year for Republicans even where they fizzled elsewhere. But the election of Maxwell Alejandro Frost to represent Florida’s 10th Congressional District provided Democrats some good news that could ripple for years to come: Frost, 25, will be the first Gen Z member of Congress.
Frost will be the youngest member of Congress, but he does have a decade of experience as an activist and organizer, and those experiences shaped his campaign’s platform. He is a former March for Our Lives organizer, he worked on prison reform in Florida, and he’s advocated for securing abortion rights, creating solutions to address climate change and for more accessible housing and transit. Now he has to translate that experience to the House of Representatives.
“I’m going into a system that has caused a lot of harm historically,” Frost told Today, Explained host Noel King for a recent episode. “But I also think that to give up on government as a path toward the world we want is to almost give up on our greatest tool that we have as far as being able to make the change. … I think we have to use every tool in our toolbox.”
King spoke with Rep.-elect Frost during his trip to DC for congressional orientation about how people have reacted to his historic win, why he thinks more organizers should actually run for political office, and how he is feeling about the GOP gains in his state. Their conversation is below, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.
Noel King
So you’re the first member of Generation Z elected to Congress. How do you feel?
Rep.-elect Frost
I feel great. You know, it’s all the emotions at once. I feel incredibly blessed. We had hundreds of people who really came together to be a part of this movement and really make this win possible. And then also the pressures of just getting the office ready and just ensuring that we’re all good for January so [we] can really serve the people immediately.
Noel King
You’re in Washington, DC, this week doing orientation. Yes?
Rep.-elect Frost
Yup.
Noel King
What’s one thing about orientation that you think you’ll never forget? One experience.
Rep.-elect Frost
I think the connections I’m making and just being able to make some really great friendships. On the Democratic side, it’s such a diverse and young class of people. People like [incoming Congress members] Greg Casar in Austin, Texas, or Delia Ramirez [of Illinois], Jasmine Crockett [of Texas], Summer Lee [of Pennsylvania] … it’s just really exciting to build these strong relationships.
Noel King
After the midterms, I was talking to a man who spent many years on Capitol Hill many years ago. I asked him what he thought you might encounter. And he said, well, no one is going to believe that he’s in Congress. Referring to your age, of course. Have you experienced any of that? Anyone saying things like, “Son, what are you doing here?”
Rep.-elect Frost
Not from members, but I’ve counted five times now that I’ve been stopped and told, “Oh, this is the members line,” or this and that. But it’s okay; I don’t really hold it against people too much. I mean, the fact of the matter is it is abnormal for a 25-year-old to be in the halls of Congress as a member. And so I’m one of many folks, hopefully, young folks that’ll change that stigma.
I was walking into a building and was walking through the member line, which we’re allowed to do with our ID. And the guy was like, “Oh, hey, that’s for members, you got to come through here.” And it’s like, “Oh, I’m a member-elect,” [and] show my ID and he’s like, “Wait, let me see it.” And then he and the other guard looked at it, and they started cheering and they’re like, “Oh, my god, you’re so young! And he’s Black! Only in America!” They were like jumping up and down and clapping and it was actually really cool. It was really sweet. It was funny.
Noel King
What did you feel like when you heard that?
Rep.-elect Frost
I think that feeling that they had is really the feeling that hopefully a lot of people across the country have had. But, again, not just my election, but the election of just really great young people, especially young people of color coming in the freshman class.
Noel King
The average age in the House of Representatives is 59-ish. So you’re going to be very young compared to many of your colleagues. And I wonder, what do you think the challenges will be having colleagues who are, on the whole, just a lot older than you?
Rep.-elect Frost
The great thing is a lot of my colleagues are really just excited to have me there. Something that Speaker Pelosi told me just a few days after I won my primary is that it’s going to be really a breath of fresh air to have young people in the caucus.
I think there’s often times where people won’t take me as seriously or look down on me, but that’s something I’m used to. I mean, I’ve been working full time in politics since straight out of high school at 18 years old, and I’ve always been the youngest person in the room. I’ve managed people twice my age … even though it’s at a whole new level now, the United States Congress, I’m ready for it.
Noel King
How did you get your start at 18?
Rep.-elect Frost
My start was actually at 15. 18 is really when it kind of became my career, but how I really got involved was 10 years ago was the Sandy Hook shooting. It had an insane impact on my life. I couldn’t think straight and I ended up going to the memorial in Washington, DC. It was there that I met a guy named Matthew Soto. Matthew’s sister Vicki was one of the teachers at Sandy Hook that lost her life. And seeing Matthew crying and talking about how much he missed a sister, seeing a 16-year-old with the demeanor of a 60-year-old, just completely changed my life forever. I went straight to my hotel room and I dedicated the rest of my life to fighting for a world where no one would have to feel the pain that I saw in Matthew’s eyes. And for me, that really is what changed everything for me.
Noel King
Organizing and being a politician, as you well know at this point, are two very different things. Why did you decide that you wanted to go into politics?
Rep.-elect Frost
I actually think organizing and legislating and being a member of Congress are a lot more similar than we think it is. The crux of what we do up here is work to pass legislation. You have to get buy-in from your colleagues, and you have to sometimes work with people across the aisle as well. Organizing is all about bringing people together around a common shared value for a specific outcome and asking them to take action. It could be knocking doors. It could be protesting. In this case, it’s casting a ballot and asking them to also help you inspire other people to be involved. So I think that’s part of the reason that we could use more organizers in Congress: Maybe we would get some more things done.
Another big function of a member of Congress is to be a community leader, to build power in the community and to help shift the narrative and really use the bully pulpit to change the way people think about these issues. I think about Representative Cori Bush. When they took out the eviction moratorium [on renters in 2021], she knew what it was like to sleep on the streets, and she slept on the Capitol steps. And because of her advocacy, it was extended, and people stayed in their homes.
Noel King
The results of the 2022 midterms and the results of the past couple of years suggest that Florida is becoming a red state. It used to be a swing state. When you were young, it was one of the swingiest states. What do you think the Democratic Party is doing wrong? How is it losing Florida?
Rep.-elect Frost
Sometimes, especially in Florida, these Democratic campaigns end up being campaigns of just rebutting Republicans. Right. The Republicans call you this name — you spend a million dollars on a commercial that says, “I’m not that.” Republicans say, you believe this. You spend a million dollars on commercials saying you didn’t do that. We spend so much time talking about what we’re not and don’t spend as much time talking about what we are and what we believe in. What I found in my organizing is people are more apt and excited to vote for you if they have something to believe in. … [Election night] was very bittersweet for me because I obviously had my win in my historic win, but we lost a lot of great people in our state legislature, so there’s still a lot of work to do in Florida.
Noel King
When you were campaigning, you talked a lot about love, which was interesting. It’s not a word you hear all the time in political campaigns. And you talked about thinking beyond partisanship. Now, research has shown that a lot of millennials refused to run for office because of the perceived toxicity of Congress — the partisanship, the fights, the refusing to work across the aisle. You seem like a very optimistic man. How are you going to deal with gridlock and partisanship and just straight negativity?
Rep.-elect Frost
Yeah. I mean, and Congress is toxic.
Noel King
Oh, you agree? Okay.
Rep.-elect Frost
I mean, we know this, right? It’s something I’ve had to square. I’m going into a system that has caused a lot of harm historically. But I also think that to give up on government as a path toward the world we want is to almost give up on our greatest tool that we have. … I think we have to use every tool in our toolbox. We got to vote. We got to protest. We got to be involved in our arts and culture, because that changes the way that our society thinks about these issues. And we also got to engage in mutual aid so we can take care of each other.
I was just talking with a colleague about this a few [days] ago [while] we were at a dinner …partisanship is even built into the operation of Congress. There’s different cloakrooms. Republicans sit on one side. Democrats sit on the other side. At this orientation, we have different dinners every night that are separated. There really has not, as of yet, been bipartisan things that we’ve done besides the classes that we were sitting in. We’re not really talking to each other. We’re trying to pay attention to what’s being said. I think it really even subconsciously continues to sow in the divide that we have right now, which is unfortunate. Obviously, look, I’m really new here and I think there’s obviously traditions … but I can tell some of the reasons why there’s so much divide. Things are just divided, even in the operation of the way Congress works.
The other thing I’ll say is part of the reason why these times are becoming even more divided is we have a far-right MAGA movement that is scapegoating every vulnerable community for every problem there is. It’s hard to come to the table with someone who doesn’t respect your humanity. Imagine being a queer legislator and coming into this body or being a trans legislator and coming to this body, having to sit across from someone and talk about issues [with someone] who doesn’t value your existence as a human. That’s something that we have to square and figure out.
Bipartisanship is incredibly important — compromise is part of governing — but we also have to we also have to be very frank about the dangers looming in in government right now and this threat against our democracy, which is really this far-right movement that doesn’t want to work with other people, that wants to blame everybody else for all the problems that are going on and wants to look working-class people in the face and tell them that the source of their problem isn’t the people who are making the most money or the people who have traditionally had the most, but it’s their fellow neighbor who might look different than them.
In this political work, we have to really pierce that and get straight to the humanity of people and just talk about the fact that we’re all part of this grand mosaic of humanity. You can eat and I can eat — you can succeed and I can succeed. In fact, our great successes are really tied together. [With] that message, I’ve seen it strike a chord with Republicans, with Democrats, with progressives, with moderates, with all different types of people in my district. That’s the message that I think is a winning one.
The war in Ukraine, rising interest rates, and lockdowns in China are all weighing on global growth.
It’s not just the United States — the global economy is slowing down.
Inflation in European countries has spiked as the war in Ukraine has pushed up prices for essentials like heating, gas, and food. China’s “zero Covid” policies of strict lockdowns and mass testing continue to disrupt the production of goods. And around the world, central banks are raising interest rates in an attempt to bring rising prices under control by weakening consumer demand.
The International Monetary Fund has lowered its growth outlook for 2023, projecting that the world economy will grow 2.7 percent in 2023, down from 3.2 percent this year. The IMF said in a report last month that the global economy was facing “steep challenges” as pandemic-related supply-chain disruptions, the war in Ukraine, China’s economic slowdown, and rising interest rates weigh on growth.
“In short, the worst is yet to come, and for many people 2023 will feel like a recession,” the organization said in the report.
In the United States, recession fears have grown and inflation remains stubbornly high. Some economists and investors have voiced concerns about the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes and how much they could weaken the world’s biggest economy. By making borrowing money more expensive, the central bank is trying to slow consumer demand, which should lead to slower price growth. But that could also trigger an economic downturn if businesses significantly slow hiring or lay off workers in response.
Still, some economists say the United States is actually in a better position than many other nations. European countries, for instance, are experiencing a dramatic slump because their energy supplies have been hurt more by the war in Ukraine. Many American households still have excess pandemic savings, and unemployment in the United States remains low.
“We’re raising interest rates fairly aggressively and financial market conditions have tightened in the US,” said Ryan Sweet, the chief US economist at Oxford Economics. “But so far, the economy’s weathered it reasonably well. Inflation is high in the US, but it’s high almost everywhere.”
Central banks around the world have lifted interest rates to combat surging prices. The European Central Bank started raising rates earlier this year, and officials recently signaled that they aren’t yet done. The Bank of England has also raised rates multiple times this year.
There are several factors contributing to economic instability globally, ranging from the war in Ukraine to China’s strict Covid policies and weakening property industry.
The war in Ukraine
The war in Ukraine has sparked an energy crisis in Europe, leading to a surge in prices. Countries that were more dependent on energy imports from Russia — such as Germany and Italy — have been hit especially hard by the restricted supply of natural gas.
Inflation in the Eurozone picked up 10.6 percent in October from a year earlier, up from 9.9 percent the month before. Inflation in the United Kingdom has also surged because of skyrocketing energy bills. In October, consumer prices in Britain climbed 11.1 percent from a year before.
The war has also disrupted exports of food such as wheat, sunflower oil, and other produce, straining the global food supply and pushing up inflation further.
These price increases could lead to a painful economic slowdown because things like food and gas tend to be necessary purchases for households. If European consumers are spending more of their budgets on those items, they have less money to spend on other goods and services, said Raghuram Rajan, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School and a former chief economist at the IMF.
“Energy and food are an essential part of your household budget,” Rajan said. “The more you spend on essentials, the less you have on discretionary items, so you have to cut back on that spending.”
Pierre Lafourcade, a global economist at UBS, said European households also haven’t acculumated as much excess savings as Americans. Earlier in the pandemic, American lawmakers passed more stimulus measures and sent direct checks to consumers, leading to more robust savings that have helped cushion household budgets.
“You didn’t have the equivalent in the Eurozone,” Lafourcade said. “In the Eurozone and in the UK, they never had excess savings to begin with.”
UBS economists have predicted that the world economy will grow 2.1 percent next year, the lowest rate since 1993. Out of 32 economies, UBS expects 13 of them to contract for at least two quarters, which their economists say is akin to a global recession.
Although the war in Ukraine exacerbated global inflation, consumer prices were already on the rise around the world before Russia’s invasion. Workers testing positive for Covid led to factory shutdowns and increased demand for goods among American consumers pushed up prices for many goods. The IMF projected that global inflation will rise to 8.8 percent in 2022 from 4.7 percent in 2021, although the agency expects overall price increases to fall to 6.5 percent in 2023.
The main factors driving up inflation in the United States, however, have differed from countries in Europe.
Karen Dynan, an economics professor at Harvard University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said inflation in the United States has affected a broader array of goods and services compared to other countries, in part because of strong consumer demand. Earlier in the pandemic, people stuck at home ramped up spending on items like exercise bikes and work-from-home equipment. Supply chain disruptions also made it harder to produce and transport goods around the world, leading to a spike in prices.
Inflation in Europe has mainly been driven by rising energy and food costs as a result of the war in Ukraine, Dynan said. If energy and food costs subsided, that would significantly help ease rising prices in European countries, but that would have less of an impact on bringing down overall inflation in America, she said.
“In the United States, that’s not enough to take care of our inflation problem because our inflation is broader,” Dynan said.
China’s economic slowdown
China is under “extreme duress” because of its stringent Covid policies and weakening property industry, said Kenneth Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard University and a former chief economist at the IMF.
China’s economy — the world’s second-largest — has taken a toll because of its attempts to eradicate Covid outbreaks through extensive lockdowns and mass testing efforts. Although economists expect China’s economy to rebound in growth next year as restrictions potentially ease, the “zero-Covid” approach has already disrupted the production of goods, weakened consumer spending, and led to growing protests against the policies.
The nation’s property sector, which makes up about one-fifth of economic activity in China, has also significantly weakened. For years, China’s housing industry saw rising sales and real estate prices. But excessive borrowing from developers has led to construction delays and falling home prices in the past year, sparking anger among Chinese homeowners. The Chinese government issued several directives earlier this month to boost its property industry, but economists say the sector is unlikely to see a quick rebound.
Although Rogoff said the United States economy is in “distinctly better shape right now” compared to European countries and China, he said a weaker global economy has many negative implications for American consumers. If consumers in other countries can’t afford to buy as many American goods, that can hurt American businesses and their exports. If businesses with large operations abroad are earning fewer profits in those countries, that could translate into lower salaries for their workers in America, Rogoff said.
And even though the US economy is holding up now, the country could still see a painful downturn in the coming months as the Fed continues to raise interest rates.
“If we over-tighten, we’ll probably be doing worse than Asia,” Rogoff said. “Whether we’ll be doing worse than Europe, that’s a low bar.”
Democrats are eyeing votes on same-sex marriage protections and electoral reforms.
Now that Congress is back from its Thanksgiving recess, the lame duck session is firmly underway.
It’s expected to be a busy few weeks. Republicans have retaken the House, so Democrats have until the beginning of January to pass any lingering legislation they’d like to get through before losing unified control.
On top of that, lawmakers still have to address must-pass bills like government funding and the authorization of defense spending, both of which they need to wrap before year’s end. If they don’t, the government could potentially shut down and the military could see major planning delays.
Beyond the routine business on their docket, Democrats are eyeing two big bills: legislation to enshrine protections for same-sex marriage into federal law, and a measure to reform the way Congress certifies election results. Other priorities, including immigration reform and an assault weapons ban, have also been raised, though getting enough GOP support to get them through the Senate is likely to be more of a long shot.
In the last two decades, when congressional power changed hands, lame-duck sessions have been frenetic in large part because they’re the final opportunity for a party to accomplish some of their key priorities. According to Pew, these sessions have accounted for more than a quarter of Congress’s legislative output in recent terms. This year is shaping up to be no different.
Below is a rundown of a few of the bills Congress has on tap for its lame-duck session this year — and where they currently stand.
These bills are likely to advance
Same-sex marriage protections
The Senate is expected to pass same-sex marriage protections this week after 12 Republicans expressed their support for the bill earlier this month. Because of changes that senators made to the legislation in order to win that GOP support, the House will also have to vote on the bill a second time, and is expected to pass it as well.
A procedural Senate vote in November revealed that the legislation has enough support to clear a 60-vote threshold: Republican Sens. Susan Collins (ME), Rob Portman (OH), Thom Tillis (NC), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Mitt Romney (UT), Roy Blunt (MO), Richard Burr (NC), Shelley Moore Capito (WV), Cynthia Lummis (WY), Dan Sullivan (AK), Todd Young (IN) and Joni Ernst (IA) joined with the 50-member Democratic caucus to vote in favor of the bill. Their votes suggest the legislation will pass the Senate when lawmakers vote on final passage later this week following another procedural vote on Monday.
The House approved the bill, with 47 Republicans joining 220 Democrats in voting yes, this past July. The House will vote on the new version of the bill — which contains added language on protecting religious liberties — later this week.
Senate Democrats had postponed a vote on this bill until after the midterms because they believed they’d be able to get more Republican votes once those lawmakers were less worried about alienating conservative Christian voters. Republicans said, in turn, that they would be more open to considering the legislation if it didn’t feel like it was being used for political messaging during the midterms.
The bill would repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, approved during President Bill Clinton’s administration, which defined marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman, and would guarantee recognition of same-sex and interracial marriages under federal law.
The new legislation is both historic and central to guaranteeing same-sex marriage protections. It became a Democratic priority following an opinion from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in which he floated potentially revisiting Obergefell v. Hodges, the judicial decision that established such rights in 2015. The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has raised the possibility that the panel could do the same with other precedents.
The support that the legislation has represents a major shift, though the majority of both House and Senate Republicans are still opposed to the measure. Some Republicans — including Sens. John Cornyn (TX) and Marco Rubio (FL) — have previously said they don’t support the bill because they don’t think these rights are being threatened.
Electoral Count Act reforms
There’s been a bipartisan push to reform the Electoral Count Act, which lays out Congress’s role in counting electoral votes following a presidential election, but it’s still waiting on a vote in the Senate. This bill would update the ECA in a bid to prevent elected officials from using the process to overturn the election results, like former President Donald Trump attempted to do in 2021. Key reforms include clarifying the vice president’s role in the counting process as purely ceremonial and increasing the threshold of lawmakers it takes to challenge the results of an election. Currently, it takes just one Senate and one House member to object to a state’s outcome in order for Congress to consider and vote on the objection.
In September, the House passed its version of these reforms and the Senate is likely to do the same in the coming weeks. At this point, more than 10 Republicans have expressed their support for the bill, a strong sign that it will pass. As Vox’s Ben Jacobs has explained, these policies aren’t enough to guarantee that another January 6 won’t happen, though they can eliminate some legal loopholes bad actors may try to exploit.
The Senate’s version of the bill differs from the House’s, however, so the lower chamber will probably have to consider the legislation again. One difference includes the threshold for challenging a state’s results: The House’s bill would require one-third of lawmakers in both chambers to sign on, while the Senate’s would require one-fifth of lawmakers.
The House could approve the Senate version after it’s passed, though the process could take longer if the two chambers seek to reconcile some of the differences in the bills. As Politico reported, there’s also a possibility that lawmakers try to attach this legislation to either the must-pass government funding package or the National Defense Authorization Act, given how little floor time Congress has left before the end of the year.
Funding the government
The deadline to keep the government open is now December 16, when a short-term spending bill passed earlier this year is due to expire.
Lawmakers have the option of passing another short-term bill, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), or the full-year appropriations bills that would fund different government agencies and programs. Because they’re still negotiating figures for the larger spending bills, Congress could pass a week-long CR to buy themselves more time and extend their deadline to December 23.
If they fail to approve either a full-year bill or another CR, the government would shut down, furloughing employees and significantly curtailing certain services.
Key appropriations requests include roughly $38 billion more in aid to Ukraine as well as $10 billion in pandemic aid to further the distribution of vaccines and medication. Both could see some Republican opposition, with the GOP split on additional support for Ukraine, and most of the party balking at additional money to address the pandemic.
Authorizing defense spending
Another must-pass bill that Congress has to consider is the National Defense Authorization Act, which establishes funding allocations for the defense department.
There was speculation that Sen. Joe Manchin’s permitting reform bill, which previously garnered opposition from Republicans and progressive Democrats, could be attached to the NDAA. The prospect of that happening is looking less promising due to ongoing GOP pushback.
This bill would streamline the approval process for fossil fuel and clean energy projects, and guarantee permits for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a natural gas project in West Virginia, Manchin’s home state. Progressives had pushed back on the legislation because of the inclusion of the pipeline and the concern that the approval process Manchin envisions would dilute communities’ opportunities to weigh in on these projects. Republicans, meanwhile, felt the reforms wouldn’t expedite projects enough, and also weren’t interested in giving Manchin a win following his support for the Inflation Reduction Act.
It’s not yet clear whether Manchin will tweak his bill to address some of these concerns, or if it will have to be dropped yet again after it wasn’t able to pick up sufficient votes in September.
In mid-November, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy signaled an interest in postponing an NDAA vote until next year when House Republicans will be able to send more of a message with the measure. McCarthy has argued that Democrats were trying to promote “woke” policies with the bill, though he did not detail what he meant by that. As Politico reported, Republican critiques have included policies like mask mandates and diversity initiatives in the military.
Because certain House Democrats often vote against the NDAA in order to express their opposition to defense spending, the party will likely need some Republican support in order to pass the bill. Depending on how aggressively McCarthy sticks by and pushes a potential delay, that support could be tougher to obtain this year.
It would be surprising if Congress doesn’t pass the NDAA before 2023, however, since it’s done so for the past 61 years.
These bills have also been floated
(Maybe) raising the debt ceiling
Democrats also have the chance to raise the debt ceiling and stave off a potentially calamitous stand-off that could happen next year if Republicans take the House.
Increasing or suspending the debt ceiling (basically, the amount the US is able to borrow) is a routine action Congress has to take because if it doesn’t, the US could default on its bills and destabilize the country’s economy. Despite that, it’s a moment Republicans have indicated that they will use for leverage to secure cuts to funding for social programs and clean energy initiatives.
Democrats could prevent this from happening by approving a massive increase while they still control both the House and the Senate this year, though the US is not projected to hit the debt ceiling until sometime in 2023.
Because of that timing, as well as Congress’s packed schedule, it’s not clear if they will get to that priority before next year.
Immigration reform
Congress is trying, once again, to pass immigration reform, an ambition that’s been thwarted repeatedly in the last decade.
Some Democrats are pushing legislation that would provide DACA recipients — undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children — a pathway to citizenship, after members of the program have been stuck in limbo for years. The program has faced numerous court challenges, though the Biden administration has sought to keep it intact. Legislation from Congress would help provide DACA recipients with more permanent status and offer a pathway to citizenship that doesn’t currently exist.
The main holdup for this legislation is in the Senate, where it needs 10 Republicans to sign on in order to pass. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), a longtime leader of immigration negotiations, has said he knows of four or five Republicans who’d be open to the bill, but the legislation would require more to actually advance.
An assault weapons ban
In the wake of a series of mass shootings in recent weeks, Democrats have raised the possibility of approving an assault weapons ban, though the measure isn’t likely to have sufficient Republican support in the Senate.
Such a ban would bar the sale of semi-automatic firearms, which are able to fire off many rounds of ammunition extremely quickly. As the Associated Press’s Colleen Long, Mary Clare Jalonick, and Lindsay Whitehurst write, these weapons include “a group of high-powered guns or semi-automatic long rifles, like an AR-15, that can fire 30 rounds fast without reloading.” In November, a shooter used an assault-style rifle to kill five people and injure several others at an LGBTQ night club in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), a leading architect of Congress’s bipartisan gun control package, noted Senate backing would be the primary obstacle, but that Democrats would continue to push the issue. Previously, Congress passed an assault weapons ban in 1994, but lawmakers were unable to renew it after it lapsed a decade later.
“The House has already passed it. It’s sitting in front of the Senate. Does it have 60 votes in the Senate right now? Probably not,” Murphy said in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. “But let’s see if we can try to get that number as close to 60 as possible.”
Recent lame ducks have been pretty productive
Lame-duck sessions were once pretty sporadic affairs, though they’ve become much more common, and productive, in recent years.
Since 2000, especially, a decent chunk of Congress’s output has actually taken place during lame-duck sessions, per Pew. During the last Congress, nearly 44 percent of what it passed — including a major coronavirus relief package — was approved during this session.
Other active lame-duck sessions include 2010, when Democrats lost control of the House, and passed several major bills before they handed it over to Republicans. They repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” passed a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia and approved an extension of tax cuts established during the Bush administration, according to the Atlantic. Prior to the shift in congressional power in 2019, Republicans also used the lame-duck session to approve the First Step Act, a groundbreaking criminal justice reform bill, as well as a reauthorization of the farm bill, which authorizes spending for Agriculture Department programs.
This year is poised to be another busy lame-duck session, particularly since this is Democrats’ last chance to shepherd bills through before Republicans regain House control.
Update, November 28, 2:45 pm ET: This story was originally published on November 15 and has been updated to reflect developments regarding specific bills.