» Not-So-Quiet Lame Duck Session

Normally, after an election, Congress wraps up relatively non-controversial items, like spending packages, and then members return to their individual districts for a leisurely holiday. However, this Lame Duck session has been one of the most active in recent memory. First, there are enormous logistical considerations that go into bringing in 109 new members of Congress, which is more than 20% of the elected body. And, of course, there have been major legislative issues the President and Democratic leadership have been trying to resolve, such as immigration, "Don't Ask Don't Tell," the tax cut package, the START arms treaty, and spending. Congress also finally funded the Pigford II settlement on behalf of black farmers. The 111th Congress has proven to be one of the busiest Congresses in decades.

» Agriculture- Pigford II

After decades of discrimination against African American farmers, the U.S. Congress approved $1.15 billion to fund settlement payments for the black farmers' lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Congress and the Obama Administration have been trying to fund the settlement for months, but could not agree upon a suitable vehicle for passage. In late November, the Senate allowed for its passage with the House following shortly after. Under the settlement, eligible farmers can receive up to $50,000.

» Housing

The latest evaluation of the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), a foreclosure prevention program implemented by the U.S. Treasury Department, has found that the program is still struggling despite being in operation for over two years. The Congressional Oversight Panel, which was created to issue periodic reports on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout program, saw little improvement despite the adjustments made to HAMP. The foreclosure prevention program was originally projected to help 3-4 million struggling mortgage borrowers keep their homes but is now only projected to help about 700,000 to 800,000 homeowners with 519,648 permanent modifications (as of October 2010). Also making the situation worse, is the fact that another 8-13 million foreclosures are expected by 2012. Ted Kaufman, former U.S. Senator from Delaware and current Chairman of the Congressional Oversight Panel, stated, "I think the program has turned out to be a lot smaller and have a lot less impact than we thought it would."

» Immigration

Even after having endured five versions since this fall, H.R. 5281 (also known as The Development, Relief, and Education of Alien Minors Act or DREAM Act) failed to obtain enough votes to limit debate, effectively killing the bill in the Senate (55-41) on December 18th, even though it was passed in the House on December 8th and had the backing of President Barack Obama as well as Democratic leaders. This legislation aimed to assist between 300,000-500,000 young adults (the Congressional Budget Office estimated) who were brought into the United States illegally at a young age to gain legalization. The bill would require those individuals seeking American citizenship to attend college or serve in the military for two years. Chances for the bill to pass in the near future are also less likely given the composition of the 112th Congress. Some Republican members have voiced an unwillingness to pass The DREAM Act or any other legalization program until our borders are "secure." President Obama has promised to continue to fight for it, stating, "It is disappointing that common sense did not prevail today, but my administration will not give up on The DREAM Act, or on the important business of fixing our broken immigration system."

» Tax Cuts

President Obama led the compromise to allow all tax cuts enacted under the Bush Administration to be extended, as opposed to the Democrats' original plan of extending tax cuts only to those making under $250,000. There were some extraordinary wins for struggling and poor Americans in the compromise, including a one-year extension of Unemployment Insurance. The bill also further reduced payroll taxes from 6.2% for Social Security taxes and 12.4% for those who are self-employed, to 4.2% and 10.4% respectively. Other provisions include extending

• The child tax credit (which affects 10.5 million families with 18 million children);
• The marriage penalty-tax relief;
• Incentives for families, such as dependent care credit, adoption tax credit, and employer credit for child care assistance;
• The Earned Income Tax Credit for three or more children (which affects 6.5 million parents with 15 million children);
• Education incentives, such as the saving accounts exception, employer education assistance, student loan interest deduction, school construction, and the American Opportunity Tax Credit that allows college students a $2,500 tax credit per year for up to four years;
• The Alternative Minimum Tax;
• Temporary estate tax relief;
• Capital gains and dividend rates;
• Energy incentives for biodiesel, refined coal, and ethanol as well as efficient new and existing homes and appliances, and alternative vehicle refueling property;
• A number of individual tax relief measures, such as deductions for teachers, deduction of state and local taxes, tax-free distributions from retirement plans, and employer transportation benefits;
• Business tax relief, such as the R&D tax credit, New Markets tax credit, railroad track maintenance tax credit, wage credit for activated military reservists, deduction for charitable food contributions, deduction for charitable book contributions, deduction for charitable computer contributions, and expensing costs for cleaning up hazardous waste;
• Tax credits for certain empowerment zones, DC Enterprise zone, the work opportunity tax credit, and small business capital gains; and
• Disaster relief provisions, such as New York Liberty Zone and Gulf Opportunity Zone.

» FY2011 Appropriations

Until December 20th, Congress had not passed a spending bill for FY2011, which began on October 1st, and had been operating under a number of Continuing Resolution, the latest of which would have expired just before Christmas. A Continuing Resolution funds the government at its 2010 level until the appropriation became law or the resolution expired. (Without action, the government would have been forced to shut down!) In early December, the Senate was pushing to pass an Omnibus package, but it abandoned that effort in favor of a Continuing Resolution. On December 21st, the Senate passed a Continuing Resolution that would go through March 4, 2011. The House followed suit and passed it on the evening of December 21st. President Obama signed the bill shortly after. This Continuing Resolution does add some additional provision over the typical Continuing Resolution; it will provide only $1.6 billion more than FY2010's budget. It will also ensure that the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) will provide the same obligations as it did during the same period last year, to ensure adequate funding for the program during the winter. The Omnibus probably would have been much better for the states, as it would have guaranteed funding until next October at higher levels. This short term extension has likely set up a legislative battle between the White House and Congressional Republicans that will begin early next year.

» Health and Human Services

Opponents of healthcare reform have brought suit in several courts across the country in efforts to prevent some of the reform's most sweeping changes from taking place in 2014. Opponents have argued that the laws are unconstitutional, in that the Federal Government has no right to force citizens to purchase insurance using the commerce clause as its defense. The U.S. District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson in Richmond, Virginia, declared the insurance mandate unconstitutional but refused to grant an injunction preventing the state from implementing the reforms. Attorneys general for 20 other states filed a lawsuit, which Florida-based federal Judge Roger Vinson ruled in October could proceed, with the hearing set to begin in December. Opponents of healthcare reform believe that the recent Virginia ruling could help them in Florida. The Florida lawsuit, however, contests the federal mandate that states expand eligibility requirements for Medicaid.

If healthcare reform were to collapse, it would result in the following outcomes (just to name a few): reduction of the number of people on Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program; elimination of coverage for 72,000 children with pre-existing conditions who are otherwise denied by insurance companies; dramatic limitation of the number of Americans with individual coverage (32 million fewer between now and 2019); and reduction of the number of those who can afford employer-sponsored coverage as four million small businesses would lose their tax credit, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

In response to the negative federal court ruling, The White House insists that the healthcare laws will not be affected and there is no practical impact as states move forward in implementing the law. Most experts believe that the future of healthcare reform will eventually be decided through the U.S. Supreme Court.

» Education

Education legislation to promote innovation and drive competitiveness in universities passed the Senate as part of the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Technology, Education, and Science (COMPETES) Reauthorization Act of 2010. The Act will focus on three primary areas to increase American innovation and competitiveness: (1) increasing science and research investments, (2) strengthening science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education, and (3) developing an innovation infrastructure. The legislation was sponsored by Senator Amy Klobuchar, chair of the Commerce Subcommittee on Competitiveness, Innovation, and Export Promotion. The bill passed the House in May.

» Emergency Preparedness/Homeland Security

In April, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed an illegal immigration law aimed at identifying, prosecuting, and deporting illegal immigrants. Arizona is the first state to mandate that immigrants carry identification documents verifying their legal status. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, as of November 10th, six state legislatures have introduced similar bills, including South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Michigan, and Illinois. Additionally, resolutions have been introduced in another six state legislatures that address Arizona's immigration law. The California Senate, Illinois House, and New York Senate introduced resolutions opposing the Arizona law. Tennessee enacted a resolution supporting it, and the Michigan House introduced resolutions both supporting and opposing Arizona's law.

» The White House Council on Women and Girls

In one of his first acts as President, Barak Obama signed an Executive Order creating a Council on Women and Girls within The White House that would ensure each of the cabinet agencies "takes into account the needs of women and girls in the policies they draft, the programs they create, [and] the legislation they support… and ensure that in America, all things are still possible for all people." With the President's Senior Advisor and Assistant for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement, Valerie Jarrett, as the Council's Chair, and Tina Tchen, Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, as the Council's Executive Director, President Obama sent a message that he was putting resources behind women's issues.

Each agency head is charged with understanding how his/her budget and work impact women and girls and is held accountable by the president for the agency's plan to help empower women and girls. For example, the Department of Transportation (DOT) has increased its outreach to encourage more young women to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) career fields. In fact, the DOT recently began a partnership with Spellman College to increase the number of African American women entering these professions. This year, for the first time in the history of crash test dummies, the DOT built the industry's first anatomically correct female dummy. Some engineers were surprised to learn that there were differences in the impact of the crashes on the female dummies compared to the male dummies. Some overarching policies that the Council is engaged in deal with violence against women and workplace flexibility. This year, the President and First Lady held The White House's first-ever forum on workplace flexibility; the Department of Labor will facilitate a series of conversations as part of a national dialogue in 2011.

» The White House "Let's Move" Initiative

Valerie Jarrett, the President's Senior Advisor, penned an article for NBCSL's most recent edition of The Legislator, which detailed First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" Initiative to get the country, and particularly its youth, active and physically fit. According to the initiative's website, http://www.letsmove.gov, President Barack Obama established the Task Force on Childhood Obesity to develop and implement an interagency plan with a coordinated strategy, benchmarks, and action steps to end childhood obesity within a generation. The plan offers 70 recommendations that help communities take part in the initiative. The five-part strategy focuses on early childhood, which includes sections on pre-natal care and breastfeeding; empowering parents and caregivers; healthy food in schools; access to affordable, healthy food; and increasing physical activity. A bill to support this initiative named the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, was signed into law on December 13th. The bill contains numerous measures that will improve school lunches and give children better access to healthier food options.

» Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT)

On Wednesday, December 22, 2010, President Barack Obama signed legislation ending the military's 17-year policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." The policy was a compromise forged during the Clinton Administration as an alternative to the practice of banning gay men and lesbians altogether from military services. This bill allowed gay men and women to serve as long as they did not disclose their sexual orientation. An estimated 14,000 troops have been discharged after superiors learned of their preference. The House passed the bill (250-175) to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" on December 16th, and the Senate voted (65-31) on December 18th.

In a statement made on December 20th, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) said it will "move out carefully, deliberately, and purposefully" to implement the repeal of DADT. The repeal will not officially go into effect for at least 60 days while some procedural tasks are completed. Also, the bill requires DOD Secretary Robert M. Gates, to determine whether policies are in place to carry out the repeal that are "consistent with military standards for readiness, effectiveness, unit cohesion, and recruiting and retention." A survey conducted by the Pentagon found that 32% of Marines and 21.4% of the Army combat troops would leave the military sooner if the bill were repealed. Another survey on ending DADT was distributed to 400,000 service members. Of the 100,000 members who responded, 70% said they would "work together to get the job done" if there were a gay or lesbian member of their unit.

» Special Note on Federal Funding

With a divided Congress next year and a fragile economy, the one thing we can be sure of is that a major battle is brewing over funding. The question is not going to be whether to cut programs, but rather how large those cuts will be. President Obama has already signaled a willingness to make cuts to the federal budgets. Any additional federal aid to our states will be very difficult to obtain. Our states are not going to be able to receive the same level of assistance in the next two years.