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Will an Immigration Reform Bill Be Possible During the Lame Duck Session in Congress?

Posted October 20, 2010 by Patrick Young, Esq.

As a boy, suffering through a losing season of Little League, I was about to give up and quit. My dad told me that my team wasn’t likely to win the championship, but he guaranteed me that if I gave up we would finish last.

If you’ve been an immigration reform supporter in 2010, you may have a similar feeling of disappointment at this stage in the game. Congress has failed to pass any legislation promoting immigration reform despite all of our efforts so far this year, and the midterm congressional elections may very well usher in a new crop of politicians who oppose reform.

The window for immigration reform hasn’t passed yet, though. Senator Bob Menendez and Representative Nydia Velasquez are working on pressing some kind of immigration reform measure during the upcoming lame duck” session of Congress. What does that mean? Well, first you need to look at the environment in which they’ll be presenting any reform bills.

A lame duck session refers to Congresses that reconvene after an election. Since some of those representatives and senators who return in late November were defeated in the election, and will not be part of the new Congress in January, they’re called “lame ducks.”

In the past, controversial legislation has passed during lame duck sessions because members of Congress in contested districts no longer have to fear being voted out for supporting a measure, since they’ve already been voted out.

Immigrant rights supporters believe that several of the senators who voted against the DREAM Act last month will support it after the elections, when they’re free of the pressure from their constituents. This means that there will be a very brief period of time to bring the measure, or something like it, forward again.

However, don’t assume any immigration reform measure will come up for a vote. Lame duck sessions are extremely short – usually about a month or two – and there are several important bills Congress may choose to take up instead. For example, conservatives want to restore the Bush tax cuts for wealthy Americans. Environmentalists are hoping for climate change legislation. LGBT groups are working for Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell to be repealed. All of these bill, and others, will be in competition for Congress’s attention.

You can also expect any immigration bill that comes to a vote will be a watered-down version of current legislation. If the number of pro-immigrant legislators decreases as a result of the election, which is a likely scenario, conservatives will demand that immigration legislation be weakened as the price for passage.

Will it be worth working for reform, given the long odds and the tough concessions we’ll have to make?

When you consider that as many as 100 seats in Congress may change hands on November 2, with many going to politicians who have campaigned on an anti-immigrant agenda, it’s safe to say that while passing a reform bill might be a difficult job this fall, it will be nearly impossible next year. Or in 2012, for that matter.

That means that the best chance for any immigration reform bill to pass will be within the next 60 days. Because that time period is so short, we all need to be ready on the day after the elections to begin the fight.

Next week, I’ll tell you what you can do to support immigration reform. Know one thing for sure – we’ll need each person reading this to help for a reform bill to have a chance.

By the way, forty-plus years ago I played out the season and quit baseball the next year. But we didn’t finish last.


Image courtesy of aeu04117 via Flickr.

Tags : bob menendez, column, immigration reform, lame duck, nydia velasquez

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