In late September, as the fiscal year 2020 came to a close, Congress passed - and Trump signed - a stopgap spending bill that will expire on December 11. Other than leadership elections, the to-do list for the lame-duck session revolves around spending. In any event, what you see is what you’ll get in terms of the top leadership in both parties and in both congressional chambers, the Senate lineup having been essentially frozen by the close results and the January runoffs. That could be because Pelosi previously headed off a coup effort in 2018 by pledging to step down by 2022. But this year, Pelosi is poised to enter another - and possibly final term - as speaker, with her position as safe as ever despite losing at least six net seats after predicting they’d expand their majority. As Politico observed, Pelosi and her deputies have managed (unless something really unexpected happens literally overnight) to elude collateral damage to their positions.įor the last decade, Pelosi has had the same post-election routine: swiftly quashing whispers of an insurrection as a handful of members look to end her long tenure as leader. But no drama is expected here - even among House Democrats, whose losses incited the usual media-inflated intraparty quarreling. This week, the focus is on leadership elections for next year. In the meantime, Congress has some unfinished business to wrap up. The big flip, of course, was in the control of the White House, but Donald Trump’s refusal to concede defeat (which could go on until the end of time), will cast a pall over the lame-duck session, particularly if the Republican Party continues to back up his bizarre claim that he is preparing for a second term. Democrats surprisingly lost a chunk of their majority in the House but still have an opportunity to take control of the Senate if they can achieve two runoff victories in Georgia on January 5. The elections did not generate a massive change in the balance of power in Congress. Domestic political pressure means her successor is unlikely to have that luxury.Congress returns this week for a so-called “lame-duck session” prior to implementation of the 2020 election results and the swearing in of the 117th Congress on or around January 3 (which falls on a Sunday in 2021). Merkel may be remembered for her ability to forge consensus and act for the greater good. All the more so if the CDU is trying to win back its traditional supporters, who typically favour fiscal discipline. A lame-duck Merkel – or her successor – may be less tolerant of countries, such as Italy, who flout the European Union’s budget rules. There will also be consequences for the rest of Europe if the CDU lists to the right. A minority government or an alliance with the liberal Free Democrats, who walked away from coalition talks last year, could then be on the cards. If the CDU tacks to the right, and the SPD pulls the other way, the current coalition will fall apart sooner rather than later. The SPD’s share of the Hesse vote fell to roughly a fifth, the worst result in the state since 1946, and the party is under pressure to show supporters it is achieving tangible results by staying in government. The need to win back such voters may tempt the next chair of the CDU to push the party to the right.īut that will be hard to square with the demands of Merkel’s junior coalition partner, the left-leaning Social Democrats (SPD) who are also being punished by voters. Some traditional supporters of the two parties were angered by Merkel’s 2015 decision to welcome one million mainly Muslim asylum seekers. The Christian Democrats’ sister party, the CSU, two weeks ago suffered its worst result in Bavaria since 1950. The announcement of Merkel’s decision to give up the CDU chair came on Monday, a day after a regional election in the western state of Hesse saw support for the conservatives slump by 11 percentage points. While she nevertheless wants to serve her full term as chancellor until 2021, her country and the rest of Europe will inevitably start looking ahead to what could be a more polarising era. The politician who has been Germany’s chancellor for 13 years has decided to not seek re-election as chairwoman of her party, the Christian Democrats (CDU). LONDON (Reuters Breakingviews) - Angela Merkel has called time on her own tenure. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, top candidate of the Christian Democratic Union Party (CDU), waves, August 16, 2017.
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