[thechat] 'Merican politics
Tamara Abbey
Abbey at abbeyink.com
Thu May 24 13:43:56 CDT 2001
At 02:25 PM 5/24/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>The folks on MSNBC and FoxNews have something to talk about,
>but when you realize that we have *exactly* the same people in
>the Senate next week that we had last week, it doesn't really
>make much difference, does it?
Well, yes, it does since control of the U.S. Senate now goes to the
Democrats and we have a Republican president.
(Man I feel old again, but drawing on my distant educational career),
there's not a whole lot the President can do unless he has the consent of
Congress so we could be looking at a stalemate.
The exact ins-and-outs of things like energy policy, I don't know if the
President alone can allow for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico or if he has
to have the approval of Congress.
So, with a Democratic Senate, it's quite possible that any legislation
proposed by the House could head to committee and never see the light of
day if the Democratic Senate chooses.
This also becomes significant since we just had a census last year and our
government is representative of the people. That means we have a new head
count (I know, woefully inaccurate, I'm sure), but 10 years ago there was
some pretty nasty fighting over Congressional districts and who would be in
control of the final map.
<tamara />
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