Kirk to be Sworn in Monday Evening
Politico reports:
When Illinois Republican Mark Kirk is sworn in as a senator Monday evening, Democrats will have an even tougher time passing pieces of their lame-duck agenda.
His arrival will narrow Democrats’ majority in the Senate to 58-42, meaning they’ll now need at least two Republicans to reach the 60-vote threshold to move forward on legislation, from a limited extension of Bush-era tax cuts to a repeal of the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
A five-term congressman, Kirk crosses the Capitol to replace Democrat Roland Burris, who was appointed to the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama after he became president in January 2009. Kirk, who defeated Democrat Alexi Giannoulias in the Nov. 2 election, will fill out the final weeks of Obama’s unfinished term and be seated for a full six-year term next January.
On the campaign trail, the Navy Reserve intelligence officer denounced Obama’s economic stimulus as a failure, called for the repeal of the health care law and an end to congressional earmarks, and vowed to ensure tax cuts don’t expire at the end of this year.
And though he considers himself a social moderate, he’s expected to vote no on two bills Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he would try to pass in the lame duck: the immigration-related DREAM Act and the defense authorization bill that includes language to repeal the military’s ban on openly gay service members, the latter of which Kirk voted against while serving in the House.
Kirk is already setting himself up as less of a firebrand than other recently elected freshmen, urging bipartisanship in an op-ed published Monday in the Chicago Tribune.
Politicians, he said, need to “cast aside the partisan differences and work across the aisle” to erase Washington’s mounting debt. And Congress should “build bipartisan majorities” to support Obama’s request for a new line-item veto and a proposal by the late Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) for a constitutional amendment requiring the federal government to balance its budget.
He said the first bill he’ll introduce in the Senate would create a new bipartisan “Grace Commission” to root out federal waste and make congressional recommendations to shut down military bases.
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