Under Massachusetts law, it'll probably take 10 days for the election of Scott Brown to be certified and for Brown to be sworn in as a Senator. Nothing nefarious -- that's just how orderly transfers of power work in a democratic system. Consequently, Paul Kirk will continue to serve as Senator up until the point that Brown is properly sworn in.
Barney Frank, God love him, doesn't think Kirk counts:
"I know some of my Democratic colleagues had been thinking about ways to, in effect, get around the results by working in various parliamentary ways, looking at the rules, trying to get a health care bill passed that would have been the same bill that would have passed if [MA AG] Martha Coakley [D] had won, and I think that's a mistake," Frank said. "I will not support an effort to push through a House-Senate compromise bill despite an election. I'm disappointed in how it came out, but I think electoral results have to be respected."
Jim Webb agrees, except ever so more so:
“In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process,” Mr. Webb said. “It is vital that we restore the respect of the American people in our system of government and in our leaders. To that end, I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated.”
You know, I don't remember Jim Webb going on strike and filibustering all Senate votes while Norm Coleman and the Republican Party used every procedural trick at their disposal to keep Al Franken out of the Senate for six months. And there's a good reason for that: government has to function per its own rules. Coleman and the Republicans may have been acting in bad faith in delaying Franken's swearing in, but life had to go on for the Senate while the mess in Minnesota was sorted out.
Lame ducks are a feature, not a bug, of our republic. They allow the work of government to continue as our democratic process ensures that the results of elections are proper, accurate, and complete. And while lame ducks generally don't engage in major legislation, they retain the powers of their offices, and occasionally do attempt to make significant changes on their way out the door -- witness George W. Bush's "midnight" executive rulemaking. That's how our government works.
Now I'm not advocating that a health bill be hurried through Congress in the next couple days -- far from it. I've got serious reservations about the bill on offer, and it would be a shocker if a rush bill didn't end up looking a lot uglier than what's currently being discussed. But this notion that the work of government needs to be put on hold, and the country resigned to twiddling its thumbs and listening to "Little Spanish Flea," while we wait for one of 100 senators to be sworn in, is just absurd -- especially when there's another senator properly holding that seat. It's even more ludicrous when you consider that this senator doesn't change the balance of power in the chamber. He represents the 41st member of a minority caucus. No committee chairs will be ousted following his swearing-in. Mitch McConnell will not become the Majority Leader. Dick Durbin and Harry Reid won't have to move to less desirable offices. All Brown represents is one more Senator in a small minority. Now sure, you can say that he does represent "the end of the Democratic supermajority."
But how can he represent the end of something that never existed?
Congress should feel free to continue to do the people's work over the next few days. That's how we do in a republican democracy.