The Do-Nothing Congress

There is something to be said for a do-nothing Congress since when they actually do do something it's often counterproductive or downright destructive.

The current Congress is a paragon of do-nothingness. It has achieved no great victories and passed no major reforms. Until very recently it has allowed the White House to abrogate its legislative perogatives and push it around with impunity. And with mid-term elections looming large, the likelihood of it doing something, anything, grows smaller by the day.

It is in this context that it looks like President Bush's push for a sweeping overhaul of immigration laws is DOA.

That became all but obvious with the announcement this week that House Republican leaders, who pushed through a reform bill with criminalization of illegal immigration as its centerpiece, will hold public hearings on the kinder and gentler Senate reform bill, which they strongly oppose.

Translation:

This move will get us through the summer and when we come back in the fall we can fiddle f*ck around with hearings and basically do nothing until after Election Day.

'A SIGNIFICANT EMBARRASSMENT'

Meanwhile, House Republican leaders have canceled a planned vote to renew the Voting Rights Act after a rebellion by lawmakers who say the civil rights measure unfairly singles out Southern states and promotes multi-lingual ballots.

Notes The New York Times:

The reversal represented a significant embarrassment for the party leadership, which has promised a vote on the landmark anti-discrimination law and hailed its imminent approval in a rare bipartisan press event on the steps of the Capitol last month.