Lame-duck session returning in November will welcome new Hawaii congresswoman

You might ask why, but one of the nation’s least-productive sessions of Congress is coming back to Washington in about four weeks.

But what will it do?

If the questions involved the left-behind middle class hoping for more jobs and opportunity, if college students were thinking staggering tuition payments would ease, or if forthright answers to the federal budget problems were in the offing, the answers would be no, no and no again.

The 114th Congress on Nov. 14 is set for a lame-duck session. Lame-duck sessions happen after its successor Congress is elected, but before the successor’s term begins. So the folks elected in November join the 115th Congress, but the 114th is set to go back for nonwork in November.

The oddity is Hawaii is electing someone for the lame-duck session because U.S. Rep. K. Mark Takai died and a successor had to be voted upon.

The major candidates are Democrat Colleen Hanabusa, who used to hold the seat, and Republican Shirlene Ostrov.

As a former Air Force colonel, Ostrov sees herself in Congress next month working on bills to limit the transition of Guantanamo Bay, increase accountability of the Department of Veterans Affairs and dealing with the federal budget.

“The measure of success to me is to see a bill that balances our nation’s budget and allocates spending on the right priorities, including national security, veterans care and reducing spending on enforcing onerous regulations,” Ostrov said.

Probably the best voters can hope for is what Hanabusa calls the top job of the lame duck Congress: putting together a new budget.

“The most important thing is the continuing resolution — they have to fund the government. I think that is the primary thing,” said Hanabusa in an interview.

Ostrov agreed, saying in a separate interview that because the continuing resolution that now funds govern- ment expires on Dec. 9, something has to be done quickly.

Hanabusa said if nothing is done by the lame-duck Congress, government shuts down.

“If we just go with a continuing resolution, it means whatever was there in the budget continues, but nothing new can be added,” she said.

“I have heard some rumbling about maybe some higher education bills, maybe something on STEM, but there isn’t anything specific.”

Part of the problem is that the most conservative GOP House factions are already pressuring House Speaker Paul Ryan not to try to pass one huge spending bill, and there are new fears that the lame-duck session would be the time to spring a vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade bill.

What also is not likely to come up, according to Hanabusa, who is also the outgoing chairwoman of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation, is any new federal money for the overbudget rail line.

“The feds have been clear: there is not going to be any new money,” Hanabusa said.

The two women are actually running in two elections. First the special election to fill out Takai’s term, and then for the new term starting in 2017.

So it may turn out that one of the only new things done by the lame-duck Congress is swearing in a new congresswoman from Hawaii.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.