Nine months into the congressional term, a new Gallup Poll finds only 18 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing.
That makes for a whole lot of pressure on the majority Democrats to push through some of the legislation that voters think is important before the already highly politicized environment becomes even more polarized by campaigning for next year's elections.
Dealing with the war in Iraq topped congressional leaders' priority lists after their August recess.
While the debate in Congress focuses on "benchmarks" and other details of an independent commission's study of the progress of the war, church advocates worry about how the situation is affecting the Iraqi people.
Stephen Colecchi, director of the Office of International Justice and Peace for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that means trying to ensure that whatever the United States does to extricate itself from Iraq the effort must follow a moral framework that leads to a stable transition.
The U.S. bishops emphasized this in one of several recent public statements and letters to Congress on Iraq. "There is no path ahead that leads to an unambiguously good outcome for Iraq, our nation and the world," said a July 18 letter to congressional leaders from Bishop Thomas G. Wenski of Orlando, Fla., chairman of the bishops' Committee on International Policy.
"Nevertheless, our nation must have the moral courage to change course in Iraq and to break the policy and political stalemate in Washington so that we can walk a difficult path that does the most good and the least damage in human and moral terms," he added.
The bishops want to ensure that any transition plan protects vulnerable populations such as refugees and members of minority religions, including the tiny, beleaguered Christian community, and benefits as many Iraqis as possible, providing gainful employment and stable environments, Colecchi told CNS.
Another of Colecchi's concerns, the appropriations bill for foreign operations, was approved by the Senate Sept. 7 and will head to a conference committee to reconcile differences between it and the House-passed version.
The bill does not include continuing the so-called Mexico City policy, which prohibits organizations overseas from counseling women about abortion or promoting abortion as a method of family planning if they receive federal funding.
An attempt by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., to insert an amendment continuing the policy failed in a 41-53 vote. President George W. Bush has said he would veto a foreign operations budget that doesn't include the Mexico City policy.
Brownback succeeded with another amendment that would continue the Bush administration policy prohibiting U.S. contributions to the U.N. Population Fund. The fund contributes money to China, which includes coerced abortions in its population control policies.
The Senate appropriations bill included less money than requested by the Bush administration for programs including the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which aids countries that are succeeding at economic and political reform, and cuts foreign aid and State Department funding by about $700 million from the administration's request. The bill also added $940 million to the $4.2 billion requested by Bush for the global fund to combat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
A Sept. 5 letter to senators from Bishop Wenski urged full funding for the Millennium Challenge Corporation at $3 billion, not the $1.2 billion in the Senate bill. It also encouraged reinstating designated funding in the HIV/AIDS prevention program for programs encouraging abstinence before marriage and fidelity during marriage to avoid the transmission of HIV.
Domestically, the congressional agenda looks a bit like it did at the beginning of the year, with passage of an increase to the minimum wage and reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP, among the few major pieces of the Democratic leaders' agenda to have been completed. House and Senate versions of the SCHIP bills need to be reconciled and Bush has threatened to veto it.
Reauthorizing the farm bill (the House has passed it, the Senate hasn't), addressing the shortage of affordable housing and doing something about immigration are back on the domestic agenda.
Tom Shellabarger, interim director of the USCCB's Office of Domestic Social Development, said the House has been working on affordable housing, but the Senate is "way behind" in trying to address it.
As millions of homeowners face foreclosure over high-risk loans, Bush offered a refinance plan early in September that Shellabarger said would primarily help lenders that made the risky loans in the first place, rather than directly aiding the families facing foreclosure.
"I don't think we need to be bailing out the mortgage companies that put themselves at risk," he said.
And the elephant in the room, immigration reform, remains there, according to Kevin Appleby, director of immigration and refugee policy for the USCCB. After the Senate failed in the spring to pass an immigration bill, it's unlikely that another effort will be made to pass a comprehensive reform bill until after the 2008 elections.
On the House side, however, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., attempted to revive discussions by holding a hearing Sept. 6 on the Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy Act, known as the STRIVE Act.
The USCCB offered tentative support for the STRIVE Act as a step in the right direction when it was introduced, but noted that it had serious flaws.
Meanwhile, backers of two popular pieces of immigration legislation will attempt again to attach them to must-pass bills such as appropriations or the farm bill. The Agricultural Jobs, Opportunity, Benefits and Security Act, or AgJOBS, and the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act, or DREAM Act -- have had bipartisan support for several years, but have not made it to final votes in Congress.
The DREAM Act would allow young adults who are in the U.S. illegally through no fault of their own to attend college at in-state tuition rates and to legalize their status. AgJOBS would make it easier for farmers to legally employ enough immigrants as agriculture workers.
Growers around the country have complained for several years that they are unable to hire enough workers to bring in their produce because of a shortage of visas. ---CNS |