More than 75 conservatives Thursday called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan to not hold a lame-duck session of Congress after the November election to prevent President Barack Obama from further enacting his "progressive" agenda before leaving office.
"The Republican-led Congress must not provide President Obama with an additional opportunity to enact his agenda of progressive social engineering programs and job-killing economic policies before he leaves office," the Conservative Action Project said
in a letter signed by the conservative leaders.
"A lame-duck session would be his swan song: he can be expected to leave no arm untwisted, no threat unmade, no quid un-quod, to get his dream-policies enacted, his liberal judges confirmed, and his international agreements approved.
"And all of it could be done without any concern for what the voters actually want because neither he nor the departing legislators will ever face the voters again," the letter said. "We think that's a bad way to run a democracy."
The lead signatories on the letter are Conservative Action Project Chair Becky Norton Dunlop and former Ronald Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese.
Others signers include former Reagan aides T. Kenneth Cribb Jr. and James Miller III; evangelical broadcaster James Dobson; Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy; Heritage Action for America's Michael Needham; and Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin.
The group called on McConnell and Ryan to ensure that Congress completes all of its work by the Nov. 8 election to "take an important first step in restoring the American people's trust in their government.
"By making it absolutely clear that there will not be a lame-duck session, the Republican leaders in Congress will encourage all members of Congress to complete the people's work in an orderly manner before the elections, putting an end to the unfortunate practice of recent years of governing by manufactured 'cliffs and crises' at the end of the year.
"The American people want, and should have, good representation by their elected officials," the letter concluded. "The way to get good representation is by having the opportunity to hold those officials accountable.
"True accountability means finishing Congress' work for the year before the November elections and not holding a lame-duck session."
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