The 112th Congress will be remembered as one of the most unproductive sessions since the 1940s. Just 219 bills were passed, compared to the 383 signed during the previous session. Meanwhile, House Republicans made 33 unsuccessful attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
As we bid farewell to the low approval ratings and frustratingly ineffective 112th Congress, we might also take note of some of the members of the group that are not back in the game for the 113th session. Some failed in their bids for re-election, while others made the decision not to run for another term. All the same, we will miss them…some of them.
From the group that failed to win re-election, we have Illinois Republican Joe Walsh, who we’ll remember for his famous outburst during a meeting with constituents at a local bar. Walsh later blamed his explosive attitude on a caffeine overload. In the midst of the get-together, Walsh noteably shouted a request for “more coffee.”
Who can forget Allen West and his suggestion that “78 to 81 members of the Democrat party are members of the Communist Party”? Arizona Republican Ben Quayle also got the boot thanks to redistricting and an unsuccessful faceoff with a fellow Republican. In case you forgot, Quayle burst onto the scene in 2010 with an ad calling President Obama “the worst president in history.”
Not all of the recently-departed lawmakers were voted out though. There’s Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who resigned from his Senate seat in order to head up The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington D.C.
Then there’s Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank. Frank of course leaves his mark on Capitol Hill in the form of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Still, it’s hard to believe the utterly blunt speeches and one-of-a-kind reactions we could always count on from Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank are suddenly a thing of the past.
And here’s a question: why are current senators also bidding farewell to a certain bichon frise named Dakota?
Take a look at Hardball’s farewell to the members of the 112th Congress who are off the roster for the new session.