WASHINGTON—With the party set to lose control of the chamber following defeats in the midterm elections, Senate Democrats announced Wednesday that they are prepared to go out in a final blaze of glory by passing one last completely neutered bill.
Reconvening for the lame-duck session, the party leadership confirmed plans to muster their forces for a valiant, climactic charge, aiming to make a last stand in the weeks ahead by enacting just one more watered-down, ultimately inconsequential piece of legislation during the 113th session of Congress.
“My fellow Democrats and I fully intend to go out with a bang, pushing through one final bill that has been completely gutted of any meaningful provisions in order to get enough votes,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) while describing the party’s last legislative hurrah, which is expected to have no measurable effect on the U.S. populace whatsoever. “This signature legislation will feature more than 500 pages of toothless clauses, unenforceable regulations, and generous compromises that give significant ground to our opponents while getting us nothing back in return—I promise you that.”
“Americans can depend on us to put up the kind of legislative fight that they have come to expect from Senate Democrats,” he added.
According to sources, the final culmination of the Democratic majority’s efforts will begin with draft legislation that appears highly promising at first, but will eventually be stripped of all substance and value as party members seek to overcome the procedural hurdles necessary to bringing it to the Senate floor for debate. Democratic leaders confirmed that their grand finale will, in short order, become burdened with dozens of revisions, markups, and restrictions on individual articles that will effectively negate its original purpose altogether, ultimately yielding a meaningless law that has no discernible impact on the country.
While they haven’t decided yet whether the measure will be a feeble attempt to eliminate corporate-tax loopholes, reduce carbon emissions, or address immigration issues, party officials have promised that the end product will be wholly unrecognizable and will in no way represent their core values.
With many among their party not returning in January, Democratic leaders have said that the outgoing members of their caucus will always be able to look back on this final gesture as the crowning moment of their eight years in power, when all their efforts, once again, accomplished absolutely nothing. Additionally, the left-leaning senators have vowed to go down swinging, telling reporters they will sacrifice everything for the bill, which they admit will have to be an extremely sterile piece of legislation—perhaps even a nonbinding resolution of some kind—if it is to survive a Republican filibuster.
“We Democrats may only have a few months left in power, but we are going out with guns blazing,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), acknowledging that the party’s intention to “burn out instead of fade away” will almost certainly result in a bill laden with riders that undermine previous Democratic accomplishments. “It’s now or never, and we plan on going out big. So, let’s seize this one last chance to put a bill on the floor that we will dramatically scale back at the first sign of Republican opposition.”
“This will be the very best of what our party has to offer,” she added.