The archaic phrase "lame duck Congress" connotes a limping, limited thing. Yet the current postelection session is poised to prove anything but.
The reason for this one's productive potential? With the midterm elections behind them, House members and senators — including dozens of individual lame duck legislators either defeated or retiring — feel freer to vote as they choose, regardless of their constituents' wrath.
That's actually a good thing in these polarized times, not an anti-democratic impulse. We need bipartisan majorities of lawmakers less beholden to the demands of the noisy fringe of their respective political tribes and more responsive to the broadly defined desires of the American people.
