When the President has presented an extensive agenda to a lame-duck session controlled by his own party, it has often approved many of his recommendations (e.g., 1950, 2002, 2004), but when he has done so under conditions of divided government, he has had less success and has often vetoed measures (e.g., 1970, 1974, 1982).
In the period since the ratification of the 20th Amendment, the practice has grown up that Congress often includes this contingent authority, in some form, in concurrent resolutions providing for a session recess or a sine die adjournment.
This course of events occurred in 1948 when President Harry Truman called Congress back for an extraordinary session in the middle of a recess for the national political conventions.
The longest election recess occurred in 1948 (80th Congress), with 145 days elapsing between the end of the special session called by President Truman and the largely pro forma reconvening and adjournment on December 31.
The administration declined to send major new proposals (such as a defense production board, aid to Britain, new taxes, and an increase in the debt limit) to Capitol Hill until the 77th Congress would convene in January.
Among the more notable actions of this lame-duck period were the decision to sustain the veto of a measure to limit regulatory agency powers and the publication of a committee report on sabotage of the defense effort.
Other questions left to the next Congress included comprehensive national service legislation, placing a ceiling on net personal income through the tax code, curbing the powers of regulatory agencies, and planning for censorship of communications with U.S. territories.
Among the issues facing the post-election session were questions of peacetime universal military training; extension of the War Powers Act[9] and the reciprocal trade system; a scheduled increase in Social Security taxes; and a rivers and harbors appropriations bill.
During the convention recess, however, President Harry S Truman called Congress back in extraordinary session to deal with a series of legislative priorities he considered urgent.
The Senate also extended for 30 days the life of the Special Small Business Committee, and both houses swore in new Members elected or appointed to full unexpired terms.
As the lame duck session met, Chinese troops crossed into Korea, and General Douglas A. MacArthur warned Congress that the United Nations faced "an entirely new" war in the region.
It also passed the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970, which established deadlines for the reduction of certain pollutants from new automobiles, and a major housing bill, which included a new program of federal crime insurance and created the Community Development Corporation.
President Nixon vetoed four measures during the lame duck session, including a $9.5 billion federal manpower training and public service employment bill.
The Rockefeller nomination was approved by mid-December, but Congress overrode presidential vetoes of both a vocational rehabilitation bill and a measure amending the Freedom of Information Act.
In 1980, some observers contended that postponing final congressional action on a lengthy agenda of major issues until a post-election session would accomplish two goals: first, it would delay potentially difficult pre-election votes on budget matters, and second, it would allow incumbents extra time to campaign.
The large Republican gains on election day were thought to complicate the prospects for a productive lame duck program, however, especially with such important issues as budget reconciliation, several major appropriations bills, and landmark environmental legislation still left for consideration.
In fact, during the lame duck session, from November 12 to December 16, 1980, Congress completed action on many of the issues that had been left unfinished in the regular session, including the following: a budget resolution and a budget reconciliation measure; five regular appropriations bills, although one was subsequently vetoed; a second continuing resolution was approved to continue funding for other parts of the government; an Alaska lands bill and a "superfund" bill to help clean up chemical contamination; a measure extending general revenue sharing for three years; a measure that made disposal of low-level nuclear waste a state responsibility; and changes to military pay and benefits, and authority for the President to call 100,000 military reservists to active duty without declaring a national emergency.
Dominated by economic concerns—particularly those related to budget and deficit issues—the second session of the 97th Congress was notable for the political tension between the Republican president and Senate, on the one hand, and the Democratic House, on the other.
Concerned about recession and rising unemployment, House Democrats added a $5.4 billion jobs program to the continuing resolution, but agreed to remove it when the President threatened a veto.
An immigration reform bill, favored by the White House and the congressional leadership, stalled when opponents filed hundreds of amendments designed to slow chamber action.
When the two houses returned, with the presidential election undecided, they approved a short-term continuing resolution and the District of Columbia Appropriations Act, and then agreed to a further recess until December 5.
Congress met in intermittent or pro forma sessions during the pre-election period in 2002, but returned to a full schedule of business on November 12 with two priorities: finish work on 11 appropriations bills and consider creation of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a measure at the top of President George W. Bush's legislative agenda.
The post-election environment was viewed as favorable to action on an omnibus appropriations measure, by facilitating adherence to caps on domestic discretionary spending, on which the administration insisted, as well as the elimination of many authorizing provisions.
Congress initially cleared the measure on November 20, but, because it subsequently had to direct corrections in the enrollment of the bill, President Bush was able to sign it only on December 8, the day of the sine die adjournment.
Post-election conditions also permitted the resolution of conference deadlocks over several other reauthorizations, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a moratorium on internet taxation, and authority for satellite television systems to carry network programming.
Failure to resolve policy disagreements, however, doomed several other reauthorizations, including the 1996 welfare reform and a highway bill, although the latter had also been delayed by demands in the Senate for assurances about the role to be played by minority conferees.
Other notable legislation included a bill that allowed President George W. Bush to negotiate an agreement with India permitting cooperation on its development of nuclear power for the first time in thirty years.
In addition, Congress passed a bill to overhaul the United States Postal Service and a Veterans’ Affairs package authorizing funds for major medical projects and information technology upgrades.
The main legislative business of the lame duck session involved further responses to spreading disruptions of the financial system that had become evident during the campaign period.
[17] The omnibus, besides its primary purpose of funding the U.S. government, also included the Electoral Count Reform And Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022 to safeguard elections from subversion[18] and $44.9 billion in aid to Ukraine.