Go home, Congress -- you're done

“Democrats relinquishing the Senate have outlined an ambitious agenda for the lame-duck session,” reports the Boston Globe. The Democrats are “likely to have bold plans for the lame duck,” says NBC News. Lots and lots of business is evidently being packed into the brief window between the Nov. 4 election and Jan. 3, when the next Congress is sworn-in. That’s too bad. Lame-duck sessions, absent national emergency, are actually a very bad idea.

The constitutional gap between ballot and authority is an artifact of the logistics of a bygone age. The Framers of the Constitution never seriously imagined the possibility that senators and representatives would be able to convene within days or even hours of the vote.