Dear Leader Reid,
The American people expect and deserve the highest level of accountability and transparency from their elected officials. One way to live up to these expectations is to ensure that the American people, when they go to the ballot box this November 4th, can make their electoral choices based on a full knowledge of how their current senators have voted on key legislation.
Yet some lawmakers in Washington have recently suggested that significant legislative matters would deliberately not be addressed during the 113th Congress until after the elections. Presumably, a lame-duck session would be used to try to pass partisan, unpopular bills in November or December that might be indefensible before the federal election on November 4th. Members of Congress, the theory goes, might then be able to vote for sweeping legislation on immigration, corporate cronyism, tax increases, spending increases, and other such matters without any fear of voter accountability this year.
By any measure, deliberately planning to reconvene the Senate in a lame-duck session to address major new legislation would subvert the will of the American people, lessen accountability, and do lasting damage to the dignity and integrity of this body's proceedings.
Therefore, if a lame-duck session is deemed necessary this year, we urge you only to consider emergency legislation requiring immediate, unforeseeable action or noncontroversial housekeeping measures. If you do call a lame-duck session, we the undersigned will object to any unanimous consent request to in any way advance any non-emergency, substantial, and controversial legislation, nominations, or treaties.
Sincerely,