Lawmakers escaped the dog days of August in Washington by taking a vacation and returned the first week of September to face a multitude of concerns, though few involve aviation. Iraq, terrorist activities, national budget proposals and gloomy projections of deficits, the upcoming November elections (in which both parties will be striving to gain or maintain House and Senate majorities) and appropriations to keep government agencies functioning are just a few of the items that will keep both houses of Congress busy.
All members of the House of Representatives are up for election. The Republicans currently hold a small majority and may have a struggle to maintain it. In the Senate the Democrats have enjoyed a one-vote majority, which may be in jeopardy as four Democrat senators have been tagged as “vulnerable” by political observers. They are New Jersey’s Sen. Robert Torricelli (the Senate Ethics Committee sharply rebuked him for accepting expensive gifts from a businessman); Missouri’s Sen. Jean Carnahan (appointed to the Senate a few weeks after her husband was killed in an airplane crash and who has never run for a political office); South Dakota’s Sen. Tim Johnson (barely elected six years ago with 51 percent of the vote and running against Republican John Thune, who won a third House term with 73 percent of the vote); and Minnesota’s Sen. Paul Wellstone (who broke his pledge to serve just two terms and is facing White House-backed former St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman).
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