Major Events
- November 7, 2006 — California Representative Nancy Pelosi and Nevada Senator Harry Reid lead the Democratic Party in taking control of both the House and the Senate in the 2006 congressional elections, the first time in 12 years the Democrats secure control of both houses of Congress simultaneously.
- Prominent events included the filibuster "nuclear option" scare, the failure of the federal government to promptly respond to Hurricane Katrina disaster relief, the Tom DeLay corruption investigation, the CIA leak scandal, the rising unpopularity of the Iraq War, the 2006 immigration reform protests and government involvement in the Terri Schiavo case.
- In addition to the DeLay indictment, this Congress also had a number of scandals: Bob Ney, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, William J. Jefferson, Mark Foley scandal, and the Jack Abramoff scandals.
- This Congress met for 242 days, the fewest since World War II and 12 days fewer than the 80th Congress. As the Congress neared its conclusion, some commentators labelled this the "Do Nothing Congress," a pejorative originally given to the 80th United States Congress by President Harry Truman.
- The President vetoed only one bill, his first veto, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005.
Read more about this topic: Legislation In 109th United States Congress
Famous quotes containing the words major and/or events:
“No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent-building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children.”
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“One cannot be a good historian of the outward, visible world without giving some thought to the hidden, private life of ordinary people; and on the other hand one cannot be a good historian of this inner life without taking into account outward events where these are relevant. They are two orders of fact which reflect each other, which are always linked and which sometimes provoke each other.”
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