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Pelosi: 'I'm Not Happy with Congress'

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Last Friday when she announced with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada the Democrats' list of accomplishments six months after coming to power, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif. conceded, "I'm not happy with Congress,” citing "obstructionism of the Republicans in the United States Senate.”

According to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle, the recent failure to pass immigration reform has gone the way of Iraq, stem cell research, Medicare drug pricing, the 9/11 Commission's recommendations, etc. as watersheds of failure of the current Congress.

Congress has managed a public approval rating in the mid-20s. But Pelosi argued that Congress has "never been popular." She has already turned her sights to 2009 when a new administration will be in power – hopefully headed by a Democratic president.

"Congress is a big institution to turn around," she said. "A new president comes in, and he or she is given every opportunity, because we -- everybody wants the new president to succeed. A Congress comes in, and it's Congress. It's an institution that has not been popular."

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  But Reid offered a different take: "Nancy, honestly, one other thing. Let's be realistic about this. The war in Iraq is dragging down people's confidence in what's going on in this country."

However, for Julian Zelizer, a history and public affairs scholar at Boston University, it’s just business as usual:

"The Republicans are doing what the Democrats did. They're using the power of the Senate filibuster, and the power in the House when you have narrow majorities, to make a do-nothing Congress -- even when there's a lot of issues on the table, even when there's a lot of interest in accomplishing things."

For sure, House legislation continues to expire in the Senate. Last Thursday night, for instance, Senate Republicans blocked a lobbying and ethics reform bill from even proceeding to a House-Senate conference committee, reported the Chronicle.

"It's becoming very concerning to many of us that we've got a 49-49 stalemate in the Senate, and we are beginning to look to the American people like we're ineffective," said one California House Democrat who did not want to speak for attribution.

"No matter what we do on the House side, we can't get things through the Senate."

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