Next Tuesday's other elections

Barack Obama may be the odds-on favorite to become the next president of the United States, but his race toward the Oval Office is far from over. Presidential races have notoriously tightened in the last week of campaigning, and sometimes the underdog pulls off a surprise victory.

But there is another series of important elections taking place this coming Tuesday in the US: the congressional races. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 34 of the 100 Senate positions are slated to be filled. Here, the outcome is clear and almost inevitable: The Democrats will add to their majorities in both houses of congress.

American voters tend to shift political gears when they perceive their country to be going in the wrong direction. That is one reason why Obama is favored to win the presidency. But voters also consider their vote for president and for members of congress differently. Polls show that 75 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with their country's direction and that they will be taking it out on congressional Republicans on election day.

The Democrats currently control the House by a margin of 235 to 199, and polls suggest they could pick up another 30 seats, giving them the heftiest majority they have enjoyed in over 20 years. The Democrats now enjoy a slim margin in the Senate, 51 to 49, and their goal here is to reach the magic number of 60. Under Senate rules, 60 votes are required to shut down debate and clear the way for a vote. With five Senate Republican incumbents retiring and an equal number in danger of losing reelection, the Democrats are within striking distance.

The upshot of this expected outcome is that the Democratic majority will be feeling quite muscular when the new US congress is sworn in next January. Even if they have a Democratic president to work with, a 60-percent Democratic congress will not be content to be water carriers for a President Obama. They will want to push some of their own agenda, which is likely to be further to the left than the middle ground Obama will try to stake out.

Of course, the president can veto congressional legislation, but not even a President John McCain is going to veto everything. In any event, congressional initiatives are likely to play a bigger role in Washington come January than they have in the last eight years.

A heavily Democratic Congress will likely focus on domestic issues such as health care, taxation and labor in order to satisfy promises made to their constituencies. But defense- and security-related issues such as the defense budget, the Patriot Act and immigration reform are also likely to be on their agenda.

Republicans fret that Democrats will attempt to cut the guts out of the defense budget in order to fund domestic initiatives. They point to the US$200 billion in cuts made in the early 1990s when Bill Clinton first came into office. But the Clinton-era cuts were primarily driven by the perceived "peace dividend" the US would collect with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Those conditions do not apply today.

Steering defense

The bigger question is whether and how congressional Democrats will try to steer the US defense behemoth in new directions.

Both presidential candidates favor increasing US ground troop strength over the new next four years. The program has received some congressional support, and is being pushed by some progressive think tankers outside the government.

But increasing ground strength, which is estimated to cost US$100 billion through 2013, will, in the face of a budget deficit heading towards two trillion dollars, mean cuts elsewhere. It is possible that Congress will opt to increase troop strength over a longer time period, thus stretching out the payments.

Congress may also find money for more troops by cutting defense technology programs. Future Combat Systems, the US Army's program to marry lighter and more maneuverable vehicles with networking connectivity, has long been in the cross-hairs of congressional Democrats and has suffered cuts in the last two budget cycles. Some Democrats have threatened to eliminate the program altogether. Other military technology programs, such as advanced satellite systems and missile defense, are also likely to be postponed, reorganized or trimmed back.

The Constitution

The US Congress has little influence on the formulation of foreign policy - that is the president's purview - other than to cut off funding for programs it disapproves of. But Congress does deal with legislation that has an impact on US security, and that is another area where the bulked-up Democratic majority may take the initiative.

The Patriot Act of 2001, enacted by congress in the aftermath of 9/11, facilitated the biggest power grab by the US federal government's executive branch in recent generations. McCain is on record as favoring stronger executive power. Obama has expressed more moderate views on this subject, but could change his attitude if or when he arrives at the Oval Office.

Many Democrats in Congress have expressed reservations about the excesses of the Patriot Act, and how it has been applied by the Bush administration. Under the rubric of national security, the federal government has targeted Americans for surveillance, monitoring phone calls, emails, credit card payments and website visits without legal probable cause. The act's National Security Letters provision allows the FBI, in effect, to issue search warrants - normally a judicial prerogative - with little or no oversight.

Democrats are likely to push for curbs on these excess executive powers, to limit extraordinary investigations to cases related to suspected terrorism. They will attempt to eliminate executive powers not shown to materially advance security and to institute supervision of the executive to ensure the protection of civil liberties.

In the spirit of Patriot Act excesses, President Bush has also claimed free rein to designate enemy combatants who may be detained without charges in the name of national security. This led, among other things, to the establishment of the infamous Guantanamo detention center, to which nearly 1,000 men and boys from around the world have been shipped and locked up.

The Bush administration has contended that US constitutional protections do not extend to those detained at Guantanamo. Although the US Supreme Court has disagreed with some of the administration's claims and has allowed detainees certain procedural guarantees, many Americans are embarrassed by and fed up with Guantanamo. Look for a Democratic initiative in congress to cut off funding for the facility.

Wish list

Other hints of a Democratic Congress' agenda may be taken from the 100-hour plan that House speaker Nancy Pelosi of California promulgated after Democrats won a majority in the House of Representatives in 2006. The plan turned out to be more of a wish list at the time, as the Democrats in congress proved not to have sufficient fortitude to confront an administration inimical to their agenda. But a newly invigorated Democratic majority could embolden Pelosi to revive some of these initiatives.

The key security and international relations piece of Pelosi's 2006 plan was to enact the recommendation of the so-called 9/11 commission. That commission, a blue-ribbon panel appointed by the US government to study the whys and wherefores of the attack on the US in September 2001, released a report in 2004 which was promptly ignored by President Bush.

Among the recommendations that could be acted upon by a Democratic congress: providing enhanced resources for television and radio broadcasts to the Arab world, Iran and Afghanistan; supporting an International Youth Opportunity Fund, which would provide funding for building and operating primary and secondary schools in Muslim countries; standardizing screening at all US border crossings; and providing transparency for congressional money appropriated for national intelligence.

Pelosi has also been known as a supporter of rights for immigrants in the US, and could push an initiative for immigration reform through Congress. Originally championed by Bush early on in his administration, and also supported by McCain, congressional Republicans eventually killed it.

But Democrats see immigrants, especially those from Latin America, as their natural constituents. Look for congressional Democrats to provide relief to illegal immigrants currently in the US and to encourage immigration from the south, in an attempt to lock in their newfound majority for another generation.