A burning sugar cane field (Photo: Flickr/skatoolaki)

The high costs of American sugar, coupled with quotas that make it near-impossible for the product to be imported, have led two congressmen to file a bill that would overhaul the way the industry does business. One of the bill’s sponsors, Danny Davis, D-Ill., tells the Independent that filing the “Free Market Sugar Act” was a no-brainer, considering the impact that sugar prices have had on his constituents.

“Chicago used to be known as the candy capital of the world,” says Davis. But sugar-using industries are having a hard time doing business in a dismal economy, especially when the cost of one their main ingredients — sugar — is two to three times higher than the global price.

Davis and Pitts’ law would rework the Farm Bill, and help determine the level of subsidies that agricultural growers and products could receive.

“The Farm Bill is pretty much the regulator, if you will,” Davis says. “That’s where the basic decisions get made.” The problem, according to many sugar-using industries, is that the bill hasn’t been regulating the industry enough.

“Many outfits have not only moved out of areas like Chicago and other industrial areas, but have moved to lower-cost producing areas and even out of the country,” says Davis. “So obviously that causes the continuous outflow of jobs and work opportunities.” Davis cites shutdowns of candy companies and bakeries in his district as evidence that the sugar industry needs to change.

Pitts and Davis have also recently announced the formation of the Congressional Sugar Reform Caucus, a bipartisan group that also includes Sens. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and Jean Shaheen, D-N.H. ”The caucus is made up of individuals whose areas and congressional districts are hurt as a result of the high cost,” says Davis. “It’s not only candy — it’s any of the industries in the sugar-using environment.”

Kirk and Shaheen also recently introduced a bill, the “Stop Unfair Giveaways And Restrictions” (SUGAR) Act, which aims to end price supports for sugar.

Though support for the U.S. sugar industry runs high among legislators, partly due to the fact that Big Sugar continuously lines the campaign coffers of both Republicans and Democrats, there is a a tangible discontent among industries that use sugar products, who find domestic prices to be too high and, because of quotas, can only import so much.

Enter Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Penn., and Danny Davis, D-Ill., who teamed up to introduce a bill that would protect the other sweet-tooth industries: candy companies that lie within their districts.

“We’ve heard from his constituents that the price of sugar is affecting business, it’s affecting jobs,” says Pitts spokesperson Andrew Wimer, who adds that Davis, the Chicago Democrat cosponsoring the legislation, cites examples of factories that have shut their doors because of the high price of sugar.

The Free Market Sugar Act would repeal the sugar loan program and amend the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act (known as the Farm Bill), perhaps the most important piece of legislation impacting U.S. sugar interests. Written every five years, the Farm Bill helps sugar growers with farm subsidies (which some dismiss as “corporate welfare”) and a series of quotas that tightly control the supply of imported sugar, a benefit to the handful of American sugar producers who pocket around $1 billion in excess profits a year, and a detriment to candy companies that buy U.S. sugar at prices two to three times higher than the global market rate.

Federal legislation also calls for the sugar program to be operated on a no-cost basis, a provision some sugar insiders project will remain for years to come.

“In general, [the Free Market Sugar Act] seeks to reform the sugar program so that the government is not controlling how much sugar is produced and imported,” says Wimer. ”It loosens the controls on production and importation, so that the U.S. price for sugar can be more closely aligned with the world price.”

In addition to amending the sugar price support program, the bill pushes for more transparency in the sugar industry, and an overhaul of how it does business. If enacted, the bill would replace quota import provisions with a tariff rate quota. “Right now the USDA is tightly controlling how much raw cane sugar comes into the U.S.,” says Wimer. “Instead of blanket eliminating quotas, we are modifying it so it’s not as unfair to the current market.”

Pitts and Davis have also recently announced the formation of the Congressional Sugar Reform Caucus, a bipartisan group that also includes Sens. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and Jean Shaheen, D-N.H.

Representatives from Florida Crystals did not respond to inquiries about the new legislation.

Now, the stakes are somewhat different: In the lame-duck session, Democrats are up against tight time constraints and an additional Republican senator, the recently elected Mark Kirk from Illinois, to pass any immigration bills. But Menendez still says the DREAM Act, which would allow some undocumented students and military service members to gain legal status, should be the fallback to passing a far more contentious comprehensive immigration reform bill:

“The White House is ready and willing, and we may be having another meeting with the White House very soon this week,” Menendez said on a conference call, adding that Obama is “clearly interested” trying to reach a deal on immigration before the Congress convenes. [...]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have said they would like to push for the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who were brought to the country as children, during the lame-duck session.

Menendez said that although he supports the legislation, he would “like that to be a fallback.”

“I would not like to start there,” Menendez said. “I am a strong supporter of the DREAM Act. If that is all that can be achieved, then I certainly support the opportunity.”

Granted, Menendez has some good reasons to continue pushing for comprehensive immigration reform: He introduced a reform bill just before the pre-election recess, and with Republicans set to take over the House in January it may be the last chance for reform for a few years. Obama will likely state his support for immigration reform — one of his campaign promises — and the DREAM Act.

But given the difficulty of rounding up 60 votes for even the DREAM Act, Reid and Pelosi seem unlikely to push for comprehensive immigration reform. The likelihood of passing comprehensive immigration reform during the lame-duck session is very low, and DREAM Act supporters have argued the act should not be held hostage to broader reform efforts if those efforts cannot gain Republican support.

The lame-duck session could be the last chance for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to pass a number of bills. (Pete Marovich/ZUMApress.com)

The midterm hangover having finally worn off, the 111th Congress returns today to kick off the lame-duck session, its last hurrah before its successor takes over. And the 112th Congress will look radically different, with Republicans in control of the House and the Democratic majority in the Senate significantly reduced. These next few weeks, then, could be the last chance for major Democratic initiatives. But the hurdles are high, and Republicans see no reason to grant Democrats any victories after the populace voiced its discontent with the policies of the past two years.

[Congress1] The battle lines are drawn; here are the fields on which they’ll be fought:

Bush tax cuts:

The biggest question before the Senate — and the one that will likely receive the most attention — is the expiration of the 2001 tax cuts signed into law by President Bush. Facing Democratic resistance in the Senate at the time, Republicans set up the cuts to sunset after ten years. Now that they’re set to expire, however, GOP lawmakers have lined up shoulder to shoulder to make them permanent.

President Obama, on the other hand, ran for office on a pledge to extend the existing tax rates for families making less than $250,000 a year, while letting the tax cuts for those making over that number expire. But as the economy continued to falter and Democratic re-election prospects began looking bleak, Democrats in Congress put off addressing issues related to the tax code until after the midterm elections. Now that Republicans have made big gains in both chambers of Congress, Democrats find their confidence further weakened.

Following the midterms, the White House has signalled that Democrats might be willing to compromise on the idea of a permanent extension of tax cuts for middle-class families and a temporary extension of cuts for the two percent of Americans families making more than $250,000, but it won’t stomach the approximately $700 billion in additional debt that would be required to extend those cuts permanently. Republicans, on the other hand, haven’t deviated from their position that the tax cuts for all Americans be kept together as a package deal.

If neither side blinks, taxes are set to rise for all Americans effective January 1. Neither party wants to be seen as responsible for a tax hike during difficult economic times, but Democrats have appeared far more worried at the prospect of getting blamed should negotiations break down. Polls favor the Democrats’ position that the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans should be allowed to expire, but without the votes of at least two Republicans in the Senate, the proposal is likely to fail. Barring momentum in Congress for the creation of a new tax bracket — for people making half a million dollars or a million dollars per year — in order to better rhetorically define the class of folks for whom Republicans are advocating tax relief, the easiest and most likely outcome will be a bill that temporarily extends all the tax cuts, simply kicking the decision of what to do to some point farther down the road.

Unemployment insurance benefits

As Congress frets over whether the marginal tax rate for incomes over $200,000 should be raised three percentage points, the Senate is also on the verge of allowing federal unemployment benefits to lapse — again. Extending the benefits before they expire on November 30 might seem like a no-brainer: It would prevent somewhere between 1.2 and 2 million unemployed Americans from having their subsistence checks cut off just in time for Christmas and would reduce the risk of a drop in consumer spending and economic growth as high as 0.4 percentage points from December to February.

Republicans might have trouble arguing that deficit reduction trumps other priorities, including unemployment benefits, when the only major initiative the GOP is pushing — extending the Bush tax cuts for the upper 2 percent of wage earners — would increase the deficit by $700 billion over ten years. That said, Republicans in the Senate, along with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), are likely to vote against any extension of unemployment insurance benefits unless Democrats can come up with ways to offset their cost.

The last time unemployment benefits were set to lapse, back in early June, the Senate was unable to muster enough votes to renew an extension for 51 days. With Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine joining Democrats to vote for cloture, and Nelson joining with Republicans to vote against debate, Democrats had no choice but to wait for Sen. Carte Goodwin (D-W.Va.) to be sworn in as a replacement for the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D- W.Va.) in order to garner a 60th vote.

This time, assuming all the senators maintain their positions in the debate, the hurdle will be that much higher for Democrats after Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) takes the seat of Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) on Nov. 29. With one fewer assured vote, Democrats would either have to come up with a package of equivalent spending cuts that satisfies Republicans’ demands or persuade one more Republican to join their cause. Neither scenario appears particularly likely, however, which is why many unemployed Americans are bracing for the worst come Nov. 30.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

A long-awaited Pentagon study on ending the practice of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the 17-year-old law that requires military service members to keep their sexual orientation secret, isn’t due to President Obama until December 1, but early media reports indicate that it will buttress gay rights advocates’ arguments to repeal the law. More than 70 percent of the respondents in the Pentagon survey indicated that repeal would have either positive, mixed or nonexistent effects, leading the authors to conclude that the military can lift its ban on gay and lesbian Americans serving openly in uniform while incurring minimal risk in its current war efforts.

If the study brings good news to those hoping to repeal the law, however, the current situation in the Senate should not. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) attempted to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” before the midterm elections, tacking the provision onto a defense reauthorization bill that failed to overcome a Republican-led filibuster in the Senate. The bill was weighed down by many add-ons — including the DREAM Act, which seeks to extend a path to citizenship to some undocumented immigrants who attend college or serve in the military — giving too many senators excuses to vote against it, but advocates remained hopeful that repeal could pass along with the defense bill when Congress resumed for its lame-duck session.

Now Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, is said to be negotiating with Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the committee chairman, to remove the DADT repeal provision from the defense bill. McCain had previously voiced openness to authorizing a repeal of the law following the Pentagon’s review, but since that time his views have hardened. During his re-election battle earlier this year, McCain faced a primary challenger from the right and promised during his campaign to preserve the law.

In the absence of support from McCain, advocacy groups have identified 10 senators who have indicated in the past that they’d like to see the Pentagon’s study before deciding on whether to lift the military’s policy. The list includes Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Oympia Snowe (R-Maine), George Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Jim Webb (D-Va.). Once the results of the study are known, gay rights groups hope these senators will take them to heart and vote for repeal. If they follow McCain’s lead and renege on their previous openness to getting rid of the law, however, it may be a long time before Congress can muster sufficient votes to repeal the policy.

Campaign finance reform

Following an election season that saw record amounts of cash — including a fair chunk from undisclosed sources — spent on political advertising by outside groups, campaign finance reform advocates are still hoping that Democrats in Congress might take advantage of their remaining time in charge of both chambers to pass legislation to shore up the loophole-ridden landscape of campaign finance law. The most popular effort, by far, during the last year has been a bill called the DISCLOSE Act, which would require all groups spending money on electioneering activities in future elections to disclose their major donors.

While premised on a fairly bipartisan concept of full disclosure, the bill soon ran into trouble in the Senate over additional components that had been added on to it. Measures to prohibit campaign spending by companies holding government contracts or those exceeding a certain threshold of foreign ownership were read by Senate Republicans as an attempt to privilege union speech over that of corporations. Traditional campaign finance reform advocates like Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) held onto such objections and voted against cloture for the bill when Democrats declined to take them out.

Now Democrats in the Senate are contemplating one last attempt to pass a stripped-down version of the DISCLOSE Act — one that sticks strictly to the principle of transparency that Republicans once advocated as their gold standard for effective campaign finance legislation. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a staunch opponent of nearly all campaign finance legislation, might prove an even bigger obstacle to the bill’s passage than any single aspect of the legislation. While Snowe or Collins, or even Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) or Senator-elect Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), might prove receptive to the measure in principle, it appears highly unlikely that any of them are willing to buck their party leadership for the cause.

Energy/environment

Even if the lame-duck session likely represents the best opportunity for Democrats to pass key pieces of energy legislation before a more Republican Congress comes to town, it seems unlikely that anything significant will move.

The House, for its part, has already passed a cap-and-trade bill and an oil spill response bill, and all eyes are now on the Senate. But it looks like major energy action in the chamber will have to wait until next year, if it happens at all.

One clean energy advocate with close ties to Congress downplayed the likelihood that energy legislation will pass during the lame duck. “Little will happen, probably,” he said.

The only energy-related bill that is likely to see the light of day during the lame-duck session is a proposal to encourage the production of electric and natural gas vehicles. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has scheduled a cloture vote for Wednesday on the bill, the Promoting Natural Gas and Electric Vehicles Act of 2010. The bill has bipartisan support.

Asked about the prospects for energy legislation during the lame duck in the Senate, Regan Lachapelle, a spokeswoman for Reid, said, “We filed cloture on a motion to proceed to a natural gas bill before we left. Other than that, we have many items that are possible for consideration during the lame duck.” Lachapelle did not elaborate on the pieces of legislation to which she was referring.

Backers of a renewable energy standard, which would require that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar, are keeping their fingers crossed that such a proposal can move in the lame-duck session. “We’re optimistic about the lame duck,” said one RES proponent who was not authorized to talk on the record.

Reid and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) spoke on the phone Tuesday about the possibility of moving an RES during the lame duck. Bingaman’s spokesman, Bill Wicker, would not discuss the call. “This was a private conversation between two Members, so I have to respect that,” he said in an email. “But we all should know more about the lame duck before much longer.”

But a senior Senate aide with knowledge of the conversation downplayed the possibility that an RES would be brought up for a vote during the lame-duck session. “They had a good conversation and agreed it will be challenging to get 60 votes for expedited consideration of an RES during the limited time left in the session,” the aide said of discussion between Reid and Bingaman. Indeed, RES supporters would need to secure the support of two to four Republicans in addition to the four who already support the bill in order to get 60 votes.

An oil spill response bill and various pieces of legislation to promote energy efficiency and home weatherization are all pending in the Senate. But it looks like consideration of those bills will have to wait until next year.

DREAM Act

Reid and Pelosi have vowed to push for a lame-duck vote on the DREAM Act, a bill that would allow some undocumented young people who came to the United States as children to gain legal status for attending college or serving in the military.

In the House, the vote could come as early as this week, Democrat sources told Politico. Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) were reportedly tasked by Pelosi with determining whether the caucus would be able to pass the bill.

If the act does not pass in the lame-duck session, it has very little chance of passage before 2013. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who is expected to head the House subcommittee on immigration, refers to the DREAM Act as “amnesty” and promised he would use his authority in the GOP-led House to block the act. GOP gains in the Senate also lessen the likelihood of passing the bill next session.

Reid recently said he would need support from “a handful of Republicans” to pass the bill during the lame duck, echoing estimates by bill sponsor Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) that at least five Republicans would need to support the bill for it to pass. A spokesman for Reid confirmed last week that he plans to bring up the DREAM Act for a vote during the lame-duck session, although it is still unclear whether it would be as a standalone measure or as an attachment to another bill.

The problem is that Reid doesn’t have much time — or sure support for the DREAM Act from his caucus. The act last came up for a vote in 2007, and seven of the eight Democrats who voted against it then are still in the Senate. While a few might support the bill this time around, five told The Hill in September they are still undecided on the DREAM Act.

Complicating matters, Mark Kirk’s assumption of Roland Burris’ seat in the Senate turns a sure “yes” vote into a likely “no.” Kirk has been lobbied heavily by DREAM Act supporters, but said before the election that he would vote against the act unless border security measures were pushed first. “It’s not time for the DREAM Act right now,” he told reporters in October. “If the DREAM Act came up for a vote right now, I would vote ‘no.’”

All current Republican senators voted in September to filibuster the defense authorization bill after Reid announced plans to attach the DREAM Act. But given the additional controversy over that bill — it included a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and would have allowed for only limited changes from Republicans — it’s tough to extrapolate much from it about how senators would vote on the DREAM Act as a standalone bill.

Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) said he would support the bill if it were brought to the floor on its own, even though he opposed it as part of the defense authorization bill. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who co-sponsored the bill, would also almost certainly vote for it if it comes up in the lame-duck session.

Several other Republicans voted for the DREAM Act in 2007, but their support this year remains uncertain because of rightward shifts on immigration policy and the possibility of the bill again being attached to other legislation. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was an original sponsor of the bill when it was first introduced in 2001 and voted for it in 2007. This year, he said the government should secure the borders before it focuses on the DREAM Act.

Written by Jesse Zwick, Andrew Restuccia and Elise Foley.

In New Hampshire, for instance, seniors backed GOP Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte over her Democratic challenger by 33 points. In the narrow Illinois Senate contest, Republican Mark Kirk won older voters by 22 points. And In Delaware, they were the only age group to back tea party favorite Christine O’Donnell, by an 11-point margin.

“I’ve been saying since August 2009, that there was a tsunami — in this case a senior citizen tsunami — headed towards Capitol Hill,” said Jim Martin, chairman of the 60 Plus Association, a conservative campaign group targeted toward older voters. “That tsunami came ashore.”

The 60 Plus Association, it should be noted, played a key role, along with groups like American Crossroads, in drumming up fears among the elderly about the health care reform bill’s efforts to fight the rising cost of Medicare — a cause that Republicans had long championed but now found opportune to decry. Billing itself a conservative alternative to the AARP, the 60 Plus Association served in many ways as an extension of the American Crossroads-led network of shadow GOP organizations devoted to electing Republicans last election cycle. Carl Forti, a veteran Republican operative and the political director of American Crossroads, also handled the PR and media profile of the 60 Plus group, which spent nearly $6 million dollars in independent expenditures attacking House Democrats who voted for health care reform.

Combine the swing among seniors with the fact that young people largely stayed home from the polls last Tuesday, and the landslide seem less like a shift in the national opinion and more like the product of simple demographic mathematics. Here’s a voter turnout graph Matt Yglesias provided last week, which speaks to this point:

But will a vote on a new, leaner bill make it onto the Senate’s packed lame-duck schedule? Democrats following the issue assure me that they’re fighting to include it in the mix, but they’re up against a lot of competing demands that Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) must juggle, from the Start Treaty to an omnibus appropriations bill to food safety to the looming expiration of the Bush tax cuts. They also note that a stripped-down version of the bill couldn’t be called up at a moment’s notice — like Reid was able to do the last time he called a vote on DISCLOSE — but would instead have to be introduced the old fashioned way and would probably eat up between two and three days of precious Senate floor time as a result.

The biggest issue weighing on the Democrats’ decision, by far, is whether a disclosure-only bill would actually convince any GOP senators to change their mind on the issue. Both Democrats and campaign finance advocates make it clear that they’ve been reaching out the offices of Republicans like Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe (R) and Susan Collins (R) since the spring, asking for their views on what they’d like to see (or not see) in the bill. In recent months, however, that line of communication has basically gone dead.

So would a disclosure-only bill represent the right show of good faith to win back their support? Or would it simply lead to a symbolic floor vote in which Democrats force Republicans to take a stand on the issue of disclosure? I’m waiting to hear back from Snowe and Collins’ offices to get their version of events and whether they think there’s any hope of reviving the conversation, and I’ll write about it if and when I hear back.

Reid claims his caucus is behind him on the act, which would give some undocumented students and military service members a change to gain legal status to remain in the country. “We all support the DREAM Act,” he said on Univision in an interview that aired Sunday. “I just need a handful of Republicans to help me.”

Kirk has said he wouldn’t, despite exhaustive efforts by DREAM Act supporters to convince him otherwise. “This is not the time to do that,” Kirk said in a debate.

How important is Kirk’s vote for passing the DREAM Act? It depends on who Reid means when he says “we all support the DREAM Act.” There are 59 senators who caucus with the Democrats and 41 Republicans. Kirk will change those numbers to 58 and 42. Reid needs 60 votes to overcome a filibuster if he hopes to pass the DREAM Act.

If Reid’s right about his caucus, he would only need two Republicans to vote “yes” on the DREAM Act. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) co-sponsored the bill and would almost certainly vote for the it as a standalone measure, although he voted in September to filibuster the defense authorization bill that included it. Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) has also said he would vote for the act as a standalone bill.

But if either of them or any Democrats fall through, other Republicans are tougher to pin down. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who was one of the original sponsors of the DREAM Act, seems likely to vote against it now because he favors a borders-first approach to tackling immigration problems. “The American people want the government to secure our borders, create jobs and reduce the deficit.” Hatch said when he announced plans to vote against the DREAM Act’s inclusion in the defense authorization bill.

Lugar, Hatch and Bennett were two of twelve Republicans who voted for the DREAM Act in 2007. The others still in Senate — Sam Brownback (R-Kans.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) — have been vague about whether they would support the measure as a standalone this year.

When the bill came up as a possible addition to the defense authorization bill, a few Democrats said they were not sure they would support it this time around. Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) told The Hill in September they might vote “no” on the DREAM Act.

Winning candidates in elections in which power changed hands were aided by average spending of $764,326 by independent groups, while losing candidates were aided by average spending of $273,268, a ratio of nearly 2.8 to 1. The analysis deemed outside spending as aiding candidates if it either praised them or criticized their opponents. It does not include outside spending for primaries.

The most blatant disparities, the report notes, occurred in the tight Senate races in Illinois and Pennsylvania:

The Republican winners in the Pennsylvania and Illinois Senate races received by far the greatest advantage over their opponents in outside spending. In Illinois, Rep. Mark Kirk (R) benefited from nearly $8 million in spending over opponent Alexander Giannoulias, chiefly due to $5.6 million in anti-Giannoulias spending by Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS entities, and to $1.7 million in anti-Giannoulias spending by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In total, Kirk enjoyed an advantage in outside spending of greater than 11 to 1.

In Pennsylvania’s Senate contest, victorious former Rep. Pat Toomey (R) enjoyed an advantage of nearly $5.3 million—a ratio of nearly 4 to 1—over Rep. Joe Sestak (D). Toomey was aided by $2.5 million in anti-Sestak spending by the Club for Growth Action Fund, an independent expenditure committee of the organization of which Toomey previously served as president. Also spending more than $1 million against Sestak were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($1.7 million) and the Republican Jewish Coalition ($1.1 million).

When the independent expenditures of the traditional party committees like the NRSC and the DSCC are added in, however, outside spending in these races becomes a lot more equitable. And political scientists will reasonably ask whether the outside spending provided momentum for Republican victories or whether the impetus to give cash to conservative outside groups was simply a reflection of that pre-existing political momentum.

The report remains worthwhile, however, because we haven’t seen a swing in the House this big since the 1930s — and many would argue that the surge in unlimited outside spending has dramatically reduced the power of incumbency. If you believe that corporate and deep-pocketed donors are simply more likely to give to Republicans, then you might also conclude that Democrats will not enjoy the same favor when they are out of office. But both parties have been the beneficiaries of corporate PACs and well-to-do individuals in the past, making it equally as likely that the new normal of outside spending will cause the House to behave increasingly like a seesaw, flipping between parties every two years. Whether that’s a good or a bad phenomenon, on the other hand, is a question for the political scientists…

Presumptive House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) (Pete Marovich/ZUMApress.com)

Pundits may differ over which natural disaster analogy was most fitting — tidal wave or  earthquake? — but Republicans made large gains in both chambers of Congress and various statehouses across the country on election day. And while, at the time of writing, races in several key Western states were far from decided, the election night shaped up to be one of few surprises for either party. Republicans guaranteed themselves a majority in the House, while Democrats can rest assured that they’ll retain a majority in the Senate come 2011.

[Congress1] The evening began with quick victories for GOP Senate candidates Rand Paul in Kentucky and Marco Rubio in Florida, raising expectations of a Tea Party-backed surge in Congress. Bellwether House races, including those of Rep. Barron Hill (D-Ind.), Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) and Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio), all went for their Republican challengers, causing pundits to revise their estimates for GOP House gains from the 50s up into the 60s, or perhaps higher.

Whether one voted for the Obama health care bill, like Rep. Tom Periello (D), or against it, like Rep. Glenn Nye (D), being a House Democrat in Virginia tonight ended up spelling doom and setting the tone for Democrats’ chances in House races across the country. Even veterans like Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C), chairman of the House Budget Committee, and Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, were not spared by the GOP wave that swept Southern and Midwestern Democrats. And while DCCC head Rep. Chris Van Hollen criticized the news networks for calling the House for the GOP early, a takeover quickly began to look inevitable.

While liberal Democrats like Rep. Alan Grayson (Fla.) and Sen. Russ Feingold (Wis.) also lost their seats, groups that had backed them maintained that Democrats lost because they failed to fight and defend their liberal values. “Democrats lost because party leaders never truly fought for popular progressive reforms like the public option and breaking up the big banks, leaving voters uninspired to come to the polls and vote Democratic,” wrote Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Adam Green. “What the average voter saw of Democrats was weak, watered-down change — and weak Democratic leaders who cut deals with the very Wall Street banks and insurance companies they are supposed to be fighting.

On the Senate side, however, quick and decisive victories for Gov. Joe Manchin (D) over John Raese (R) in West Virginia and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D) over Linda McMahon (R) in Connecticut allowed Democrats to breathe easy about their control of the upper chamber.

“Tomorrow starts the rebuilding, the road of rebuilding America,” Manchin told supporters in his victory speech. “We must start tomorrow. And I really believe that Washington can learn a few things and a few lessons from West Virginia.” What kind of Democrat Manchin will be after having to run so far to the right to win office remains a big open question for Democrats.

A solid defeat for Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, meanwhile, at the hands of Chris Coons (D) put Republican chances of taking the Senate nearly out of reach and revived questions about the efficacy of the Tea Party in aiding a GOP wave. “It gave me no pleasure to say that she was unlikely to win,” said Karl Rove after her loss became clear. “But this again provides a lesson. This is a candidate who was right on the issues but who had mishandled a series of questions brought up by the press.”

Likewise, a victory for the Democrats’ very vulnerable majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, over Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle confirmed the dangers of a Republican nomination process that often stressed ideological purity over electability.

Democratic Senate candidates Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania and Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois got off to strong starts in the polls with high turnout and early reporting from Philadelphia and Chicago, prompting talk of small but significant upsets for the Democrats in those races. But as the rural counties began reporting their tallies, Republican Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania and Mark Kirk in Illinois eventually took control of both races. Likewise, Sen. Michael Bennet in Colorado, who shot out to an early lead over Ken Buck, fell slightly behind as more ballots were counted.

In the governors’ races, Democrats lost seats as well but managed to hang on to victories in close races in Colorado, where Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper held off his American Constitution Party challenger, former Rep. Tom Tancredo, and Minnesota, where Democrat Mark Dayton was the beneficiary of a three-way race and defeated Republican nominee Tom Emmer*. But in key races in other swing states — ones that President Obama will likely have to win to secure re-election in 2012 — Republicans can look forward to being in control. Rick Scott (R) rode the coattails of Rubio’s victory, defeating Alex Sink (D) in Florida, while the close race in Ohio never got close enough for incumbent Gov. Ted Strickland (D), who lost to challenger John Kasich (R).

As for the fate of the Tea Party, early decisive Senate wins for Paul and Rubio were offset by decisive drubbing of Christine O’Donnell and a narrow loss for Angle. In the House, Tea Party candidate Sean Bielat, who at one point looked to be posing a credible challenge to Rep. Barney Frank (D) in Massachusetts, lost by a wide margin — but enough Tea Party candidates claimed seats to form a sizable caucus in the next Congress.

Speaking at the Grand Hyatt Ballroom in Washington, likely House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was unable to hold back his tears. “Listen, I’ll be brief, because we have real work to do, and this is not a time for celebration,” he said, “not when one in 10 of our fellow citizens are out of work … not when we have buried our children under a mountain of debt … not when our Congress is held in such low esteem.

“While our new majority will serve as your voice in the people’s House, we must remember it is the president who sets the agenda for our government. The American people have sent an unmistakable message to him tonight, and that message is: ‘change course.’ We hope President Obama will now respect the will of the people, change course, and commit to making the changes they are demanding. To the extent he is willing to do this, we are ready to work with him.”

*UPDATE: Democrat Mark Dayton continues to lead Republican Tom Emmer in the Minnesota Governor’s Race, but the margin is so slim that a recount appears likely.