So there will be a vote, and based on passage of the rule, it’s going to pass along partisan lines.

The lame duck session, which in its first week has lived up to its name, just got a bit more interesting.

Today begins the final two months of the Democratic majority in the House, and the large majority in the Senate. So what do Democrats plan to do with that majority, as well as their 255-178 spread in the House? Not a heck of a lot. The lame duck session will be dominated by talk about what to do on the Bush tax cuts, but there are some other issues that are likely to get taken up as well.

It’s worth noting that there are enough “emergency” pieces of legislation to tide over a session that could be as small as three weeks (one week before Thanksgiving, and perhaps only two weeks after). Congress needs to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running. There are several pieces of legislation that expire on November 30, like extended unemployment benefits and the “doctor’s fix” for Medicare reimbursement rates. And then there are the Bush tax cuts, which expire at the end of the year. Clearly that doesn’t leave much room for energy, child nutrition, DADT, the DREAM Act, labor bills, a Chinese currency measure, the new START treaty or even the deficit commission recommendations, parts or all of which had been promised a vote in the lame duck.

Harry Reid told Univision he would put forward a vote on the DREAM Act in the lame-duck session, regardless of the outcome of the midterm elections on Tuesday.

Think back to the last time the Senate passed 20 bills in a six weeks? I’m going to go ahead and say you can’t. And yet, this is what Democrats will have you believe is the plan for the lame duck session, after a midterm election that will leave them, in all likelihood, with a diminished majority. Maybe the first bill plans to add two months between November and December, because under current Senate rules there’s no way on Earth to do that.

With relatively few defections from the caucus, House Democrats passed a bill providing $26.1 billion dollars to states for their Medicaid programs and education budgets, by a count of 247-161. All Democrats but 3 supported the bill, and all Republicans but 2 opposed it. The specific tallies will be released shortly.

Earlier, Democrats passed the rule on the bill with more Democratic defections, 229-173.

The House will open for business at 10am EDT, for consideration of the state fiscal aid bill, which the Senate passed last week. The plan is to vote on the rule for the bill, then general debate, followed by a final passage “early in the afternoon.” It’s unclear whether the Republicans will offer a motion to recommit, but we know they are going to put forward a privileged resolution to give themselves a two-month vacation after the elections, lest the House actually work to pass legislation in the lame duck session. That will get a vote today as well.

House Republicans have decided to offer a privileged motion tomorrow in the emergency session called to pass the state fiscal aid bill, which would basically end this session of Congress by the end of September.

If someone like Corker won’t play along with the plan to cut social security, then it’s unlikely to get the mix of Republicans and deficit hawk Democrats they’ll need to pass the Commission recommendations.