> Add in that Congress typically is in recess much of the summer, and for a number of holiday periods in the fall (at least Thanksgiving and Christmas), and the reality is that two years' control is a fiction.
>
>I'll paraphrase, but it won't change the general point that they controlled both houses and had a 60 advantage long enough.
>
>They had Franken long enough to get the 60th vote for ACA, when the Senate approved the law in December 2009 on a vote of 60-39, avoiding any chance of a filibuster. Then you had a sequence of events involving Scott Brown, the back-room deals involving moderate House Democrats, and a second bill passed under the reconciliation rule that didn't require a supermajority and passed 56-43.
>
>And here's the key point - 28 senators who voted for ACA are now gone. I believe every GOP senator who won on Tuesday night ran a campaign either on repeal or significant changes.

And so are or will be 14 others. There's been tremendous turnover in the Senate in the last 6 years.
>
>So the original point still stands - the Dems had total control long enough to pass legislation (and very arguably in violation of the Constitution) that has been unpopular enough that it cost the Dems dearly in both 2010 and 2014. That's the bottom line - the message sent in the vote on Tuesday night.

Yes, there was enough time to get health care done, but nowhere near enough time with that kind of control to implement a full agenda, which was the original assertion.

Tamar