It didn't just feel like the lame duck session of Congress now winding down got an unusual amount done. It's a fact, say congressional observers.
"It's official. Like it or not, this lame-duck session is the most productive of the 15 held since WWII," University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato said in a Wednesday tweet.
As ABC New noted in an examination of the issue: "More pieces of major legislation passed in the month of December than since March. That's when Democrats passed the landmark health reform bill and all action ground to a halt until the November elections, which crushed Democrats and emboldened Republicans."
Indeed, it could be the most productive of the lame duck Congressional sessions ever, which means since the current iteration of lame duckitude became possible in 1935 following the change in congressional terms brought about by ratification of the 20th Amendment.
There was "almost a torrent of legislation -- the damn broke," Sabato told The Atlantic. "Most of the lame ducks have just been housekeeping or clearing up some appropriations stuff....it's an easy call."
But whether the 2010 lame duck session was the most productive since World War II -- when major war funding measures were passed during lame ducks -- or of all the 18 such sessions held since 1935, it's clear that once the Senate passed both the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal and the ratification of the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia, the waning days of the 111th Congress amounted to one of the most significant lame duck sessions anyone can recall.