Biden meets early defining moment
Georgia runoffs to decide reach of his nascent presidency
ATLANTA — Usually it’s a president’s first midterm election that reordersaWhite House’s political approach and priorities. For President-elect JoeBiden, his most defining congressional election is comingbeforehetakes office.
Two runoffs Tuesday in Georgia will decide which party controls theSenateand, thus, how far the new presidentcanreachlegislativelyon issues such as the pandemic, health care, taxation, energy and the environment. For a politician who sold himself to Americans as a uniter and a seasoned legislative broker, the Georgia elections will help determine whether he’s able to live up to his billing.
“It’s not that you can’t get anythingdoneintheminority or get everything done in the majority, but having the gavel, having that leadership control can be the difference in success or failure for an administration,” said Jim Manley, once a top aide to former Democratic Senate LeaderHarryReidofNevada.
Both Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock must win Tuesday to split the Senate 50-50. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, as president of the Senate, would provide the tiebreaker needed to determine control.
Even a closely divided Democratic Senate wouldn’t give Biden everything he wants. Senate rules still require 60 votes to advance most major legislation; for now, there aren’t enough
Democrats willing to change that requirement. So, regardless of Georgia’s results, Biden will have to win over Republicans in a Senate where a bipartisan group of more centrist senators stand to see their stock rise.
A Democratic Senate still wouldclearaneasierpathfor Biden’snomineestokeyposts, especially onthefederaljudiciary, and give Democrats control of committees and much of the floor action. Conversely, a Senate led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky almost certainly would deny Bidenmajorlegislative victories, as it did late in President Barack Obama’s tenure, by keepinghisagendafromeven getting up-or-downvotes.
The president-elect will travel Monday to Atlanta to campaign with Ossoff and
Warnock for the second time in three weeks. Biden’s campaign aides have helped raise millions to boost the party infrastructure that helped Biden become the first Democratic presidential nominee since 1992 to carry the state. Harris is scheduled tocampaignSundayinSavannah.
Inhislast visit, Bidencalled Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler “roadblocks” andurgedGeorgians “to vote for two United States senators who know howto say the word ‘yes’ and not just ‘no.’ ”
Congressional makeup shapes any administration, but perhaps even more so for Biden, who spent 36 years in the Senate, plus eight as Obama’s vice president and top congressional liaison. Biden leaned on that resume
to pitch himself to the country as a consensus builder; he also criticized presidents’ increased use of executive action to goaroundCongress and insisted it would be different in his presidency.
EvensomeRepublicansare hopeful. Michael Steel, once a top adviser to Republican House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio — a chief Obama foil along with McConnell — blamed Obama’s Capitol Hill troubles on his personal approach to his fellow politicians. Conversely, Steel said, “President-elect Biden is a legislator by avocation, by training, by instinct, by experience in a way that former President Obamawasnot.”
Steel predicted Biden and McConnell, two former colleagues, canfind“common ground” oninfrastructureand immigration — policy areas
that have stumped multiple administrations. Steel noted ahandfulofRepublicansenators, including Marco Rubio ofFloridaandRobPortmanof Ohio, couldfacetoughreelection fights in 2022, potentially making them eager to cut deals they could tout in campaigns.
Still, there’s no indication McConnell would allow consideration of other top Bidenpriorities, mostnotably a “public option” expansion of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which passed without a single Republican vote when Democrats controlled both chambers on Capitol Hill.
Biden will need his negotiating skills to navigate the left flankofhisownpartyaswell.
Larry Cohen, chairman of Our Revolution, the offshoot of VermontSen. BernieSanders’ 2016 presidential bid, said progressives will press Democrats in Congress to use the “budget reconciliation” process to workaround theSenate’s 60-votefilibuster threshold. Cohenarguedthat tactic mightbeusedtoaccomplish long-sought goals like ending tax subsidies to fossil fuel companies and enabling the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to negotiate as a single customer with pharmaceutical companies.
He also said progressives will pushBidentouseexecutive authority. Henamedtwo initiatives Bidenhascalledfor publicly: ending new drilling on federal lands and raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 per hour.
Democrats’ limited expectations about their own power, even with a potential majority, belie the exaggeratedclaimsRepublicanshave used in the Georgia races.
In Perdue’s and Loeffler’s telling, a Democratic Senate would “rubber stamp” a “socialist agenda,” from “ending private insurance” and “expanding the Supreme Court” to adopting wholesale a “Green New Deal” that would spend trillions and raise taxes on every U.S. household by thousands of dollars each year. Besides misrepresenting Biden’s and most Democratic senators’ policy preferences, that characterization ignores the reality of the Senate’s roster.
At one campaign stop last week, Ossoff said Perdue’s “ridiculous” attacks “blow mymind.” Butthechallenger agreed with the incumbent on how much the Georgia runoffs matter.
“We have too much good work to do,” Ossoff said, “to be mired in gridlock and obstruction for the next few years.”