Three new senators sworn in

Arrival of Ossoff, Warnock, Padilla gives Democrats control

WASHINGTON — Three new senators were sworn into office Wednesday after President Joe Biden’s inauguration, securing the majority for Democrats in the Senate and across a unified government to tackle the new president’s agenda at a time of unprecedented national challenges.

Vice President Kamala Harris drew applause as she entered the chamber to deliver the oath of office to the new Democratic senators — Jon Ossoff, Raphael Warnock and Alex Padilla — just hours after taking her own oath at the Capitol alongside Biden.

The three Democrats join a Senate split 50-50 between the parties, but giving Democrats the majority with Harris able to cast the tiebreaking vote.

“Today, America is turning over a new leaf. We are turning the page on the last four years. We’re going to reunite the country, defeat COVID-19, rush economic relief to the people,” Ossoff told reporters earlier at the Capitol. “That’s what they sent us here to do.”

Ossoff, a former congressional aide and investigative journalist, and Warnock, a pastor from the late Martin Luther King Jr.’s church in Atlanta, won runoff elections in Georgia this month, defeating two Republicans. Padilla was tapped by California’s governor to finish the remainder of Harris’ term.

Taken together, their arrival gives Democrats for the first time in a decade control of the Senate, the House and the White House, as Biden faces the unparalleled challenges of the COVID-19 crisis and its economic fallout, and the nation’s painful political divisions from the deadly Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol by a mob loyal to Donald Trump.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected soon to transmit to the Senate the House-passed article of impeachment against Trump, charged with incitement of insurrection, a step that will launch a Senate impeachment trial.