IT’S A DEM GOOD DAY IN THE SENATE
Control switches hands as 3 new members sworn in
For the first time since 2015, the Democrats secured majority control of the Senate on Wednesday, giving President Biden a major boost as he seeks to pursue an ambitious legislative agenda and putting a New York lawmaker in the upper chamber’s top leadership post.
The partisan flip was locked in when newly elected Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, both of Georgia, were sworn in along with Sen. Alex Padilla of California a few hours after Biden’s own inauguration. Vice President Kamala Harris — whose seat Padilla was appointed to fill for the remaining two years of her Senate term — administered the oath of office to the trio of freshmen.
With Ossoff, Warnock and Padilla onboard, there are 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans in the Senate.
The dead-heat balance translates into Democratic control, as Harris has the power to break ties in the chamber.
The breakdown also means Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is the Senate’s new majority leader, bumping Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) from the coveted top spot, which comes with the power to decide what bills can make it to the floor for votes.
“The Senate will turn to Democratic control under the first New York-born majority leader in American history — a kid from Brooklyn, the son of an exterminator and a homemaker, a descendant of victims of the Holocaust,” Schumer said in his first floor speech as majority leader after the swearing-in ceremony.
With the House also under Democratic control, the Senate flip gives Biden incentive to press full steam ahead on his proposed $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.
Beyond pandemic relief, Biden also plans to lobby Congress for legislation to fight climate change, improve access to health care and a slew of other issues.
Schumer pledged to get right to work.
“As the majority in the Senate changes hands, the Senate will do business differently. This Senate will address the challenges our country faces, head-on and without delay,” Schumer said in a thinly veiled jab at McConnell, who was infamous for blocking liberal legislation as majority leader.
Schumer and his newfound Senate majority are eager to approve Biden’s COVID-19 relief blueprint, which would bankroll $1,400 stimulus checks to most Americans, provide better benefits for the unemployed and earmark billions of dollars for a national coronavirus vaccine program, among other provisions.
Biden has also sent over a long list of cabinet nominees that the Senate plans to confirm in short order.
And then there’s the issue of former President Donald Trump.
The House impeached Trump last week for inciting the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and the Senate must now put him on trial.
Though Trump’s obviously already out of the White House, the Senate could vote to bar him from ever holding public office again if it first convicts him of the impeachment charge passed up by the House.
Conviction requires support from two-thirds of the Senate, meaning at least 17 Republicans would need to join all 50 Democrats to ensure success.
Just a few weeks ago, the idea that even a couple of GOP senators would vote to convict Trump of an impeachment charge seemed all but impossible.
But Trump’s instigation of the Jan. 6 siege has flipped that reality on its head.
A growing number of Republican senators are now openly entertaining the idea of voting to convict Trump.
Earlier this week, McConnell, once Trump’s most powerful ally in Congress, for the first time explicitly blamed the former president for the attack, which left a police officer and four other people dead.
“The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president,” McConnell said Tuesday, suggesting he won’t advise his caucus against convicting Trump.
Schumer did not immediately set a start date for Trump’s impeachment trial, and noted that he and McConnell will have to hash out some housekeeping business before legislative action can begin.
The New York Democrat had some harsh words for the rioters who stormed the Capitol, though.
“It takes a lot more than a band of hooligans to bring down this great democracy,” he said. “Let it be a message to our friends and adversaries around the world that our democracy — though it has been tried and tested — shall long endure.”