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What A Democrat-Majority Senate Will Mean for the United States
With last week's victories by Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in the state of Georgia, the Democrats now have the majority seats in the US Senate. This means that for at least the next four years ahead of the US, not only the White House but also both houses of Congress will be under the control of the new president, Joe Biden. But what will be the effects of a Democrat-majority Senate on the Party in particular and on the United States in general?
First of all, it should be noted that Warnock and Ossoff's victory in the Senate race was for sure last week's best news for the Democratic Party. Ossoff, who at 33 becomes the youngest person to become a senator in four decades, was declared the victor over one-term Republican David Perdue by the Associated Press on Wednesday afternoon after his lead grew to 25,000 votes as final results were tallied.
Warnock was declared the victor by the Associated Press in the early hours of Wednesday morning. With 98 percent of votes counted, he had 50.7 percent of the vote with a lead of nearly 65,000 over Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler. The win by Ossoff and Warnock, who becomes the first African-American in Georgia to win a Senate seat, means the chamber will have a 50-50 partisan split, with Kamala Harris, incoming vice-president, having the tiebreaking vote.
"It is with humility that I thank the people of Georgia for electing me to serve you in the United States Senate," Ossoff said in a video posted ahead of the AP declaration. "Thank you for the confidence and trust that you have placed in me." Warnock thanked his supporters in a speech delivered over video-link early on Wednesday. "We were told that we couldn't win this election. But tonight we proved that with hope, hard work, and the people by our side, anything is possible," he said. "I am going to the Senate to work for all of Georgia," he added.
These two victories will also mean that Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, will control the Senate floor rather than Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and a man Democrats have long seen as the main impediment to their legislative ambitions.
After the Democrats managed successfully to hold the House of Representatives and the White House, a Democrat-majority Senate was the last ring of the chain of full control over the federal government by one party. This means, first and foremost, that president-elect Joe Biden can very much easier follow his plans and fulfill his campaign promises.
For Biden, the appetite for political reform is high. Indeed, with a quick comparison between his policies and agendas with those of Donald Trump, one can infer that Biden intends to take the isolated, divided and corona-stricken America that Trump created and deliver a better US after four years.
A Democrat-majority Senate will mean that Biden is now likely to get most or all of his Cabinet nominees confirmed, instead of battling with Republicans who may reject nominees sometimes for the simple reason of being a Democrat. This is important because many of Biden's nominees have clashed with many Republicans. It will also allow Biden to choose Judge Merrick Garland as attorney general, as reported because a Democrat-majority Senate will likely confirm a like-minded judge on the appeals court where Garland now serves. Biden will have a much easier time getting judicial nominees confirmed, as well.
A Democrat-majority Senate will also directly affect the lives of the American people.
In this regard, Biden said on Jan. 4 that if Democrats take the Senate, "those $2,000 checks will go out the door." He was referring to a proposal to send $2,000 stimulus checks to most Americans that the Senate shot down in late December. Congress did approve $600 checks at the end of last year, so Democrats might settle for $1,400 checks, to make up the difference. That's not necessarily the best use of stimulus money. Targeting aid at the unemployed would probably be more effective. But having made this promise, Democrats probably need to follow through. It will add to the annual deficit but help the economy in the short run.
Besides, Biden has been promising a tax reform since last year and with a Democrat-majority Senate, he will better be able to make this happen. The president-elect has declared many times that he wants to raise the corporate rate from 21% to 28%, and raise income tax raise on workers earning more than $400,000. He also intends to raise the capital gains tax for people earning more than $1 million.
The Democrat-majority Senate will also mean that Obama's Affordable Care Act can survive and even expand, despite court challenges that are still trying to kill it. Democrats can now pass simple changes to the law that would invalidate the recent suit against the law the Supreme Court heard in November. More than a decade after Congress passed the ACA, legal challenges might finally end in this regard. Democrats could also vote to make modest improvements, such as raising the income cutoff for people to qualify for insurance subsidies. Republicans are already plotting how to take back control from the Democrats in the 2022 midterms, but they're probably done promising to "repeal and replace" the ACA.
Democrats taking the control of the Senate will also have benefits for the world because Biden has promised to engage the US in international efforts towards issues such as climate change, healthcare, peacemaking, etc.
Biden's climate change initiatives, for instance, include greenhouse gas emissions from transportation by implementing new fuel economy standards. The end goal would be for 100% of new light- and medium-duty vehicles to be electric powered and for heavier vehicles to make continuous progress in that direction. The federal government would also incentivize the development of 100% clean energy and zero-emissions vehicles.
Biden also intends to establish new appliance- and building-efficiency standards for consumers. The federal government would also implement new standards to ensure that all of its facilities are more energy-efficient and "climate-ready." These climate change-related policies would represent "the largest-ever investment in clean energy research and innovation," at an estimated cost of $400 billion over 10 years, according to his website.
All these changes can happen very much easier now than when Biden had to deal with a Republican-majority Senate. However, this does not mean that Biden will have no challenge from the Republicans and that he will make all his promised changes without the disagreements by the opposition party.
The most serious threat to the effectiveness of a Biden presidency and a Democratic House and Senate is the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires 60 senators, instead of a simple majority of 51, to move forward on most legislation. Even now that the Democrats won the Senate, they don't have 60 votes, meaning that Republicans could still block legislation from being debated and that Biden's party still would be limited in what they could get through Congress. The fact is, after all, that even in such a Democrat-majority Senate, any bill would need to attract at least some Republican support.
Congressional aides, party strategists, and political analysts say that could be a recipe for continued gridlock. Progressives have long wanted to abolish the supermajority voting threshold, but the idea has begun to gain traction among other Democrats, too, in recent weeks. Perhaps, some Democrats argue, the filibuster is a natural place to launch their democracy-reform initiative: They can put forward a slew of policies strengthening ethics guidelines and expanding voting rights—including a bill that would restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965—and dare Republicans to vote against it. (The VRA had strong bipartisan support until the mid-2000s.) "It's a pretty easy argument to make," the aide to the centrist senator told me. "Democrats would be happy to be like, Look at these fuckin' guys! They still want to make it difficult for people of color to vote!"
DemocratsGeorgiaJon OssoffRaphael WarnockSenate
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