Although Democrats hold slim majorities in both houses of Congress, President Biden‘s agenda will still face challenges to pass. Kamala Harris has gone from being just one of 100 U.S. senators to now being vice president and presiding over the entire Senate.
After the Democrats won Georgia’s two-seat runoff victory in Senator Mc, they also hold the vote that broke the tie, ending six years of Republican control of the U.S. Senate.
With a majority, Democrats can get some work done.
“It means President Biden can have the executive branch, he can assign cabinet heads, he can appoint judges, he can push legislation,” said Chris Eidson, a professor at American University’s School of Government.
But it’s hard to say how much legislation will succeed because of long-standing provisions in the U.S. Senate.
One of the provisions is a delay in proceedings.
The purpose of this provision is to allow a handful of senators to block a vote on an issue through continued debate.
The Senate rule requires three-fifths, or 60 senators, to vote to end debate.
In other words, it would take ten Republicans and all fifty Democratic senators to reach a consensus to hold a vote that would allow most of President Biden’s agenda to be legislated.
First on the agenda is the nearly $2 trillion in new crown bailouts.
Norman Ornstein, a scholar emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute, said, “During the campaign and after he was elected, he said he believed he had Republicans he could work with. And senators who you would expect to be willing to compromise, like Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah, have opened their mouths and said ‘we don’t think there’s anything that needs to be done right now, we’ve passed $900 billion, let’s see what happens.”
But there are provisions that would allow Biden and the Democrats to avoid delaying the proceedings.
One is called reconciliation.
It’s a little-known procedure that allows legislation to bypass delayed proceedings as long as it involves a budget issue.
Examples include tax increases or cuts…and changes in government spending priorities.
Voting to pass a reconciliation bill requires only a simple majority. But it can only be used once per budget cycle. And it would crowd out some of President Biden’s key goals, such as passing a new Voting Rights Act and immigration reform.
During the campaign, he would say, ‘If I get elected, I know some people will work with me,’ and some on the left would ignore that and think it was naive,” said Edson, a professor at American University’s School of Government. So I think he has to be careful about that, and I think he has to be realistic.”
What can be accomplished in a divided Senate should be approached pragmatically, with an eye on the next election.
Ornstein, a scholar emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute, said, “Remember that in 2009 and 2010, delaying proceedings was used repeatedly, and in the next midterm election, the Republicans won more House seats than they have won in the last hundred years, and then this was used again after Obama’s re-election victory, and the subsequent midterm election, they regained majority in the Senate. So the obstructionist tactics they’ve employed have always worked, and they’re likely to try again.”
Biden has been navigating these Senate rules for 36 years, and now how he is going to hold the line will test the success or failure of his presidency.
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