The drought of opinion pieces continues. Let’s talk about Ralph Warnock’s successfully defending his Senate seat in Georgia, shall we? As usual I’m disinterested in the local politics aspect of it since I don’t live in Georgia but it does have national implications.
What good is one additional Senate seat to the Democrats? I think they’d claim a mandate for whatever they cared to do anyway just as the Republicans would in their shoes. I can’t see a chastened Chuck Schumer looking to forge a more bipartisan path for legislation in any event.
Enacting legislation will be difficult with a Republican majority in the House, even a narrow one. Especially funding bills viz. Article I Section 7 of the Constitution:
All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
Where I think the additional vote will help is in committee seats. They won’t need to play nice with the Senate minority. That in turn has implications for judicial, ambassadorial, and cabinet level appointments.
Yes, Democrats will have majorities on all the committees now. But with GoP control of the House and the lack of regular order, that doesn’t mean as much as it might.