What to expect as Democrats retain the Senate for the next two years

Usually, the party for a first-term president doesn’t do well in midterm elections. Furthermore, polling and different data indicated that Democrats had been behind in key Senate races in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada. Nevertheless, the party was able to win all of these races. Battleground state Georgia will go to a runoff election next month between Incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker.

The losses in the Senate for the GOP have promoted in-fighting as some Republicans look to blame Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and former President Donald Trump. In the House, Republicans could barely gain a majority, and GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy recently won the party nomination for speaker of the House after defeating Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs.

As power struggles consume the GOP, Democrats are celebrating their historic win and wish to pass key legislation before the 117th Congress ends in January. Current Senate Majority Chuck Schumer will probably hold his leadership position going into the new Congress.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will probably stay in leadership as Democrats held onto their majority in the 2022 midterm election.  (Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

This week, Schumer announced he plans to support a vote on the Respect for Marriage Act, which might codify same-sex marriage into federal law. The bill presently only needs ten Republican votes in the Senate.

“I want to be clear that passing this bill is not at all a theoretical exercise, but rather it is as real as it gets,” Schumer stated on the Senate floor Monday. A procedural vote is set to happen on Wednesday, and Democrats imagine they have sufficient votes from throughout the aisle to achieve the 60 vote threshold to avoid a filibuster.

The group of bipartisan senators seeking to codify same-sex marriage include Democratic Senators Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and Republican Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, and Rob Portman of Ohio.

“We’ve crafted commonsense language that respects religious liberty and Americans’ diverse beliefs while upholding our view that marriage embodies the highest ideals of love, devotion, and family,” mentioned the bipartisan Senate group in a joint statement on Monday.

Even if the vote fails, which might be unlikely, Democrats would seemingly still have sufficient votes to move past the filibuster. The push to codify same-sex marriage by Democrats before the new Congress convenes comes on the heels of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

The Senate win for Democrats additionally has other advantages for the Biden administration for the following two years. The party will have the ability to confirm the president’s judicial nominees in addition to vote in opposition to bills passed by a probable Republican House and uphold Biden’s legislative agenda.