With over an unprecedented 77 million and counting popular vote in history for President Elect Joe Biden, We expect President-Elect Biden, upon swearing in, to immediately use his executive authority to address a further COVID-19 stimulus, reengagement in the Paris Climate accord, immigration, and DACA, and roll back Trump administration actions related to the environment and healthcare.
Nevertheless, with a gloomy transition on hand with a defiant non conceding one term President Trump supported by a lame duck majority Senate Republican led it is unpredictable if this majority leader will be the same apparent destructive instincts as the last democratic 44th President. Hence, it why both the Democratic and Republican parties are all focus on Georgia's Senate run off elections coming up that will have fate on the balance of power in the US Senate. As of now with the votes counted, the Republicans has 50 seats and the Democrats only has 48 which is why the Republicans still has majority in this lame duck session. If the 2 Senate democratic candidates wins in Georgia, that would give both parties 50 even Since Vice-President Elect Kamala Harris is the President of the Senate, she will be the tie breaker giving the democratic party the 51 votes to claim majority of the US Senate.
Why is the is important in terms of policy for any executive actions and laws that needs to be enacted by any sitting President of the United States?
In both Senate races, however, the Republicans ran ahead of the president, suggesting that many traditional Republican voters in the state did not have an issue with Republicans but rather an issue with the president specifically.
The filibuster is a tactic used to defeat bills and motions by prolonging debate indefinitely. A filibuster may entail long speeches, dilatory motions, and an extensive series of proposed amendments. The Senate may end a filibuster by invoking cloture. In most cases, cloture requires the support of three-fifths of the Senate; however, if the matter before the Senate involves changing the rules of the body – this includes amending provisions regarding the filibuster – a two-thirds majority is required. In current practice, the threat of filibuster is more important than its use; almost any motion that does not have the support of three-fifths of the Senate effectively fails. This means that 41 senators can make a filibuster happen. Historically, cloture has rarely been invoked because bipartisan support is usually necessary to obtain the required supermajority, so a bill that already has bipartisan support is rarely subject to threats of filibuster. However, motions for cloture have increased significantly in recent years.
If the Senate invokes cloture, debate does not necessarily end immediately; instead, it is limited to up to 30 additional hours unless increased by another three-fifths vote. The longest filibuster speech in the Senate's history was delivered by Strom Thurmond (D-SC), who spoke for over 24 hours in an unsuccessful attempt to block the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.[41]
Under certain circumstances, the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 provides for a process called "reconciliation" by which Congress can pass bills related to the budget without those bills being subject to a filibuster. This is accomplished by limiting all Senate floor debate to 20 hours.[42]
Likewise on this historic ascension of Kamala Harris of being President of the Senate leaves current only 2 out of the 3 Asian American Senators in the US Senate namely:
| Tammy Duckworth Kamala D. Harris Mazie K. Hirono | |
The major unknowns in these races will be how President Trump handles the next 60 days with respect to the election results, the amount of money that will pour into the state, and whether the two Democratic nominees can carry over the disapproval of President Trump and tag their opponents to him (and, perhaps, a desire to complement President-Elect Biden's agenda with an effective Democratic majority in the Senate). |
