Newly inaugurated Vice President Kamala Harris swore in Democratic Georgia Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock and California Sen. Alex Padilla to the Senate on Wednesday in her first act in her new office.
With the three senators sworn in, Democrats will have a 50-vote caucus and, with Harris as the tiebreaking vote, control of the Senate. With President Biden in office and a Democratic House majority, the party has full control over the elected federal government for the first time in more than a decade.
Ossoff, previously a filmmaker, and Warnock, a pastor, each won Georgia’s Jan. 5 runoff elections against former Republican Sens. David Purdue and Kelly Loeffler. Ossoff was elected to a full six-year term, but since Warnock’s election was a special election after Loeffler was appointed to the post, Warnock will be up for reelection in 2022, should he chose to run.
“Georgia has sent a young Jewish man and a black pastor to represent our state in the U.S. Senate. It’s a sign of generational and epochal change for our state,” Ossoff said earlier on Wednesday.
Padilla, California’s former secretary of state, was appointed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom to replace Harris as California’s junior senator, and his term will also end in two years. She resigned from the Senate on Monday in advance of being inaugurated on Wednesday.
All three senators were in attendance at Biden’s inauguration hours earlier.
Warnock, Padilla, and Ossoff pic.twitter.com/AzEixt3ZM3
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) January 20, 2021
