Joe Biden’s chances of implementing his campaign agenda have improved significantly with Democratic control of the Senate from winning the Georgia runoffs, boosting the odds for items such as economic stimulus spending, infrastructure, and clean energy investments.
Chuck Schumer, as majority leader, will decide what legislation gets voted on, not Mitch McConnell, the Republican who has run the Senate since 2015. Democrats also retain control of the House, albeit with a smaller margin.
Biden’s Cabinet faces a much quicker and easier path to confirmation through the Senate, with only a simple majority vote required.
And Republicans without control of committees won’t have oversight power, giving them little leverage in negotiations.
“The difference is enormous,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder and executive vice president of Third Way.
He noted that McConnell generally refused to bring bipartisan bills to the floor unless there was consensus support among Republicans, an approach that prevented legislation from passing that might have garnered sufficient votes.
“Most importantly, Democratic control of the Senate means we don’t have to rely on Mitch McConnell to put things on the floor,” Bennett said. “It’s a fundamentally different calculus.”
But Senate Democrats only have a nominal majority, with seats split evenly 50-50 between each party and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris acting as a tiebreaker. That means Biden would have a tough time passing sweeping policies preferred by liberals, such as emissions reduction mandates to fight climate change, “Medicare for all,” universal background checks for guns, and tuition-free college.
Most legislation requires 60 votes, meaning 10 Republicans would need to cross over, assuming there was total Democratic support.
“Democrats get to set the issue agenda,” said Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center. “They do not get to unilaterally drive issue outcomes.”
Biden has pledged to stay focused in his early weeks on a legislative agenda geared around health and economic relief, vowing not to be consumed by the fallout of the mob riot against the Capitol and Democrats’ drive to punish President Trump for his role in it.
“It seems clear he is trying to articulate a unifying message in the wake of the Trump madness as a broader national political strategy and Senate legislative strategy,” said Paul Bledsoe, a former Senate Finance Committee staff member who is now an adviser with the Progressive Policy Institute.
With Democrats controlling the scheduling of confirmation hearings, Biden will be able to install a team to begin implementing his agenda quickly, including nominees whose qualifications and rhetoric were questioned by Republicans, such as Neera Tanden as director of the Office of Management and Budget and Xavier Becerra as Health and Human Services secretary.
Bennet said the transition team had been planning in the event of a Republican Senate to rely on non-confirmed personnel to lead agencies for a period of time, which could have left them unprepared as Trump has hollowed out career staff from agencies in favor of political appointees.
“It’s going to be much quicker,” Bennet said. “They will have their top people in place weeks or months before they planned on it. Given the damage the Trump team has done to agency staff, that’s a big deal.”
Grumet said he expects Biden, a former senator who prides himself on bipartisanship, could get Republican support on pandemic relief and economic recovery-related legislation, including through spending on infrastructure, enhancing paid family leave, and reducing pricing of prescription drugs.
“There is a pretty big agenda that could move forward through the regular process,” Grumet said. “Were that to happen, it would not just help millions of Americans but restore some trust and capacity in the Democratic process.”
Bledsoe predicts McConnell will be motivated to act on issues with popular support because next year’s Senate map favors Democrats, with Republicans forced to defend 20 seats.
“McConnell will be looking to cut deals for popular legislation like infrastructure so Republicans can win the majority in the Senate in 2023,” Bledsoe said.
But Biden is also expected to pursue an easier path for passing certain legislation through budget reconciliation, which enables the passage of fiscal legislation with a simple majority instead of 60 votes, meaning Republican votes aren’t necessary.
Republicans with full control of Washington used it in 2017 to pass tax cuts, and it helped Democrats pass Obamacare.
Liberal Democrats who expected a bigger majority once had dreams of eliminating the filibuster, the Senate rule that prevents debate on legislation from ending and moving to a vote without approval from 60 out of 100 senators. But a split Senate makes rule changes unlikely.
“I don’t believe in the middle of the pandemic you’d be able to advance the core imaginations of the progressive agenda,” Grumet said.
Democrats, however, are not above acting alone without Republicans. Many Democrats are still calling on Biden to make generous use of executive power, a common element of the Trump and Obama administrations. Possible actions include forgiving student loan debt, pursuing an end to the death penalty, reducing deportations, and rejoining the Paris climate agreement.
“He is still going to pursue an aggressive executive authority agenda, as all modern presidents have done, and he is on record promising very specific ways he is going to do that,” Bledsoe said.
