With twin Democratic victories in Georgia’s Senate runoffs, and in the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol, we are getting a better sense of who, beyond chamber leadership, the Senate power players likely will be during this Congress.
Five of them particularly come to mind.
Even before the fates of Democratic Sens.-elect Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff were realized, eyes were on Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Manchin got the attention because he went on record opposing some of the most revolutionary ideas floated within the Democratic coalition, and His Moderateness would become a deciding vote in a 50-50 Senate. (Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will have a vote as president of the Senate, giving Democrats a 51-50 majority.)
After Nov. 3, he went on a media blitz, putting down “defund the police,” court-packing, and abolition of the legislative filibuster. “I really think that when you break the filibuster, you break the Senate, and I’m not going to be part of breaking the Senate, I can tell you that,” Manchin told the Washington Examiner.
Now that the Democrats have accomplished a majority, Manchin’s power is becoming more evident.
For example, consider the stock markets. Determining causation in a system as complex as the markets can be extremely difficult, and some would caution against trying. “One of the most difficult things about covering the markets is determining what caused the change from that day or week,” Christopher Roush, dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University, wrote in 2016. “Be careful not to give too much weight to one theory or another about the market’s movement.”
Still, CNBC reporters on Thursday hinted at Manchin as a market force. “Stocks hit their session lows around 1:40 p.m. ET — with the Dow briefly falling more than 200 points — after Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin told the Washington Post he would ‘absolutely not’ support a round of $2,000 stimulus checks,” the story reads.
Even if the Dow drop can’t be reduced perfectly to Manchin-as-cause, the notion is there, and financial professionals are paying special attention to him.
“Sen. Manchin’s comment here is really significant,” Bill Miller, founder of investment advisory firm Miller Value Partners, told CNBC. “People are worried now that the Senate will be controlled by Democrats, which it will be mathematically. But the key is going to be Sen. Manchin from West Virginia, Sen. Collins — the moderates.”
The man is poised to become one of the most powerful elected officials in Washington, no matter whether he can actually prod the market with a single statement or whether people think he can.
Another Democrat to watch is Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who, judged by her votes during President Trump’s tenure, is about as centrist a Democrat as Manchin. FiveThirtyEight determines that Sinema has voted with Trump 51.1% of the time, second among sitting Democrats only to Manchin’s 51.2% “Trump score.”
Sinema supported William Barr for attorney general, while her party overwhelmingly opposed him, and as a House member, before she became a senator in 2019, she supported numerous deregulation efforts with her votes.
Sinema was one of three House Democrats who voted to make permanent various pieces of the 2017 tax cuts, and in 2018, she was one of seven Democrats who voted for a resolution declaring that “a carbon tax would be detrimental to American families and businesses, and is not in the best interest of the United States.”
Joe Biden narrowly won her state, and Sinema will serve alongside newly elected Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, but Arizona has a whole lot of Republican voters. Its governor and attorney general are Republicans, and Republicans rule the state Legislature. Sinema has not been a moderating force on abortion, but the pressure will likely remain on her to stay middle-of-the-road in general.
Senate Republicans have a whole different game ahead of them, as they work to push back both against Democratic policy efforts and tend to their own party identity. An ethos of transactionalism dominated the Trump era, with Republicans frequently diverting attention toward judges, regulation cutting, and tax reform and away from the president’s transgressions. It has caught up with them, as Republican Sen. Pat Toomey notes.
One Republican who has a chance to do some real shaping is Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska. To many, he is insufferable, for varying reasons. A frequent objector to Trump, Sasse drew the ire of the president and his supporters, and some liberals I have seen have shaped Sasse up as just a talker, a morally vacuous big-word user.
Sasse, though, is distinct from many of his Republican colleagues. He’s not a lawyer but is a solid polemicist, pushing back on the notion that political wins are in themselves ultimate ends. He took advantage of Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing to talk specifically about healthier civics.
After debate over Arizona’s electors resumed on Wednesday after the disruption of the Capitol riot, Sasse did it again, imploring people to love their neighbors. The command likely sounds stupid and useless to the cynical, though political conditions are indisputably hellish because mutual respect is in the gutter. Everyone at least knows that much.
Republicans don’t have a tabula rasa per se, but they will have to rebuild. Sasse, if he takes the chance, is positioned to pull the party toward a better statesmanship. There is a palate for it because, as far as I can tell, people are fatigued by whatever we might call its alternative, which we have been living.
Besides Sasse, centrist Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine have a chance at seriously influencing the Senate for the same reasons they did during the last Congress, as potential tiebreaking votes. Neither supports abortion restrictions the way most of their caucus does and might side with Democrats there, for example. And as a general rule, Murkowski and Collins have shown a willingness to break from party leadership, as Murkowski did in opposing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Collins did in voting against Barrett as a nominee.
It’s a new year in politics. The year ahead looks like it will be a great deal different from the last. These are a few folks whose platforms are ready-made for them to make it so.
