Most U.S. voters, including most California and Georgia voters, supported the Biden/Harris ticket. Biden/Harris supporters now need to support Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in the upcoming Georgia runoff election for the U.S. Senate because their election would make it possible for the Biden administration to get the senate to at least debate their proposals. If either Republican candidate wins, then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will continue being the “grim reaper” of Democratic House legislation. If both Democratic candidates win, then the senate will be perfectly balanced and, because Vice President Harris can break ties, the majority leader will be Democrat Chuck Schumer, who can then allow Senate debate on Biden/Harris proposals. After the Democrats retook control of the House of Representatives in 2018, Mitch McConnell took pride in operating a “legislative graveyard,” where 235 bills, passed by mostly house democrats, were buried, because McConnell used his power as majority leader to block them from even being debated in the senate. His refusal for the senate to debate the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court is, perhaps, his most famous example of obstruction but he also blocked popular bills involving common sense gun control and, more recently, COVID-19 relief for unemployed families. For unpopular legislation that he likes, he is willing to have the senate deliberate it repeatedly. Republican Senators have voted 70 times to repeal, modify or otherwise curb Obamacare. By design, the U.S. Senate over-represents small states and under-represents large states. The result is that the populations represented by the incoming 50 Republican Senators amount to only 41 percent of the U.S. population. Adding one or two Republican senators from Georgia would bring that up to 46 percent of the U.S. population, still not a majority. The only way for Georgia voters to ensure that the will of the majority at least gets heard in senate deliberations is by electing Ossoff and Warnock as their senators in the upcoming election. The most effective way for Californians to support these efforts is to donate to former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ anti-voter suppression organization, secure.actblue.com/donate/fair-fight-1.
William McCarthy