Senate confirms Biden 1st Cabinet pick as Democrats control

WASHINGTON — Three new senators were sworn into office after President Joe Biden’s inauguration, securing the majority for Democrats in the Senate and across a unified government to tackle the new president’s agenda at a time of unprecedented national challenges.

In a first vote, the Senate confirmed Biden’s nominee for director of national intelligence, Avril Haines late Wednesday, overcoming Republican opposition to approve his first Cabinet member. It’s traditionally a show of good faith on Inauguration Day to confirm at least some nominees for a new president’s administration.

On Thursday, the new Senate majority leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he hoped Biden’s nominees for the departments of Defence, Homeland Security, State and Treasury could also be swiftly confirmed.

“To leave these seats vacant does a disservice to America,” Schumer said at the Capitol.

Schumer introduced all six new Democratic senators — the “majority makers” — who he said represent an “expanding Democratic majority.” Four are from the West and two from the South.

They are a diverse group bringing several firsts to the Senate, along with Schumer’s rise as the first Jewish majority leader of the Senate.

The three who joined on Wednesday — Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Alex Padilla of California — took the oath of office from Kamala Harris, a former California senator who is first woman to be vice-president, and the first Black woman and Asian-American to hold that office.

Warnock, a pastor from the late Martin Luther King Jr.’s church in Atlanta, is the first Black senator from Georgia. Ossoff, a former congressional aide and investigative journalist, is Jewish and also the now youngest member of the Senate, at 33.

They won run-off elections in Georgia this month, defeating two Republicans, to lock the majority for Democrats.

Padilla, a the son of immigrants from Mexico, becomes his state’s first Latino senator, tapped by California’s governor to finish the remainder of Harris’ term.

They join a Senate narrowly split 50-50 between the parties, but giving Democrats the majority with Harris able to cast the tie-breaking vote.

“Today, America is turning over a new leaf. We are turning the page on the last four years, we’re going to reunite the country, defeat COVID-19, rush economic relief to the people,” Ossoff told reporters earlier at the Capitol. “That’s what they sent us here to do.”

Taken together, their arrival gives Democrats for the first time in a decade control of the Senate, the House and the White House, as Biden faces the unparalleled challenges of the COVID-19 crisis and its economic fallout, and the nation’s painful political divisions from the deadly Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol by a mob loyal to Donald Trump.

Congress is being called on to consider Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion COVID recovery package, to distribute vaccines and shore up an economy as more than 400,000 Americans have died from the virus. At the same time, the Senate is about to launch an impeachment trial of Trump, charged by the House of inciting the insurrection at the Capitol as rioters tried to interrupt the Electoral College tally and overturn Biden’s election. The Senate will need to confirm other Biden Cabinet nominees.

Yet as Washington looks to turn the page from Trump to the Biden administration, Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is not relinquishing power without a fight.

Haines’ nomination was temporarily blocked by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., as he sought information about the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., is holding back the Homeland Security nominee, Alejandro Mayorkas, over Biden’s proposed immigration changes.

McConnell is refusing to enter a power-sharing agreement with Senate Democrats unless they meet his demands, chiefly to preserve the Senate filibuster — the procedural tool often used by the minority party to block bills under rules that require 60 votes to advance legislation.

At her first White House briefing, press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden’s desire to have his Cabinet confirmed and in place is “front and centre for the president,” and she said he was hoping to have his national security nominees in place Thursday or Friday.

Psaki said the president will be “quite involved” in negotiations over the COVID relief package, but left the details of the upcoming impeachment trial to Congress.

The Senate can “multitask,” she said.

That’s a tall order for a Senate under normal circumstances, but even more so now in the post-Trump era, with Republicans badly split between their loyalties to the defeated president and wealthy donors who are distancing themselves from Republicans who back Trump.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is expected to soon transmit to the Senate the House-passed article of impeachment against Trump, charged with incitement of insurrection, a step that will launch the Senate impeachment trial.

Meantime, the power-sharing talks between Schumer and McConnell have hit a stalemate.

It’s an arcane fight McConnell has inserted into what has traditionally been a more routine organizing resolution over committee assignments and staffing resources, but a power play by the outgoing Republican leader grabbing at tools that can be used to block Biden’s agenda.

Progressive and liberal Democrats are eager to do away with the filibuster to more quickly advance Biden’s priorities, but not all rank-and-file Senate Democrats are on board. Schumer has not agreed to any changes but McConnell is taking no chances.

For now, it will take unanimous consent among senators to toggle between conducting votes on legislative business and serving as jurors in the impeachment trial. The House last week impeached Trump for having sent the mob to the Capitol to “fight like hell” during the tally of Electoral College votes to overturn Biden’s election.

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Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.

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This story has been updated to correct that Sen. Tom Cotton represents Arkansas, not Oklahoma.

Lisa Mascaro, The Associated Press