The Democrats’ down-ballot flop in the 2020 election left them with one of the slimmest
majorities in the House either party has faced in the modern era. And the best the Democrats can hope for in the Senate is a 50-50 tie, if they manage to steal the two Georgia Senate seats in the January 5, runoffs.
This means that if Joe Biden is sworn-in as President, he, Chuck Schumer, the Democrat leader of the Senate, and Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi have a big problem.
Normally, presidents look to Congress to fill many Cabinet positions. Even though many of them are little more than political payoffs to Members of Congress who carry water for the special interests with issues before the Departments, these appointments are assumed to bring expertise developed over years of working on agency issues or serving on congressional committees overseeing the agencies.
However, with such slim Democrat numbers on the Hill, if any Member of Congress leaves to join the illegitimate Biden administration the ability of Democrats to pass the Far-Left Biden agenda is imperiled and even Democrat control of the House could be in jeopardy.
Cheyenne Haslett and Benjamin Siegel reporting for ABC News observed if Biden were to pick any representatives for his Cabinet or administration, their seat would be left vacant until a special election is held -- meaning even if a seat will surely be filled by another Democrat, the party would be down a vote in the House for weeks until a replacement is elected.
According to ABC, Biden has already tapped Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Democrat from Louisiana’s Second District, for a senior position in his White House. Biden has also announced he plans to nominate Rep. Deb Haaland, (NM-01) to be Secretary of the Interior and Democrat Rep. Marsha Fudge (OH-11) as Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
And the ABC report that Democrats could be down the seats lost to Cabinet appointments for “weeks” is way too optimistic. It varies by state, but the process to fill vacant House seats could take months, while a Republican Governor could actually appoint a Republican to fill any Senate vacancy created by appointing a Senator from a Red State to a Cabinet post.
ABC reported that for nearly a century, 30% of seats left open by elected officials who left their positions to join a Cabinet were flipped by the next general election, according to a study of special elections conducted by researchers at Duke University and Michigan State University.
“For Democrats to pick up (or retain) the chamber in 2022, they'll need everything to go right, and since they'll be holding the White House, history is against them,” said J. Miles Coleman, associate editor at Sabato's Crystal Ball, in an email reported by ABC, noting that midterm elections are historically unfriendly to presidents in their first term.
These narrow margins may very well prompt Democrats to engage in unprecedented anti-constitutional activities to expand or at least preserve their numbers, so look for “count ‘em till we win” campaigns in California and New York and appeals to the Democrat House to overturn Democrat Rita Hart’s close loss in Iowa’s Second Congressional District.
Joe Biden
Charles Schumer
Nancy Pelosi
Georgia runoff elections
Biden cabinet appointments
Rep. Cedric Richmond
Rep. Deb Haaland
Rep. Marsha Fudge
Special elections
Rita Hart
Iowa