Editorials & Other Articles

Whoever's in control wields some power as to committee appointments, schedules, yada-yada. It can be abused when procedure--sacred at times and utter crap at times, if the last 4-14 years is any indication--is to be acknowledged.

Otherwise, it's like the awesome steamroller that was the (D) Senate. Oh--wait!--it had a couple of members, often more, that kept it from steamrolling all that much. Oops. The analogy seems to reflect its first 4 letters more than not.

I've heard commentary that once the (R) had a majority in the Senate--something that's happened--of course they'll be united as a bloc.

To which I thought, "Right, just like the (D) were a bloc in the Senate and the (R) an absolutely rocks solid bloc in the House." Then I noticed that the pundits all sported a tacit (D) and were catastrophizing. Fractured rocks tend to have fractures.

The Senate's (R) majority will be greater than the (D) majority is, so the narrowness is likely to be a bit less crippling and the filibuster, derided when (D) ruled because stood in our way but now surely to be praised because it stands in the (R)s' way, froze legislation, will be a bit more useful. But any (R) majority in the House will be so scant as to empower any (R) "Gang of 4" that self-forms for a specific cause or give power to any group of (D) whose support the leader of the House will accept.

The next Congress isn't divided, just functionally 90% divided. On big things where Trump and the leaders can compel compliance and find loopholes that I think are scurvy in a party-independent way, sure, things will be rammed through. But democracies should be ramming anything through any citizen.