However there’s one other risk that also needs to have the Democrats reaching for the Maalox: A random act of destiny might flip the Senate over to the Republicans not subsequent January, however subsequent summer season, or subsequent month, or subsequent week. An sickness or loss of life might nicely set off a political earthquake — by virtually immediately switching management of the nation’s high legislative physique.
States have a variety of legal guidelines about changing a departed senator, however the giant majority — 37 — name on the governor to select a successor. Of these, solely seven require the governor to select somebody in the identical get together. So there are 30 states the place the governor can decide no matter new senator she or he desires.
What that provides as much as, in sensible phrases, is that in 9 states (as of Jan. 15), a Republican governor has the authority to exchange both one or two Democratic senators. If a single Democratic senator in any of these states needed to depart workplace, the Republican governor of that state might appoint a GOP substitute that might instantly give the get together a 51-49 Senate majority.
When Glenn Youngkin turns into Virginia’s governor later this month, he’ll be a part of a bunch of GOP governors from states with two Democratic senators: Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maryland, Georgia and Arizona.
Two different states, Ohio and Montana, have one Democratic senator and a Republican governor. (There’s one other set of states, after all, with the other dynamic: Louisiana, North Carolina, Kentucky and Kansas all have a Democratic governor and two Republican senators; three others, Maine, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, have a single Republican senator with Democratic governors. Of the aforementioned states, solely in Maryland, Arizona, North Carolina and Kentucky are the events assured of holding their seats beneath state regulation.)
There was a quick flutter of concern about senatorial succession final January, when 80-year-old Vermont Democrat Pat Leahy went into the hospital. If well being pressured him out of workplace, who would Republican governor Phil Scott identify? Scott’s about as “un-Republican” a Republican determine as any, and Leahy recovered rapidly. However the broader difficulty, uncomfortable as it could be to ponder, stays.
And it’s a difficulty magnified by the erosion of collegiality and comity that when outlined a lot of how the Senate operated. In an earlier period, an evenly divided physique handled an unstable stability of energy by sharing it, or making lodging. Right now, such prospects appear extra like a pastoral fantasy.
It might sound morbid to assume too concretely about what occurs when a senator dies or is compelled by sickness to depart workplace. However in a means it’s irresponsible to not. Whereas solely three senators have died in workplace within the final decade, the actuarial actuality — 26 senators are 70 years previous or extra — deserves consideration. (Destiny, after all, isn’t any respecter of age; Robert Kennedy was 42 when he was assassinated; Paul Wellstone was 58 when he died in a spot crash). Furthermore, there have been instances when the Senate has misplaced a exceptional variety of its members. In 1953, the 83rd Congress started with 48 Republicans, 47 Democrats, and one unbiased, representing the 48 states that then fashioned the Union. Over the course of the session, no fewer than 9 senators died in workplace, and one other resigned.
With such an in depth vote to start out with on the time, what occurred? On a number of events, the appointed senator certainly got here from the opposite get together. However the Senate was a really completely different place then — and successfully its energy didn’t actually change fingers.
When Ohio Republican Robert Taft died in workplace in July 1953, Ohio Gov. Frank Lausche changed him with Democrat Thomas Burke. This gave Democrats a 48-47 majority — however the unbiased, Sen. Wayne Morse, who’d left the GOP out of his antipathy towards Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy, voted to maintain the GOP in charge of the chamber for the sake of comity and continuity.
Different deaths in the course of the session would once more give Democrats a single-vote majority, however Democratic chief Lyndon Johnson by no means pressed the difficulty. Why not? Within the first place, Johnson was aware of President Dwight Eisenhower’s reputation, and he needed to place his get together as cooperative. Certainly, he was savvy sufficient to see that a few of Ike’s most fervent opposition within the Senate was coming not from Democrats, however from extra conservative Republicans. Second, the filibuster rule and the Republican within the White Home would have primarily stopped Johnson from enacting something like a Democratic legislative agenda. As for energy over judicial confirmations, the method again within the ’50s had not one of the partisan implications it has right now. Lastly, the relative collegiality of Washington meant that in an evenly divided Senate, Johnson might acquire concessions on points like committee assignments in return for not difficult the Republicans’ organizational management.
Because it occurred, in November 1954, Democrats gained management of the Senate — a management they might maintain for the following 26 years. Since that point, no senatorial loss of life has shifted numerical management of the chamber (although it almost occurred when South Dakota Democrat Tim Johnson was struck by a mind hemorrhage in 2006).
Right now, if a Republican governor despatched a celebration member to exchange a deceased Democrat, it’s onerous to think about Mitch McConnell — or any Republican chief — agreeing to let Democrats hold the ability to prepare the Senate. And to place a bipartisan spin on the query: when Jeffords left the GOP in 2001 and introduced he’d align with the Democratic caucus, did Daschle decline the prospect for his get together to develop into the bulk?
It’s this mix of an evenly divided Senate and the scorched-earth nature of right now’s political battles that makes this train extra than simply morbid hypothesis. Governors have been selecting members of their very own get together to exchange senators of the opposite get together for many years. (It even occurs in nationwide tragedies: When the Democratic icon Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, the Republican New York Governor, Nelson Rockefeller, changed him with a Republican, Charles Goodell.) In additional than 200 circumstances going again greater than 100 years, governors have named a substitute from the opposite get together solely thrice.
Now, nonetheless, with the Senate majority hanging by the thinnest of threads, that conventional gubernatorial energy looms as a probably deadly blow to Democratic management over the following yr. (Confronted with a possible shift of energy {that a} sudden Senate emptiness would set off, would McConnell emulate Lyndon Johnson and keep his hand, allowing Democrats to retain organizational management over the Senate? It’s doable, however is there something in his previous that means McConnell would decline to understand one other lever of energy?)
One postscript: this risk to Democratic dominance of the Senate just isn’t essentially the most excessive risk. The twenty fifth Modification particulars how our system offers with a president unable to discharge the duties of the workplace: the vice chairman and a majority of the Cupboard could make such a discovering, and in that case, the vice chairman would briefly assume the duties of the workplace.
However what occurs if a vice chairman turns into unable to carry out the duties of the workplace? If he or she falls ailing, or is severely injured, there’s no mechanism to off-load the job to anybody else — which implies that in a 50-50 Senate, there’d be nobody to interrupt a tie. (If this appears past the pale, keep in mind that we realized simply this week that Harris was inside Democratic Nationwide Committee headquarters as an undiscovered bomb was mendacity exterior the constructing on Jan. 6, 2021.)
Is there something remotely comforting about such ideas? Effectively, it makes worries over Joe Manchin’s doable defection lots simpler to ponder.
