In a significant blow for U.S. President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, Americans chose to hand over total control of Capitol Hill to Republicans in Tuesday’s midterm elections after the latter secured the six additional seats they needed to hold the Senate, along with one additional seat in the upper house of Congress and a stronger grip on the House of Representatives.
In a media interview Representative Steve Israel, Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, described the election as “a pretty ugly night” for Democrats, a reference to the fact that Republicans will dominate both chambers of Congress for the first time since 2006.
By Wednesday morning local time Republicans were holding on to all the seats that they were defending, including tight races in Georgia and Kansas, and by mopping up at least 52 seats in the Senate, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell won the title of Senate Majority Leader.
Contrarily Democrats faced a crushing defeat across states, losing seats in Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia.
With the Grand Old Party’s dramatic win across the nation, including numerous gubernatorial and state house victories, cross-party bridge-building will become an inescapable reality for Mr. Obama and his colleagues, given the range of policies for which he will need Congressional support, including for immigration reform and key personnel appointments.
Responding to a question from The Hindu during a briefing at the Washington Foreign Press Center Alan Lichtman, Distinguished Professor of History at American University, said that immigration reform, currently languishing on the floor of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, may actually see a fillip if the conservatives gain control of the Senate too.
Congress would find it harder to “duck” the issue in that case, he suggested, although it still remained unclear whether the comprehensive reform package passed by the Senate’s “Gang of Eight,” including proposals that could potentially hurt Indian companies operating here, would be acceptable to a reconstituted Senate.
While Mr. Obama has on occasion sought to bypass a gridlocked Congress on specific policies using Executive Orders, including on deferred deportation of certain undocumented minors, failure to create an atmosphere of cooperation with a potentially Republican-dominated Senate could also endanger senior appointments that the White House is seeking to make in the short-term.
There is already a long line of names for those still awaiting Senate confirmation, notable among which are those of Indian-Americans Richard Verma, Mr. Obama’s nominee for Ambassador to India, and Vivek Murthy, the President’s nominee for the role of Surgeon-General.
