Senate power-sharing deal reached, Schumer announces, allowing Democrats to take control of committees

Senate power-sharing deal reached, Schumer announces, allowing Democrats to take control of committees

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“I am happy to report this morning that the leadership of both parties has finalized the Senate’s organizational resolution,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “We are going to pass the resolution through the Senate today, which means that the committees can readily establish themselves and start working with Democrats holding the hammer.”

On Wednesday, Schumer said that with a power-sharing agreement in place that will hammer the Democratic committees, they “are ready to start working on the most important issues facing our country” and “will not waste any time”.

Democrats took control of the Senate in January, after winning two US Senate seats in Georgia and the White House. However, an impasse prevented the party from taking control of important committees, as the chamber is operating under the rules of the last Congress, when the Republican Party was in charge, delaying consideration of those nominated to the Cabinet, including the attorney general. Merrick Garland, who is expected to receive bipartisan support.

An agreement between the two leaders was needed to determine how power would be divided, as the Senate has a 50-50 equal split with Vice President Kamala Harris capable of breaking ties.

It was not clear until Wednesday morning what was preventing the deal. Party leaders had been discussing some end points, including how to structure committee budgets, before finalizing the power-sharing deal that will officially allow Democrats to assume their presidencies, Senate officials familiar with the negotiations with CNN earlier this week said .

The delay was already having an impact on Biden’s cabinet nominees in the Senate confirmation process. Senator Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, rejected a Democratic request on Monday to schedule Garland’s confirmation hearing on February 8, arguing that the Senate needs to focus on former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial , which should start the next day.

At one point, negotiations were suspended for more than a week because of a disagreement over whether Democrats should promise in writing that the obstruction would not explode. McConnell ended his request after Democratic moderates Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona said they had no plans to vote to eliminate the obstruction anytime soon.

This story was updated with further developments on Wednesday.

CNN’s Ted Barrett, Alex Rogers and Manu Raju contributed to this report.

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