DEMS/GOP/POLITICS: “Democrat Doug Jones will be sworn in Wednesday as Alabama’s newest senator, bolstering his party’s moderate wing and raising the prospect of growing philosophical divides among Senate Democrats.
After Mr. Jones is seated, Republicans will control 51 seats compared with 49 for Democrats. With that narrow majority, Republicans can lose no more than one GOP vote and still confirm President Donald Trump’s nominees on party-line votes. It also means that Republicans will need Democratic support to pass most legislation, which typically requires 60 votes to move past procedural hurdles.
How Mr. Jones—and the Democrats—use their strengthened position will go a long way toward determining what Congress accomplishes heading into the 2018 midterm elections…
No Democrat supported the GOP tax measure and the repeal of a mandate that individuals buy health-care insurance. Only three of them joined Republicans in voting to confirm Justice Neil M. Gorsuch on the nation’s highest court…
A former U.S. attorney, Mr. Jones became the first Alabama Democrat to win a Senate seat in 25 years after a complicated series of elections to fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.”
-Siobhan Hughes, “Moderate Democrats Get a Boost as Doug Jones Joins the Senate,” The Wall Street Journal online, Jan. 2, 2017 09:21am