Donald Trump and Joe Biden are starring in an intense presidential race these days that will decide who sits in the White House for the next four years.
But in parallel there are other campaigns, if possible, more transcendental: those of the candidates for the Senate.
The Republican Party has a majority in the Senate and plays defense in a dozen senatorial races that could decide who controls the Upper House starting in 2021. If they lose that battle and the Democrats succeed in their task of retaking control of both the Senate and In the White House, the balance of power in Washington DC could be very different than it is in just a couple of years.
[Follow our coverage of the 2020 presidential elections]
Why is the Senate so important?
The House of Representatives has a number of congressmen according to the population of the 50 states of the country.
For example, California has 53 members of Congress because it has nearly 40 million residents.
Instead, Wyoming only has one congressman representing its more than 578,000 residents.
Judge Barrett faces the Senate during the second confirmation hearing
Oct. 13, 202003: 06
For its part, the Senate is made up of 100 senators, two from each state.
That means states with tens of millions of citizens like California and Texas have the same senatorial representation as less populated ones like Wyoming or Rhode Island.
"Historically, the role of the Senate by design was to represent states equally," explains Jonathan Hanson, a political scientist at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.
"Because of this,
rural parts of the country have had relatively stronger representation in the Senate."
[Judge Barrett refuses to condemn the separation of migrant families at the border: "It is an intense political debate"]
Hanson adds that "what we are seeing now is an increasing polarization that has to do with the differences between the diverse and generally coastal states versus much of the interior of the country and the southern states."
It is that balance of power that then has huge implications for the officials and laws that guide America's political and judicial future.
Because the importance of the Senate lies in its role as a legislative chamber that
can pass or block the most ambitious bills of an Administration.
"The House of Representatives (with a Democratic majority) has passed legislation that will provide significant additional unemployment assistance and more money to help state governments, something that Senate Republicans have opposed," says Hanson. .
But a Democratic majority in the Upper House would change that scenario completely.
[The Senate resurrects the reduced financial aid plan but Trump demands to negotiate the $ 1,200 check as well]
At the same time, the Senate also confirms or blocks certain presidential nominees to occupy such important federal positions as the Secretary of State or judges of the Courts of Appeals and the Supreme Court.
Wait, Supreme Court? That sounds to me
Just this week, confirmation hearings are held for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, nominated by Trump to fill the vacancy left on the Supreme Court by Ruth Bader Ginsburg after her death on September 18 of this year.
With a Republican majority Senate, the Conservative Party will be able to confirm Barrett for the Court and secure a majority of six Conservative judges against three progressives.
Amy Coney Barrett, accompanied by her children, during the hearing to review her nomination in the Senate.
The implications of Barrett's election will be felt for decades in American public life because Supreme Court positions are for life, that is, for life.
Barrett is 48 years old, so in theory he has time left.
Two other of the conservative judges nominated by Trump and confirmed by his Republican allies in the Senate, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, are each 53 and 55 years old, respectively.
The rest of the judges are over 60 years old.
Stephen Breyer, a progressive, is the oldest of all at 82.
How did we get to this situation?
In 2013, Democrats held a majority in the Senate, but not enough to confirm federal judges without achieving at least a supermajority of 60 votes.
That is, they needed at least five Republican votes to avoid the so-called
filibuster
, a political procedure used in the Upper House to block laws or unwanted nominations by those in the minority.
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Faced with the continued blockade by Republicans of former President Barack Obama's judicial nominees, the leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate, Harry Reid, activated the so-called 'nuclear option' to be able to confirm judges to the courts.
That is, 51 votes to achieve a simple majority — or 50 votes and have the Democratic Vice President, then Joe Biden, dictate the tiebreaker.
In 2014, Republicans regained control of the Senate in midterm elections during Obama's second term.
In the last two years of the Democratic presidency, the Republican Majority Leader in the Upper House, Mitch McConnell, blocked Obama's judicial nominations to federal courts, including one to the Supreme Court in 2016 after the death of Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. .
“Basically, Harry Reid said, 'This is intolerable.
We cannot allow this to continue, '”says Hanson, from the University of Michigan, who believes that the decision intensified tensions with Republicans despite having the blockade as a justification.
"And in fact, interestingly enough, Trump's Supreme Court nominee was confirmed to the federal courts in one of the seats that was never filled because Republicans refused to move forward."
[Justice Barrett's confirmation for the Supreme Court is not unconstitutional as Biden said]
The blockade of the Republicans in Obama's second term allowed Trump to inherit dozens of judicial vacancies that he has assigned to conservative judges since the beginning of his presidency, transcendentally changing the ideological inclination of the federal courts.
Among those vacancies was that of Scalia to the Supreme.
But in 2017 McConnell did not have the supermajority of 60 votes needed to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch to the court.
In order to avoid that obstacle, McConnell was inspired by Reid and activated a second 'nuclear option' to be able to confirm justices to the Supreme Court by simple majority.
In the disputed nomination of Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, the Senate confirmed it in a vote that was 50 in favor and 48 against.
What could the Democrats do to change that balance of power?
First, win seats in the Senate.
Right now, the Upper House has a majority of 53 Republican senators to 47 Democrats - two of them, Bernie Sanders and Angus King, are independent, but they
caucus
with (that is, join) the Democrats.
Authorities advise using online resources to make sure your mail-in ballots were counted.
AP
To regain control of the Senate, they need at least a net three seat victory.
That would leave a 50 versus 50 scenario and ties would be broken by the vice president.
If Biden wins the presidency, Kamala Harris would exercise that role, giving the de facto majority to Democrats.
If Trump is re-elected, then the Democrats will need a net four seat victory.
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Where you can get those wins?
On November 3 only a third of the Senate is up for grabs, in addition to two special races in the states of Georgia and Arizona.
That translates to 35 Senate seats of which 23 are now Republicans and 12 are Democrats.
[Trump accuses Biden of wanting to raise taxes on the middle class by 14%. This is false]
"The easiest way for Democrats to win the Senate is to snatch (from Republicans) the seats in Colorado, Maine, Arizona, and North Carolina, and win the presidency, while losing a seat in highly Republican Alabama." says Ryan Matsumoto, a contributing analyst for Inside Elections, a political analysis website.
Today, the vast majority of voters end up voting for the same party for the Senate and the presidency.
Democratic Senate candidates are currently leading in each and every one of those four races, ”explained Matsumoto.
This analyst believes that Barrett's confirmation will play a role in the Senate elections.
"Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine lost much of her bipartisan appeal after voting to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh in 2018," he said.
And Senators Martha McSally of Arizona, Cory Gardner of Colorado, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina seem likely to vote for Trump's Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, which could hurt them among voters. pendulum (which are divided between one party and the other) of their states ”.
What if the Democrats regain control of the Senate and Biden wins the White House?
The sky is the limit.
According to Hanson, "Democrats feel like they have been playing fair trying to follow tradition and rules and that Republicans have just trampled it all."
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Oct. 14, 202002: 50
"A Democratic-controlled Congress could consider legislation to expand the size of the Supreme Court because there is a lot of grudge over [blocking] judicial nominations," Hanson adds.
“And there are very, very important issues on the horizon like the Affordable Care Act [nicknamed Obamacare or ACA for its acronym in English] or with cases concerning
Roe v.
Wade
, the case (which made abortion a constitutionally protected right).
Democrats are also considering other measures to balance the balance of power, starting with adding Puerto Rico and Washington DC as states of the Union, something that would almost secure four new Democratic senators in the Upper House.
"I think there is a growing sense within the [Democratic] Party that this is the only way to fight," Hanson concludes.
"This way of breaking the rules, of breaking traditions, is to defend at the same level."