Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is expected to swear in three new, barrier-breaking Democratic senators on Wednesday afternoon after her own inauguration, officially giving Democrats control of the Senate for the first time since they lost the chamber in the 2014 elections.
Earlier this month, Georgia elected two Democrats — the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff — to the US Senate, flipping the chamber. Warnock, the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and Ossoff will be joined on Wednesday by Harris’ successor, Alex Padilla, the former California secretary of state appointed to the Senate by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The swearing-in of the three new senators will be groundbreaking. Warnock and Ossoff will be the first Black and first Jewish senators, respectively, representing Georgia, while Padilla will be California’s first Latino senator.
Ossoff, 33, will also be the youngest senator in the chamber, and the youngest Democrat to serve in the Senate since President-elect Joe Biden, who was sworn into the chamber at the age of 30 in 1973.
After Warnock, Ossoff and Padilla are sworn in, the party breakdown of the Senate will be 50-50. Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer will become the first New Yorker and first Jewish lawmaker to become Senate majority leader.
Harris will wield power as the Senate’s crucial tie-breaking vote, helping the Biden administration confirm its appointments and giving Democrats the gavels of committees in charge of holding oversight hearings and crafting far-reaching legislation.
