Senate trade-off: More Obama judges, Trump gets nominees

And they have only themselves to thank for it.

Outgoing Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid engineered the changes, dubbed the “nuclear option” because of the intensity they could add to partisanship, after Republicans blocked many of Obama’s nominees. “They kept President Obama in check for all those eight years on certain issues”, Ford said. And it’s led to a call from some House Republicans for their Senate colleagues to try to push through a rules change to eliminate the 60-vote filibuster barrier.

Democrats from those three states likely will hold 66 seats out of at least 193 that the party will claim next year in the House, with several races still undecided.

So, given that the Democrats forced out party chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and installed a temporary leader in Donna Brazile, who gained notoriety for her ties to the Clinton media machine and is not expected to serve past March 1 per the group’s charter, the Democratic National Committee needs a new leader. According to his spokeswoman, Kristen Orthman, “Sen”. They also say he wants the corporations that avoid our taxes by stashing profits overseas to return them and to pay the taxes.

This year, though, Felder considered, at least publicly anyway, the prospect of joining the mainline group of Senate Democrats, having met with their two top leaders at least once to discuss the possible benefits for him in abandoning the Republicans.

“Rest assured: On those values, we will stand, and we will fight for the hard-working families of this state”, Cruz said.

“The problem is, those tools are now severely limited”. So although Republicans would be able to use a legislative maneuver to send a health care repeal to Trump’s desk with just a simple majority, other major objectives, including immigration and border enforcement, would require some degree of cooperation from minority Democrats. Asked to pick a word that best described their reaction to the election, Democrats overwhelmingly said “shocked” – but words like “horrified”, “fearful”, and “scared” were also strongly represented. Right now, there are 31 elected Democrats in the chamber by party, and 32 Republicans.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to say this-I’ve never said this before with all the talking we all do-all of these experts, ‘Oh we need an expert-‘ The experts are awful”, Trump said during a rally.

Democrats defended the decision crucial to forcing action in a Washington gripped by partisan warfare.

Supporters of this strategy insist that offering to work with Trump where he shares the Democrats’ goals is the best way to split the Republican Party or, alternatively, to expose Trump’s flimflam if he fails to come through.

And that’s now what’s happened.

Sen. Jeff Sessions appears poised to lead the Justice Department, despite accusations of racism that derailed his nomination for a federal judgeship three decades ago.

“There’s no such thing as a permanent majority”, Harris said.

Senate Democrats were not quite as pleased. “But unlike Republicans’ practice of unprecedented obstruction of President Obama’s nominees, I believe nominees deserve a full and fair process before the Senate”, Leahy said in a statement.

But the Brooklyn-born Schumer pledged to work with fellow New Yorker Trump when possible, arguing that to do otherwise would amount to a “a dereliction of our responsibility to the millions of Americans who need work, who need protection”.

Many observers say it appears Democratic candidates can not count on the support voters gave to Obama as recently as 2012.

Mark Harris, a campaign consultant to Republican U.S. Sen.

Gillam said he is not expecting any more House members to switch parties. “People are discouraged and exhausted of hearing ‘have hope.’ They want opportunity; hope is all worn out”.

“We deliberately said, I said at the time, the Supreme Court is different than the lower courts”, Schumer said in an interview Friday. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in his primary challenge to Hillary Clinton showed just how “progressive” the party had become.