Functioning Democrat News Today

Have significant effects on her reelection dynamics in arizona. in the united states senate, it just makes her the third functioning democrat in the senate who is labeled an dependent on the voter registration back home. she joins independent senator angus cain, and independent vermont senator bernie sanders as one of the three democrats now in the senate who are technically labeled independents. independent bernie sanders is the chairman of the senate budget committee, and a former candidate fo...

Republican to democrat in a 50/50 senate. thereby creating a 51 seat majority for the democrats. with that stunningly dramatic announcement in burlington, vermont, democratic senator tom daschle instantly went from being minority leader to majority leader of the senate, and all republican chairmen of the senate committees were instantly replaced by democratic chairmen of all senate committees. we had seen party switches before in the senate, but never, never to instantly change control of the se...

He was switching parties to the winning side. senator shelby was able to preserve his committee assignments in the deal that he negotiated for his party switch. now, after 28 years, as a senate republican, on top of his first eight years as a senate democrat, 88 year old richard shelby will finally be retiring from the senate at the end of this year with republicans still stuck in the minority in the senate. early on friday morning, washington was abuzz with what appeared to be another very dram...

Tie breaking votes when necessary. but sending the senate back to its current 50/50 status would mean equal numbers of democrats and republicans on committees where the tie votes create extra procedural difficulties for the democratic chairs of those committees. and for majority leader chuck schumer, senator sinemas choice to announce -- not to an audience of voters of arizona, the way that jim jeffords announced his dramatic party change in 2001 to his voters and vermont. instead, she chose a f...