How important are the run-offs for the two senate seats in Georgia? Extremely important! It will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate for the next two years.
The current situation favors the Republicans. They have 50 senators to 48 for the Democrats. If the Republicans win just one of the two Georgia seats, they will have 51 votes and Mitch McConnell will remain the Majority Leader. That means he will be able to block anything the Biden administration or the Democratic House of Representatives tries to do, and his past actions show that is exactly what he will do.
He successfully blocked most things in President Obama's second term. In the last couple of years, he refused to allow a vote on hundreds of bills passed by the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives. He single-handedly created a gridlock in the federal government -- making sure almost nothing got done.
He will do that again. He won't allow the minimum wage to be raised. He will block efforts to create a public option for health insurance that would cover all citizens. He would stop efforts to strengthen unions and increase the middle class. And he would kill any effort to have the rich and corporations pay their fair share of taxes. He could also block any progressive judges from the federal bench.
There is only one way to stop that kind of McConnell-inspired gridlock. The Democrats must win both of the senate seats in Georgia. If they do, the Democrats and Republicans would each have 50 senators, and Vice-President Harris would be the tie vote. That would make Schumer the Majority Leader, and the Senate would at least get to vote on the bills passed by the House or introduced by the Biden administration.
