ILLUSTRATION BY MARK PERNICE
The Saturday afternoon following Election Day 2020 felt like a holiday Democratic voters feared would never happen. In cities across the country, interracial crowds, united in masked joy, rushed out of doors as soon as the major networks finally called the presidential race for Joe Biden. Where I live in deep-blue D.C., honking cars clogged the streets, and strangers cheered one another as if the home team had just come from behind to win a World Series or a Super Bowl. In the park across from my house, a bluegrass trio offered a decent rendition of the Hank Williams classic “I Saw the Light” before a cluster of happy residents who struggled to remember the words. It reminded me of the night a dozen years before when Barack Obama cruised to victory, and his party won healthy majorities in both the House and Senate.
Vice President Kamala Harris could kill the filibuster herself
She s president of the Senate under the Constitution. That could be useful. Actual Senate gavel not pictured.Anjali Nair / MSNBC; Getty Images
Feb. 8, 2021, 10:34 AM UTC
It was 5:30 a.m. on Friday and all eyes were on Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Constitution has given Harris, as vice president, a second job a side gig to most modern observers. She s not just President Joe Biden s No. 2; she s also president of the Senate. And it s not a role she should overlook. It may, in fact, be the key to transforming Biden s agenda from notions into laws. In the right hands, in a Senate as closely divided as this one, it s a job that can finally break the chamber s famed deadlock and transform Washington.