In this series we examine the potential change in the Senate makeup of the United States Congress. The Senate is the final arbiter of debate over public policy. Bills will have already gone through Committees and the House of Representatives leaving the Senate as the final stage before being presented to the President of the United States for approval. Currently, the Senate is under Democratic control while the House is in Republican hands. We are a nation tenuously divided along lines of political ideology.
Some say that the Senate is where legislation goes to die. Legend has it that George Washington called the Senate the saucer into which we pour our legislation to cool. Often this is appropriate, because legislation should be passed only with a reasonable degree of certainty. If the legislation doesn’t pass the smell test of consensus, then it should fail. The problem becomes reconciling the idea of consensus. What is best for the American people?
Currently there is but a four-seat difference in control of the Senate (not counting the tie-break vote of the Vice President) although realistically of late there must be a 60 vote minimum to prevent a filibuster and pass any legislation. The threat of a filibuster of 40 votes overrides passage of a Senate bill. So it’s not majority rule; it’s consensus rule. This makes Senate races that much more important.
In examining the makeup of the Senate, we plan to look at all Senate races for Class 1. In this article, I’ll begin by eliminating all of the safe Senate Seats—those that do not have credible challenges and remain firmly in the hands of their respective political party.
(Update: Friday May 13th. Herb Kohl [D-WI] announces he will not seek reelection. We’re moving him to seats up for grabs though with the mood in Wisconsin it seems likely that a Republican would have difficulty winning here)
Future posts will deal with potential turnovers of Senate Seats. As mentioned in a previous Senate Seat Series post, there are 33 Senate races in 2012, of which 21 are held by Democrats, two by Independents who caucus with Democrats, and 10 by Republicans. Upon first glance, several of these races appear to be returning incumbents who are under little threat of being ousted. Several pollsters have already weighed in on these seats including Sabato, Cook, Real Clear Politics, and Rassmussen (Nate has yet to comment).
The map below highlights the current situation. Dark colors represent incumbents who are expected to be reelected. Light colors represent the party of the current seat holder, but the incumbent is either retiring or is credibly challenged in retaining the seat. White states have no Senator up for election this season.
The general consensus of safe or likely incumbent seats are:
- California: Dianne Feinstein
- Delaware: Tom Carper
- Indiana: Richard Lugar
- Maine: Olympia Snowe
- Maryland: Ben Cardin
- Michigan: Debbie Stabenow
- Minnesota: Amy Klobuchar
- Mississippi: Roger Wicker
- New Jersey: Bob Menendez
- New York: Kirsten Gillibrand
- Pennsylvania: Bob Casey, Jr.
- Rhode Island: Sheldon Whitehouse
- Tennessee: Bob Corker
- Utah: Orrin Hatch
- Vermont: Bernie Sanders [Independent, but caucuses with the Democrats]
- Washington: Maria Cantwell
- Wyoming: John Barrasso
That leaves competition for the following incumbents:
- Florida: Bill Nelson
- Montana: John Tester
- Nebraska: Ben Nelson
- Virginia: Jim Webb
- Massachusetts: Scott Brown
- Missouri: Claire McCaskill
- West Virginia: Joe Manchin
- Ohio: Sherrod Brown
We will focus the rest of the series on these nine races, plus the races of retiring Senator seats:
- North Dakota: Kent Conrad
- Hawai’i: Daniel Akaka
- Connecticut: Joe Lieberman
- Texas: Kay Bailey Hutchison
- New Mexico: Jeff Bingaman
- Arizona: John Kyl
- Nevada: John Ensign
- Wisconsin: Herb Kohl
Republicans obviously have the advantage since eight of the nine close races (ten including Ensign’s seat) will be the Democrats’ to defend. We will not comment on the safe or likely seats unless something dramatic, such as Tea Party machinations, requires that we revisit the assumption.
Related Articles
- The Senate Seat Series (538refugees.wordpress.com)
- Senate Seat Series – John Ensign (R-NV) (538refugees.wordpress.com)
Tagged: Senate
