But when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in late September, Republicans have been decided to rapidly fill her seat earlier than an election that might value Mr. Trump the presidency, or them their Senate majority — or each. Abandoning the place that had led them in 2016 to block President Barack Obama from filling a emptiness months earlier than an election, Republicans rushed to push by means of the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, whom Mr. Trump launched at a jubilant ceremony within the White House that was later decided to be a superspreader occasion, inflicting a number of senators to contract the virus.
By the tip of the 116th Congress, almost 150 judges have been confirmed to the nation’s highest court docket, circuit courts and district courts throughout the nation — all younger, conservative and sure to form interpretation of the nation’s legal guidelines for many years. Even as some Republicans started to break with Mr. Trump in anticipation of what each events believed can be a punishing election outcome for his or her get together, they enthusiastically rallied to assist his Supreme Court nominee, a payoff after years of loyalty to the president.
A Stimulus Deal Almost Derailed
Defying most expectations — together with their very own — House Republicans emerged with greater than a dozen victories and a document 29 girls of their ranks come January, in accordance to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
It left Mr. Biden, who was declared the victor quickly after, with a slim majority within the House and Democratic management of the Senate contingent on the outcomes of two runoff races in Georgia.
The political stakes of the contests helped shift the monthslong debate over offering pandemic reduction to tens of millions of unemployed Americans, small companies, colleges and hospitals throughout the nation, prodding leaders into negotiations over one other package deal.
Shortly after the November election, a group of moderates led by Senators Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, started work on a compromise framework and jolted each chambers into a ultimate spherical of frenzied negotiations. They lastly yielded a $900 billion deal that handed each chambers days earlier than Christmas after a number of near-misses with the prospect of yet one more authorities shutdown.
Still, Mr. Trump threatened not to signal it, plunging the destiny of the laws into uncertainty and holding out the potential for yet one more authorities shutdown. Four days earlier than the brand new yr started, he signed it into legislation.
“I think divided government can be an opportunity,” Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, mentioned. “And how we take that up, how we choose to use it is up to us.”
