David Sirota, a prominent liberal activist and founder of the Daily Poster, joined Hill.TV to offer his predictions on what Democrats are likely to do with their new power after winning the Senate majority this week.
Georgia Sens.-elect Raphael Warnock (D) and Jon Ossoff (D) prevailed in a pair of Senate runoff races, giving both parties 50 seats and setting up Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to serve as a tie-breaking vote.
Speaking on Hill.TV’s “Rising,” Sirota said the “most immediate” thing Democrats could do is pass legislation to provide $2,000 coronavirus stimulus payments to Americans.
“Georgia Senate candidates campaigned explicitly on that, and I would argue that was a big reason they ended up winning,” Sirota said.
“The whole standoff I think was bungled by Mitch McConnell, he dug in and opposed it [and] essentially helped manufacture an issue for the Democrats to explicitly campaign on with a very, very crystal-clear message, ‘vote for me and you get $2,000 survival checks.’”
Sirota also predicted that Democrats would try to pass a public health insurance option.
“Democrats across the country have campaigned on that. All of the major senate nominees in 2020 campaigned in support of some version of a public health insurance option,” Sirota said. “So, whether that moves forward on that is another sort of test of whether the Democrats are going to follow through on their most basic promises.”
The activist further said Democrats may invoke the Congressional Review Act to repeal any rules and regulations enacted by the outgoing Trump administration.
“Republicans killed a number of Obama era-rules when they came into power in 2017,” Siroa said. “Democrats would be in the position in 2021 to get rid of some of the Trump administration’s last-minute rules on the environment, on health care, on labor rights and the like.”
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