Georgia Is Still On My Mind. Here’s Why.

Every day I marvel at one bit of raw, political math. It’s well known that the two Georgia senate victories in January gave Democrats the slimmest possible majority in the Senate, with important legislation relying on a tie-breaker vote from Vice President Kamala Harris. But what did those wins mean in practical terms? Aren’t we still stuck with the filibuster, no For the People Act or John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and Mitch McConnell still in charge?

It’s easy to forget what those 50 votes did allow. Most importantly, they were just enough to push through the American Rescue Plan without a single GOP vote in support. That Plan providing critical pandemic relief to families, states and localities. It also cut childhood poverty in half across America through increased tax credits for families with children, even for those that paid no taxes. That’s millions of lives changed, beginning this week as the support payments land in families’ accounts across the country.

Without those 50 votes, we would not have confirmed so many federal judges by this point in the Administration, the most in recent history. Most of the Biden White House’s cabinet appointments might still be languishing, or he would have had to appoint many more conservative (and whiter and maler) individuals. Instead, we have the most progressive and diverse cabinet in our nation’s history. 

While many legislative priorities remain stuck behind the filibuster, the White House appears, smartly in my view, to be adopting a strategy of getting done what can get done now. Biden needs to deliver a strong economy and renewed hope to the millions who cast their votes for him, and the Administration has concluded that the best way to do that is to put shots in arms and money in wallets. These achievements will form the backbone of positive messaging in 2022 and could help Democrats hold the House and gain two seats in the Senate—I like our odds in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—which in turn could lead to an end or a tweak to the filibuster rule and allow passage of critical voter protection laws. 

That is why this week’s announcement of a 10 year, $3.5 trillion spending plan on “soft” infrastructure is so critical, even if it’s not getting the headlines that the voting rights bills receive. To get the ambitious measure past the Senate, we will again need every one of those 50 Democratic votes. And once again, the world will be watching because, like the American Rescue Plan, there is no time for delay and no room for error. 

Central to the bill is the White House’s plan to address the climate crisis. As many scientists warn, and as we can all see now with our own eyes, the threat is not some distant menace but in fact already here, with the West parched and burning and the East deluged like never before. Republicans, having used budget reconciliation rules to push through a $2 trillion tax break for corporations and the wealthy in 2017, are unwilling to rise to meet this existential threat through new legislation, and they are starving solutions of resources by refusing to raise back any of the taxes that they had cut four years ago. That is why there’s now a dual-tracked pair of infrastructure bills: a basic one the Republicans might ultimately support for upgrading roads, bridges and highways, and a more visionary, Democratic-only bill offering real efforts and resources to cut carbon emissions.

In addition to addressing climate change, the Democratic bill expands Medicare to include dental, vision and hearing, which are still not covered; addresses the critical need for increased eldercare; and provides universal paid family leave—all challenges faced by millions of American families but ignored by the GOP in favor of the wealthy donor class. Sen. Sanders and his allies have fought many years for the expansion of these safety nets, and while they didn’t get their hoped-for $6 trillion amount, they got more than half of it in this compromise bill. The end result was heralded by Sen. Sanders: “This is the most consequential program in the modern history of this country,” he said Wednesday. “It'll impact millions of working-class people. I’m very proud of what we have.”

Sen. Sanders’s stated goal of $6 trillion dollars always ran the risk of running headlong into the ceiling of $2 trillion offered by Sen. Joe Manchin. Many suspected that in order to bring down the price, moderate Democrats would gut the most important aspects of the bill, just as the critical need for action on the climate arises. 

But the compromise package gives me hope. Forged in large measure by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), whose credibility as a dealmaker is recognized by both progressives and moderates, the measure would be fully paid for without offsetting revenue, a key selling point for the fiscally cautious wing of the party, including Manchin. That necessarily means at least some tax increases on the wealthy and corporations, a move likely to be popular among voters but to infuriate the GOP. 

One cautionary note: As with the American Rescue Plan, the soft infrastructure bill will be precariously balanced, which could lead to last-minute mischief by senators hoping to amend it to suit their own agendas. The reconciliation process is subject to 11th hour tweaking and revising, with up or down votes in rapid succession shaping its ultimate scope. But should the gist of the bill squeak by again with exactly 50 Senate votes plus Harris’s tie-breaker, not only the American working and middle classes but the entirety of humanity, which is looking once again to the U.S. for leadership on climate change, will have the Georgia Senate victories to thank.

Thinking back on those wins, without both of them it is not an exaggeration to say that the fate of the planet itself would have been sealed in the worst kind of way. And that is what has me marveling at the math of it all, with just a few tens of thousands of votes in a run-off election having determined our future.

It is this same math that the GOP hopes to exploit, by the way, by suppressing enough votes in key swing states like Arizona and Georgia. We should be clearheaded about this: There is likely no white knight in the form of a federal voting rights law riding in to stop the GOP, so we must instead prepare to do what we did in 2020 and defeat the Republicans at the ballot box despite their best efforts to suppress votes and skew elections. That means high turnout and enthusiasm for the Democratic agenda. A key piece of this puzzle for the White House is to deliver on economic promises for the voters who turned out for Biden in 2020.

And that’s why a lot is riding on this bill. I’ll be checking back in on it through much of the rest of the summer as it takes shape with more specifics. But I’ll always be grateful that we have 50 votes and not one fewer. It is the mathematical lynchpin for all we have or will see accomplished these few years.