The new Senate in January 2015 will be very different from the Senate that voted for ObamaCare. We all know that Republicans will be in the majority and they will determine the rules.  That alone is a huge change.  But there is much more going on here. There has been an even bigger change in the makeup of Democrats in the Senate.

In January 2009 there were 58 Democrats and 2 Independents who voted for ObamaCare.  Not one Republicans voted for it. There are 29 Democratic Senators who voted for ObamaCare in 2009 missing from the next Senate. Not all of them were replaced by Republicans, but all are gone. If Mary Landrieu loses in the run-off election, that will make it an even 30. That means the new Senate will have either 43 or 44 Democratic Senators and a maximum of 15 of those will have survived voting for ObamaCare.

To understand how completely this changes things, let us reverse the numbers.  Of the 100 Senators in office in January, 83 of them did not vote for ObamaCare.  Everywhere you look the bodies of Democratic Senators litter the political landscape.  Some retired, some lost re-elections and three of them died in office.  Yet the Republican leadership remains largely intact. Of the six oldest members of the Senate, five are Republicans. I doubt that there has ever been a time in our nation’s history with such a massive change in political power.

I suspect that Harry Reid is going to find it difficult to push anything through this lame duck session of congress. He is going to find it impossible to push anything through in the new congress. The best he can hope for is to gobble up some crumbs Republicans offer to throw in his direction. Since he spent the last six years giving them the finger, I wouldn’t expect that to happen very often.

Change is coming at the speed of light and it is not limited to the Republican Party. No one really knows where this is headed, but we do know this.  The show of hands when the next Senate takes over will be very significant.

TDM