What Happened This Week In Washington — And Georgia

That’s a tweet last night from Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, after it became clear that Democrats were likely to win both Senate races in Georgia. Demand Justice is a progressive group that works on judicial issues. Anticipating a Democratic sweep in November and frustrated by the Republicans putting Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court right before the election, Demand Justice was one of the groups that pushed Biden and congressional Democrats to pledge to add justices to the Supreme Court.

But the initial election results in November, with Democrats losing ground in the House and not reaching 50 Senate seats, suggested more ambitious ideas like this were off the table. Now, though, it seems like Democrats will have a trifecta for Biden’s first two years in Washington. And that means the fight is back on between people like Fallon and say, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who want Democrats to push really bold ideas, versus more cautious and more moderate types, like Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

Of course, adding justices to the Supreme Court or making D.C. a state would likely require getting rid of the filibuster, since no GOP senator is likely to support such ideas. Even changes to voting laws could be blocked by Republicans.

I tend to think that it’s fairly unlikely that more moderate senators or Biden himself will be inclined to push to get rid of the filibuster. But it’s hard to predict the future. And it’s likely that: 1) The left keep pushing more liberal ideas; 2) Senate Republicans block a lot of Biden’s agenda; 3) The Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority strikes down some liberal policies.

If all three of those things happen over the next year, then maybe some kind of major change to the filibuster can get the support of all Senate Democrats.

In terms of outstanding votes, there will also be a few thousand provisional ballots around the state. More than 11,000 provisional ballots were cast in the presidential election, and a little more than 60 percent went for Biden. There will likely be fewer than that for the runoffs, but they will also lean Democratic.

We’re not sure exactly how many votes are still outstanding in Georgia and exactly where they are — a fuller picture should be available around lunchtime — but here’s what we do know. The New York Times estimates that about 73,000 ballots have yet to be counted, mostly in very blue counties (e.g., 19,000 in DeKalb, 11,000 in Fulton). Other media outlets have also reported that there are about 4,000 absentee votes left in Fulton County and 3,000 left in Chatham County.