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According to Wiki, Democrats have a majority in the Senate of the 117th United States Congress despite only having 48 seats. Why are the two independent senators being counted as Democrats? Please explain it at a level for a non-US resident to understand.

Martin Schröder
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Kaguya Ōtsutsuki
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1 Answers1

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The current US Senate includes two Independent Senators who do not belong to either party but Caucus, which means to align with for counting purposes, with the Democrats.

The Independent Senators are Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine.

Despite being an Independent Senator, Bernie Sanders was in the Democratic Presidential Primary in 2016 and 2020.

This puts the Senate at 50/50. Adding Vice-president Kamala Harris to the Democratic side gives them a majority.

randomhead
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Jontia
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    Good description.
    It's a bit like the situation in other countries who have a Parliamentary system.
    They have to form similar voting alliances, from a larger number of political parties. We don't see a similar situation in Congress much, due to the overwhelming dominance of the two largest parties.     – Ron Ruble Feb 14 '21 at 18:14
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    Worth noting that practically, they're aligned for more than just counting purposes: they are usually more reliable votes for Democratic priorities than some Senators who are actual members of the Democratic Party. They end up being Democrats in all but name rather than those who have entered into an alliance or a coalition. – Zach Lipton Feb 14 '21 at 21:55
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    @ZachLipton and it's also an arrangement that puts Sander's in line for a Chairmanship of the budget committee. It's clearly a fairly solid link. – Jontia Feb 14 '21 at 22:08
  • For anyone wondering about what the Vice President has to do with it: the VP has a tie-breaking vote in the Senate. Which is - on paper - what we have here. IRL the republicans are likely to concede any issues which fall onto these party lines to not annoy the VP out of other important issues. Or they actively force the official tie so Harris has to physically appear for the session – Hobbamok Feb 15 '21 at 11:53
  • I wonder if that is the one of the reasons that Democrat won't let Bernie became the party nominee for President. – stackoverblown Feb 15 '21 at 12:35
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    @RonRuble Although to be fair, in such countries (e.g. the UK) you would not claim that the main party has a majority. Rather, you would describe it as a coalition. – JBentley Feb 15 '21 at 12:43
  • @stackoverblown The main reason why Bernie Sanders didn't become party nominee was because he is one of the most left-leaning politicians in the US senate. 5 decades of anti-left propaganda in the second half of the 20th century (look up Cold War) means that there is a massive amount of distrust in the older voters against even remotely left leaning politicians, which means that he would have been unlikely to get enough votes to defeat Trump. But yes, there was also the fact that Biden and Sanders agreed that the Vermont senate seat was too important to risk with a special election. – Nzall Feb 15 '21 at 14:49
  • @Nzall: To be clear, your last sentence refers to discussions between Biden & Sanders about whether Sanders would serve in Biden's cabinet, right? Not whether Sanders would become the nominee? – Michael Seifert Feb 15 '21 at 15:48
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    @RonRuble Parliamentary systems also often have independent members, who act as if they're members of that party during the election and vote with the party in parliament but otherwise don't participate in that party's internal business. That seems more similar to Sanders' situation than an actual coalition government. – FrederikVds Feb 15 '21 at 20:08
  • @MichaelSeifert You're right. I was mixing up the Sanders cabinet speculation with Sanders potentially becoming running mate or even the nominee. – Nzall Feb 15 '21 at 21:31
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    @JBentley: In the US, apparently they use "majority" as a synonym for their equivalent of a parliamentary "form the government" (in terms of procedural stuff; I know the senate majority isn't "the government"). But anyway, we can look at it as a separate use of the word "majority", disconnected from English. And to be fair, in a parliamentary system, you could describe a tight coalition that reliably voted together as a majority government, as opposed to a minority government that needed to broker support from parties who traditionally differed with them significantly in some policy areas. – Peter Cordes Feb 15 '21 at 21:36
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    @PeterCordes Agreed, but there's an importance difference there. When you refer to a "majority government" you are referring to the coalition itself as the majority government. E.g. "The Conservitive / Liberal Democrat coalition's majority government". You wouldn't ever say "The Conservatives had a majority government" as a reference to the coalition. In fact the opposite is the case; you would talk about the Conservatives' minority goverment if referring to just the party rather than the coalition. OP's question refers just to the "Democratic Party". – JBentley Feb 16 '21 at 08:25
  • @JBentley: Good point, so my first argument applies: Democrat-led Senate, with the equivalent of a (pretty solid) minority government. And the word they use to describe that is "majority", disconnected from the common English usage of the word. Because apparently the 2-party system is so entrenched there that they don't even have words that could properly describe something else. – Peter Cordes Feb 16 '21 at 08:29
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    @ZachLipton Indeed, both Sanders and King are actually further left in their ideology than the majority of the Democratic party, so far from being in some sort of middle ground between Democrats (mostly center-left) and Republicans (center-to-far-right), they're more aligned on the far left end of the spectrum than most of the Democrats. – Darrel Hoffman Feb 16 '21 at 13:56
  • @Hobbamok Why do you think the GOP would try to not annoy Harris? – Azor Ahai -him- Feb 16 '21 at 18:13
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    @PeterCordes Calling it "disconnected from English" is a bit of an overreaction. Schumer is the leader of the majority caucus, which yes, is 50-50 but becomes the majority based on the VP in their constitutional role as President of the Senate. – Azor Ahai -him- Feb 16 '21 at 18:19
  • @AzorAhai-him- bc it's pointless in the end and (i hoe) they want a functioning country as well. Plus: they should actually like her for being a major (de facto) proponent of an unnacountable police state. – Hobbamok Feb 18 '21 at 09:55
  • "they want a functioning country as well" They do? – Azor Ahai -him- Feb 18 '21 at 18:25