Cascadia could gain four Senate committee chairs if Democrats win Georgia runoffs next Tuesday: The stakes and the players

Geor­gia is on the minds of Demo­c­ra­t­ic U.S. Sen­a­tors from the Pacif­ic Northwest.

The Peachtree State votes Jan­u­ary 5th on not one but two U.S. Sen­ate seats, with con­trol of Con­gress’ upper cham­ber up for grabs.

If Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lengers (the Rev­erend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff) eke out vic­to­ry, Democ­rats will grab con­trol of the Sen­ate for the first time since 2014.

The stakes in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., are enor­mous. If the Democ­rats cap­ture fifty seats, Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris, as Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate, can break ties, make Sen­a­tor Chuck Schumer the Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader, and take away Mitch McConnell’s abil­i­ty to block the agen­da and appoint­ments of Pres­i­dent Joe Biden.

But much is also at stake in this Washington.

Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell would like­ly become chair of the Sen­ate Com­merce Com­mit­tee. The conservationist/climate advo­cate would also be a high-rank­ing major­i­ty mem­ber of the Sen­ate Ener­gy and Nat­ur­al Resources Committee.

Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray would like­ly chair the Sen­ate Health, Edu­ca­tion, Labor and Pen­sions (HELP) Com­mit­tee, and be just behind Sen­a­tor Pat Leahy (D‑Vermont) on the Sen­ate Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee. Sure to resume would be jokes about Mur­ray wear­ing a red hat in the Senate’s “Col­lege of Car­di­nals,” a com­mon nick­name for sub­com­mit­tee chairs on Appropriations.

The expan­sion of Democ­rats’ pow­er would not stop there.

Sen­a­tor Ron Wyden, D‑Oregon, would like­ly chair the pow­er­ful Sen­ate Finance Com­mit­tee, on which Cantwell also serves. Sen­a­tor Jon Tester, D‑Montana, is in line to chair the Sen­ate Vet­er­ans Affairs Committee.

Pow­er is where pow­er goes, Lyn­don John­son used to say.

It has come the way of our region before.

Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor War­ren Mag­nu­son of Wash­ing­ton chaired Appro­pri­a­tions in the 1970s, with Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Mark Hat­field in the chair when Repub­li­cans took con­trol. Maggie’s lega­cy? The great third pow­er­house at Grand Coulee Dam. Think it a coin­ci­dence the Hat­field name adorns every­thing from the marine sci­ences cen­ter in New­port to the late­ly besieged fed­er­al build­ing in Portland?

Sen­a­tor Hen­ry Jack­son, D‑Washington, vast­ly expand­ed the nation­al parks sys­tem as chair of what was then the Sen­ate Inte­ri­or Com­mit­tee, includ­ing cre­ation of Washington’s North Cas­cades Nation­al Park. “Scoop” Jack­son was archi­tect of the Nation­al Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy Act, our nation’s sem­i­nal envi­ron­men­tal law.

Here’s at a look at the four poten­tial “Mis­ter Chair­man” and “Madame Chairs” from our Dou­glas fir adorned cor­ner of this big country.

Maria Cantwell

Cantwell has inher­it­ed the Jack­son man­tle, sit­ting on three “A” list com­mit­tees that make nation­al pol­i­cy. She moved to Com­merce in 2019 after serv­ing as rank­ing Demo­c­rat on Ener­gy and Nat­ur­al Resources.

On the lat­ter pan­el, she has crossed swords (Arc­tic Refuge) and coop­er­at­ed (Great Amer­i­can Out­doors Act) with Chair Lisa Murkows­ki, R‑Alaska.

Cantwell has shown remark­able effec­tive­ness dur­ing the Trump era.

She has embed­ded and per­ma­nent­ly fund­ed the Land and Water Con­ser­va­tion Fund, which uses fed­er­al off­shore oil rev­enues to pay for a pletho­ra of con­ser­va­tion and recre­ation projects.

She worked with Murkows­ki to autho­rize and begin con­struc­tion of a fleet of heavy-duty polar ice­break­ers. She used an ear­li­er out­doors bill to put 311,000 acres of Washington’s upper Methow Val­ley off-lim­its to min­ing exploration.

Cantwell is a pol­i­cy wonk. Any aide assigned a tech­ni­cal task (e.g. dis­man­tling of the Taco­ma Smelter) has found them­selves hav­ing to keep up with the boss’ knowl­edge. On Finance, Cantwell was a major archi­tect of the Dodd-Frank bill aimed at requir­ing more Wall Street account­abil­i­ty. Cantwell with­held her vote from the bill until she secured tougher provisions.

Patty Murray

Sen­a­tor Mur­ray is part of the Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­er­ship, con­signed of late to send­ing lengthy protest let­ters decry­ing Trump poli­cies to Trump cab­i­net sec­re­taries. They’ve rarely received an answer.

She was giv­en exact­ly five min­utes to ques­tion U.S. Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion-des­ig­nate Bet­sy DeVos at a HELP con­fir­ma­tion hearing.

Mur­ray mus­tered fifty “No” votes on the DeVos nom­i­na­tion, only to have Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence break the Sen­ate tie.

Mur­ray has been a tren­chant DeVos critic.

She was also one of the first to raise alarm of a poten­tial COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, since sev­en of the first ten deaths of the coro­n­avirus were in Washington.

If Democ­rats take Sen­ate con­trol, look for a revi­tal­ized Mur­ray. Of late, she has been less acces­si­ble to con­stituents and Pacif­ic North­west media, too heav­i­ly shield­ed by staff and bur­dened with a com­mu­ni­ca­tions staff that churns out boil­er­plate prose. Mur­ray has a knack for impasse break­ing. The tal­ent will be usable again if the mas­ter of impasse cre­ation, Mitch McConnell, is dethroned.

Jon Tester

Jon Tester raised the wrath of Don­ald Trump more than any oth­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tor up for reelec­tion in 2018. Tester did so by inves­ti­gat­ing and block­ing Trump’s nom­i­na­tion of Ron­ny Jack­son to head the U.S. Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs. Trump made four trips to Mon­tana to cam­paign against Tester.

Pence was in the Big Sky State, along with Don­ald Trump, Jr.

A Billings, Mon­tana, high school senior, Tyler Lin­festy, stood behind Trump at a ral­ly. Amer­i­cans received, from the “plaid shirt guy”, a rare up-close reac­tion of a nor­mal Amer­i­can hear­ing Trump.

Lin­festy appeared to roll his eyes and chuck­le at lies told by the occu­pant of the Oval Office. He was ush­ered out of the Trump back­drop and briefly held.

Though oth­er red state Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors (includ­ing Hei­di Heitkamp and Claire McCaskill) were boot­ed from office in the 2018 midterms, Tester sur­vived, and will be rep­re­sent­ing Mon­tana through at least the end of 2024.

Ron Wyden

Ron Wyden began his career as an advo­cate for the elder­ly, found­ing the Ore­gon chap­ter of Gray Pan­thers and direct­ing the Ore­gon Legal Ser­vices Cen­ter for the Elder­ly. He once worked as a dri­ver for fiery Sen­a­tor Wayne Morse.

Wyden was elect­ed to Con­gress in 1980 as an insur­gent, defeat­ing con­ser­v­a­tive Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bob Duncan.

He has been there ever since. Wyden made his name as an inves­ti­ga­tor on the House Ener­gy and Com­merce Com­mit­tee, and in 1996 won the Sen­ate seat vacat­ed by a dis­graced Bob Pack­wood. Wyden has con­tin­ued his role as an inves­ti­ga­tor. He has opposed nom­i­nees of both Repub­li­can and Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­dents. And he is one of Con­gress’ tech and cyber­se­cu­ri­ty experts.

Wyden has car­ried on an Ore­gon tra­di­tion of account­abil­i­ty and acces­si­bil­i­ty. He holds well attend­ed town hall meet­ings across the Beaver State, often in rur­al East­ern Ore­gon coun­ties that vote Republican.

In years past, chairs of the Sen­ate Finance Com­mit­tee – Lloyd Bentsen, D‑Texas, and Pack­wood – used their tax­ing pow­ers to estab­lish exclu­sive break­fast groups with lob­by­ists. The price of admis­sion, dona­tions of $5,000 or $10,000.

If Wyden becomes chair, vot­ers in Burns, Bak­er City, Bend and Mil­ton-Free­wa­ter will be able to per­son­al­ly inter­act with the Chair of the Sen­ate Finance Committee.

Sen­ate can­di­dates Warnock and Ossoff are under­dogs in Geor­gia, but 2.3 mil­lion votes have already been cast, a record for a Geor­gia runoff, and pub­lic opin­ion research sug­gests both races could be won by either par­ty’s ticket.