Power-sharing agreement reached in Senate, Schumer announces, allowing Democrats to take control of committees

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“I am pleased to report this morning that the leadership of both parties has finalized the organizing resolution for the Senate,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “We will pass the resolution through the Senate today, which means committees can be set up quickly and get down to business with Democrats holding the gavels.”

On Wednesday, Schumer said that with a power-sharing agreement that will give gavels to the Democrats committee, they are “ready to get down to earth on the major issues facing our country” and “will not waste time”.

Democrats took control of the Senate in January after winning a few US Senate seats in Georgia and the White House. However, a stalemate has prevented the party from taking control of the main committees, as the chamber operates under the rules of the last Congress, when the GOP was in charge, thus preventing the consideration of cabinet nominees including Solicitor General Merrick Garland. who are expected to receive bipartisan support.

An agreement between the two leaders was needed to determine how power would be divided, as the Senate has an even 50-50 partisan distribution and Vice President Kamala Harris is able to cut ties.

It was unclear on Wednesday morning what kept the deal going. Party leaders were negotiating a final few issues, including how to structure the committees’ budgets, before finalizing the power-sharing agreement that will officially allow Democrats to take their chairmanship, Senate officials familiar with the talks previously told this week to CNN.

The delay already had an impact on the nominees for Biden’s cabinet who went through the Senate confirmation process. Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Monday rejected a Democratic request to schedule Garland’s confirmation hearing on Feb. 8, arguing that the senate should focus on the impeachment process against former President Donald Trump, which will start the next day.

At one point, negotiations were put on hold for more than a week due to a disagreement over whether Democrats should promise in writing not to blow up the filibuster. McConnell ended his request after the moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin from West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona said they had no plans to vote to eliminate the filibuster any time soon.

This story was updated with additional developments on Wednesday.

CNN’s Ted Barrett, Alex Rogers and Manu Raju contributed to this report.

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