As the results of Tuesday’s Congressional election came in, it was clear: the Republicans had gained control<\/b> of the House of Representatives, while the Democrats had lost seats but kept control<\/b> of the Senate.<\/p>\n
Representative John Boehner<\/b>, a Republican from Ohio, expected to be named House Majority Leader, cried tears of joy<\/span>. Senator Harry Reid<\/b>, the Democrat from Nevada, said “The fight is far from over” as he expected to continue as Senate Majority Leader.<\/p>\n The pendulum<\/span> has swung to the right. No doubt the “tea party<\/a>” \u2014 which came close to unseating<\/span> Reid \u2014 helped to motivate voters against the Democratic-led government. Senator-elect<\/span> Rand Paul<\/b>, the son of 2008 presidential candidate Ron Paul, said: “I have a message \u2014 a message from the people of Kentucky, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words<\/span>: we’ve come to take our government back.”<\/p>\n But is Rand Paul on the cutting edge<\/span> or is he more of a fringe phenomenon<\/span> \u2014 a Randerscheinung<\/i>, so to speak? Within the Republican Party, it remains unclear just how much of an effect the “tea party” has had. Some other important “tea party” candidates didn’t win. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski<\/b>\u2019s (Republican) supporters chanted<\/span> “Yes, we can!” as she announced victory over that state’s tea-party candidate.<\/p>\n Republicans’ goal has been to prevent Obama<\/a> from doing anything. Now they’ll have their chance. They won’t get to set major policy themselves, however, because any bills<\/span> that come out of the House have to be approved<\/span> by the Senate and then by Obama.<\/p>\n So the only possibilities are compromise<\/b> and gridlock<\/span>. We’ll probably see some of the former<\/span> and a lot of the latter<\/span>. If no significant<\/span> legislation<\/span> is passed by 2012, Republicans will be able to claim that Obama has been an ineffective president. Obama will, in turn<\/span>, be able to blame the Republicans.<\/p>\n Many presidents have faced this situation, including Ronald Reagan<\/b> in 1982 and Bill Clinton<\/b> in 1994. The party of nearly every newly elected president loses seats in the first midterm<\/span> election. So its fate<\/span> will depend on which side is better able to communicate<\/a> with voters. If the economy doesn’t improve, however, we can expect everyone who’s in office now \u2014 Democrat or Republican \u2014 to be worried about their jobs.<\/p>\n This election was fought not only nationally, but also at the state and local level<\/b>. Republicans gained seats in state legislatures<\/span>, and a number of new Republican governors<\/b> were elected. Being governor best shows you have the skills it takes to be president; so expect some of the new governors to be candidates for president in 2016<\/b> and 2020<\/b>.<\/p>\n This election can affect the overall balance of power<\/b> in the country in another way. The representation of voters is determined according to the national census<\/span>, which was held this year<\/a>. States whose populations have grown \u2014 typically southern and western states \u2014 will have more representatives in Congress. Each state is also free to redraw<\/span> the boundaries<\/span> of its voting districts<\/span>.<\/p>\n Since the early 1800s, elected officials have found clever ways of drawing these boundaries so as to give their party a majority in as many districts as possible. With the aid of computers, this has developed into a real art. A Republican majority in Texas in 2000 drew very odd-shaped districts; at least one was a block wide and hundreds of kilometers long. Republicans spoke of using this method to get a \u201cpermanent majority<\/b>\u201d, but both parties are capable of<\/span> this.<\/p>\n The governor of each state must approve the new boundaries, so more Republican governors now may mean more Republicans in Congress as early as 2012<\/b>.<\/p>\n Republicans (and their predecessors<\/span>) controlled Congress for most of the 19th century, Democrats for most of the 20th. What will the 21st century look like?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the results of Tuesday’s Congressional election came in, it was clear: the Republicans had gained control of the House of Representatives, while the Democrats had lost seats but kept control of the Senate. Representative John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, expected to be named House Majority Leader, cried tears of joy. Senator Harry Reid, the Democrat from Nevada, said … >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[36,137,29,232,107],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1713,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions\/1713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What will happen now?<\/h2>\n
Looking ahead<\/h2>\n