As President-elect Joe Biden prepares to announce more key nominations and appointments to his administration, the door is closing on the prospect of tapping Democrats from one of his most cherished places in Washington: the halls of Congress.
Inside his transition team, there is a real recognition of how difficult it would be to choose a Senate Democrat for any role, given how closely divided the upper chamber will be next year. And the narrowing Democratic majority in the House has made it far less likely that he would be able to easily turn to any House members for posts in the administration.
Multiple sources familiar with the transition say that regardless of what happens in the two Senate runoff races in Georgia next month — where even in the best case for Democrats, the Senate would be split evenly with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris serving as the tie-breaking vote — the bar would be extremely high for Biden to appoint a Senate Democrat to an administration role and take them out of Congress.
What Biden has indicated to allies is that “it would be really, really hard to take someone out of the Senate because the margin is so slim, no matter what happens in Georgia,” one source said. He echoed that sentiment in his interview with NBC News last month.
It certainly doesn’t mean there is no chance that Biden would turn to a Democratic lawmaker in Congress — but it would need to be for the right person and for the right job, and if the person hails from a state where their Senate replacement would be appointed by a governor who guaranteed naming another Democrat. And in the House, even in a safe Democratic district, a vacancy could complicate close votes before a special election could be held. Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond is already resigning his safe Democratic seat to join Biden’s White House as senior adviser to the President and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.
The impact of this political calculation already is being felt. Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth was in the mix for the defense secretary job, but is now no longer getting a serious look given Biden’s reluctance to create any vacancies in the Senate.
Alabama Sen. Doug Jones is under consideration for attorney general, but Jones lost his seat last month and is leaving the Senate. New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall, who is retiring and won’t be in the Senate when Biden takes office, is under consideration for interior secretary. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is in the mix for labor secretary, although Republicans have said his prospects for confirmation are slim.
