Democrats Still Believe in Republicans' Good Will, for Some Reason
Politics

Moderate Democrats are suggesting progressives are getting too far ahead of themselves by calling on members of the party to use hardball tactics and loopholes to keep Republicans from blocking Biden cabinet picks.
These progressive calls are the result of a shrewd assessment of the power imbalance Biden will face: If Democrats lose in the Georgia run-offs and Republicans maintain their control of the Senate, Mitch McConnell is likely to lead the party in blocking Biden appointees, or at least making the process of confirming them more difficult. It is also the case that if Republicans continue to hold the Senate majority, it will be virtually impossible for more left-leaning Democrats to pass any meaningful legislation, making the agency heads and cabinet members Biden selects crucial to enacting any sort of progressive agenda.
Progressive groups aren’t suggesting any strategies beyond what McConnell and Republicans themselves have used in the past, as Sam Adler-Bell explained in a piece for The New Republic last week. For example, Democrats could take advantage of recess appointments, a method of filling vacancies in a president’s administration during Senate recesses. Or, they could exercise the Vacancies Act, which allows presidents to temporarily fill vacancies with “acting” government officials.