Georgia’s newly elected senators will be sworn into office today following the presidential inauguration, probably in the late afternoon.
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In what will be a historic ceremony, the nation’s first African-American female vice president, Kamala Harris, will administer the oath office to Georgia’s first Black senator Raphael Warnock and his colleague John Ossoff.
All 159 counties in Georgia have sent their official certifications to Secretary of State Brad Reffensberger and Gov. Brian Kemp, both of them in-turn signed the documents and sent them to the state Senate paving the way for both new Senators to be sworn in on the same day as President-elect Joe Biden.
Jon Ossoff. John Ramspott, CC BY 2.0 
Raphael Warnock. Raphael Warnock, CC BY-SA 4.0
The election of Warnock and Ossoff in Georgia flipped the U.S. Senate to Democrat control, giving that party control of Congress and the White House. The last time both houses of Congress the president were Democrats was 2009 to 2011, the first two years of the Obama administration.
The razor edge in the Senate means that even if all Republicans side with President Trump in the looming impeachment trial, VIce President Kamala Harris could cast the deciding vote against Trump, who is accused of inciting the riot that ravaged the Capital, left five dead and required intervention by the National Guard to keep the city safe from further unrest.
On Jan. 13, for the second time in 13 months, 10 Republicans crossed the aisle in the House of Representatives and voted to impeach Trump on the charge of “incitement of an insurrection.”
Prominent Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell has publicly accused Trump of the charge on the Senate floor. If Trump is impeached, it would be a first in American history.
Should Trump be convicted in the looming impeachment trial, he would be prohibited from holding any public office in the future.
Scott Hudson is the Managing Editor of The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
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