“From crisis to crisis”: the moments that defined a historic congress

But when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in late September, Republicans were determined to quickly fill their seat ahead of an election that could cost Mr Trump the presidency or the Senate majority – or both. Leaving the position that led them to prevent President Barack Obama from filling a vacancy months before an election in 2016, Republicans rushed to push through the appointment of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, presented to Mr. Trump at a cheering ceremony Presented at the White House was later classified as a superspreader event causing several senators to contract the virus.

By the end of the 116th Congress, nearly 150 judges had been confirmed before the country’s highest court, district courts and district courts – young, conservative and probably shaping the interpretation of the country’s laws for decades. Even when some Republicans began to break with Mr Trump in anticipation of what both parties believed was a punitive election result for their party, they enthusiastically rallied to endorse his Supreme Court candidate, a payoff after years of loyalty the president.

A stimulus deal almost derailed

According to Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics, the House Republicans prevailed against most expectations – including their own – with more than a dozen wins and a record of 29 women in January.

Mr Biden, who was soon declared the winner, had a slim majority in the House of Representatives and democratic control of the Senate that depended on the results of two runoff elections in Georgia.

The political interests of the competitions helped postpone the month-long debate over pandemic aid to millions of unemployed Americans, small businesses, schools and hospitals across the country, and moved leaders to negotiate another package.

Shortly after the November election, a group of moderates led by Senators Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, began work on a compromise framework and got both houses into one final round of frenzied negotiations. They eventually hit a $ 900 billion deal that both chambers closed days before Christmas after several near misses with the prospect of another government shutdown.

Even so, Mr Trump threatened not to sign it, which plunged the fate of the legislation into uncertainty and ruled out the possibility of the government being shut down further. He signed the law four days before the New Year began.

“I think a divided government can be an opportunity,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska. “And how we take it, how we use it, is up to us.”