Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to swear in three new, barrier-breaking Democratic senators on Wednesday afternoon following her own inauguration, officially giving Democrats control of the Senate for the first time since they lost the chamber in the 2014 elections.
Earlier this month, Georgia elected two Democrats -- the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff -- to the US Senate, flipping the chamber. Warnock, the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and Ossoff will be joined on Wednesday by Harris' successor, Alex Padilla, the former California secretary of state appointed to the Senate by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The swearing-in of the three new senators will be groundbreaking. Warnock and Ossoff will be the first Black and first Jewish senators, respectively, representing Georgia, while Padilla will be California's first Latino senator.