Vice President Kamala Harris Is Already Getting to Work

Newly-inaugurated Vice President Kamala Harris isn’t wasting any time. Hours after taking her oath of office, she presided over the Senate for the first time and swore in three senators who each made history in their new positions. One of them was Alex Padilla, who succeeds Harris as Senator of California and is the first Latinx lawmaker to hold the position.

“Yes, that was very weird!” she joked about helping the senator assume her former role, according to The New York Times.

Vice President Harris also swore in now-senators Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff of Georgia, who earlier this month won a tight runoff race against Republican incumbents, turning the state blue for the first time since 1992. Warnock is the state’s first Black senator, while Ossoff is the state’s first Jewish senator and the youngest Democratic senator since Joe Biden was elected almost 50 years ago.

Their hard-fought victories—which are undoubtedly owed to voting rights activists and organizers like Stacey Abrams—gives the Senate a 50-50 split, but with Harris’s role as president of the legislative body, Democrats have the majority.

The vice president was met with a standing ovation when she arrived on the Senate floor this afternoon and smiled widely (albeit behind her mask) as she officially took her seat for the first time.

Taking on the new responsibility felt “amazing,” VP Harris told told CNN today. “So far, so good. Working every day.” We’re not even a full day into her term and she’s already off to a great start.

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