How independents could seize control of the Senate

Let’s have a little fun. Imagine that Orman wins and joins two others elected as neither Democrats nor Republicans, independents Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Now imagine that the Senate ends up with 50 Republicans, 47 Democrats, and the three who did not get elected as either D’s or R’s. Sanders almost certainly would continue to caucus with the Democrats—making it 50/48/2. King has said publicly that he is not wedded to continuing to caucus with Democrats—that it would depend on the numbers, and on what he could do for Maine. But King, who is a deep thinker with strong views on many policies and on how government should work and who has decried the deep dysfunction in the Senate, will also have broader objectives than a few narrow things for his state.

What if King and Orman align, and perhaps bring in one or more other senators—Joe Manchin of West Virginia is an obvious one—to form a Centrist Caucus. They go to both party leaders and offer to provide the votes for majority status in return for commitments on a list of policy and process priorities. But there is a twist: If the party that makes the commitments fails to deliver, the Centrist Caucus members will switch to the other side, changing the majority, including all the committee ratios, committee chairs, and so on. And if the other party fails to deliver, they might switch back. I am not sure what would be on their list; it might include Manchin’s bipartisan background-check bill, an infrastructure package, corporate or broader tax reform, some spending priorities, maybe immigration. In my wildest dreams, it would include a demand of McConnell that to become majority leader, he would have to bring up meaningful campaign-finance reform, an issue King has championed.