Scott Brown Sworn In As 41st Republican Senator

Newly elected Republican Scott Brown was sworn in on Thursday at the Capitol by Vice President Joe Biden, officially becoming the junior senator from Massachusetts and the 41st Republican vote in the Senate.

Brown told reporters after the ceremony that he “wanted to get to work” and was looking forward “to be fully able to participate in the affairs our nation at this critical time.”

Brown’s swearing-in marked the end of supermajority status for Senate Democrats and put a symbolic halt to their legislative efforts that effectively ended on election night last month in Massachusetts. Health care is stalled, cap-and-trade has been taken off the table by President Obama, and even centrist proposals like the president’ tax cut-laden jobs bill faces an uncertain future with the threat of a GOP filibuster.

But some Democrats see an opportunity to play Brown against his left-leaning voting base back in the Bay State and either steal his support for certain important legislation or use his opposition and partisanship to generate anger among voters who will choose whether or not to send him back to Capitol Hill in only two years. Brown seemed to play down hints at cooperation on Thursday, proclaiming that he will be “the 41st vote” on most Democratic legislation.

GOP senators who have been working overtime to kill the White House’s nomination of Craig Becker to head the National Labor Relations Board believe that Brown’s seating will put the dagger in. And with Democrats eager to bring up a jobs bill as soon as Monday, Republicans hope that Brown will be at their side if they don’t like the bill the Democrats produce.

“If Democrats continue to move to the left, it’s going to be hard for him to keep his campaign promises and vote with them,” said South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, leader of the Senate’s conservative steering committee.

But Democrats hope that the economic unease expressed by voters in the Massachusetts election will push Brown to favor a jobs package next week — and that he won’t risk offending his home state’s more liberal voters by attempting to block Becker’s confirmation to the NLRB.

“He clearly will have that opportunity to work with Democrats,” said New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “If he does, I’m sure, it’ll be to his benefit. And if he doesn’t, based upon the polling I saw of what Massachusetts voters wanted, it probably will be to his detriment.”

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Brown said there was “no hidden agenda” in his decision to push for seating one week early and that he wanted to get to work immediately given the national security threats to the country and the problems facing the economy.

Asked if he’d mind joining Democrats and be the 60th vote to break a filibuster, Brown said: “Well, I’ll be the 41st vote.”

And Brown sounded skeptical about the Democrats’ job proposal. He said job creation was his “top priority.” But when asked about a new jobs bill, he said that last year’s economic stimulus bill “didn’t create one new job.”

“I’m hopeful that there will be bipartisan negotiations,” Brown said. “That’s part of the problem, the fact that there’s always 60-40, 60-40.”

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