The two newest members of the United States Senate, Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), are already facing intense backlash from their own voters after reneging on their campaign pledges to issue $2000 checks in COVID relief to all Americans, as reported by Fox News.
Both men were declared the winners in the controversial runoff elections on January 5th, despite widespread allegations and evidence of voter fraud and irregularities in the state and elsewhere in the 2020 election. They both narrowly unseated incumbent Republicans Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, bringing the Senate composition up to an even 50-50 split.
However, Warnock and Ossoff both campaigned on a promise to pass a coronavirus relief package that would include $2000 checks to every American. Joe Biden, while campaigning with both men, pledged that “those $2000 checks will go out the door” to all Americans. But his newly-unveiled bill only includes checks for $1400 rather than $2000.
Back in Georgia, even Democratic voters expressed their outrage at the betrayal of the two new senators. Voter Oscar Zaro said that “a lot of people in my district voted blue in the runoff for two main reasons. One: Loeffler and Perdue denying us relief during COVID…and two, $2000 checks.”
Another voter, Rogelio Linares, called the senators’ flip-flop “a betrayal of the working class,” and admitted that “I was lying to people that were relying on this. At the time I didn’t know it was a lie. But that was not the reality.”
With the Senate now evenly divided, Kamala Harris will serve as the tie-breaking vote in the event that the chamber becomes deadlocked on any bill, thus giving Democrats the narrowest margin of control possible. Previous efforts to pass $2000 checks before and immediately after the election were stopped by Senate Republicans, even though President Donald Trump voiced his support for $2000 checks and tried to encourage Republicans to do the same.