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New Republican-dominated U.S. Congress sworn in

Xinhua, January 4, 2017 Adjust font size:

The 115th U.S. Congress convenes on Tuesday with Republican Paul Ryan re-elected as House Speaker as expected while outgoing Vice President Joe Biden presides over the old Senate chamber for the last time.

After new senators are sworn in by Biden while House members by Ryan Tuesday afternoon, Republicans will have a 52-48 advantage in the Senate and a hefty 241-194 majority in the House.

The two mainstream parties now represent two very different America across the Congress. Eighty-seven percent of House Republicans will be white men, who only account for 41 percent of House Democrats, according to the independent Cok Political Report.

In sharp comparison, the makeup of Democrats in two chambers is much more racially diverse and largely metropolitan, including districts in and around cities and along the two coasts of the United States.

"The white working class completely left Democrats," Josh Huder, a senior fellow with the Government Affairs institute at Georgetown University, was quoted by a Wall Street Journal report as saying.

Since most legislation needs 60 votes in the Senate, Republicans still have to garner bipartisan support to fulfil their major policy tasks such as reforming the immigration system, passing spending bills, raising the federal borrowing limit as well as repealing and replacing the whole package of Obamacare.

Intense partisan wrestling are sure to set off across the new Congress. Though Democrats don't have the votes to block many of Republicans' actions, they are lining up with vows to fight against nevertheless.

There are a total of 52 freshmen in both chambers, including 27 Republicans and 25 Democrats. The House of Representatives will include its first Indian-American woman. The Senate will have a record number of women, including its first Latina.

The average years of service for house members in the new Congress is 9.3 years, or 4.6 terms, and the average time for members in the Senate is 10.1 years. The average age for a representative is 57.8 years, and the average age of a Senator is 61.8 years, according to the Congression Research Service. Enditem