EDITORIAL: In majority, Nevada senators might be in a pickle

The story of Tuesday’s elections may not be the presidency but the U.S. Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told The Hill last week that Republicans have a “50-50” chance of keeping control of the upper chamber. The map heavily favors Democrats, as the GOP must defend 23 of the 35 seats on the ballot. Democrats need four pickups to ensure an outright majority.

Coupled with a victory by Joe Biden, a Democratic congressional monopoly will face intense pressure from the frenzied progressive left to impose a radical agenda designed to remake the nation’s economy and to solidify the party’s grip on power by demolishing long-standing institutions and traditions. Will Nevada’s two Democratic senators go along?

Both Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen were elected by relatively slim margins — the former by 2 percentage points in 2016, the latter by 5 points two years later. Should they find themselves in the majority come January, they will likely face some uncomfortable choices.

Will they fall in line behind Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders and the gang and agree to pack the U.S. Supreme Court? To end the filibuster? To add Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico to the union in order to create four more reliable Democratic Senate seats? To impose a complete government takeover of the health care industry? To dismantle the country’s energy sector in favor of Green New Deal central planning? To outlaw right-to-work laws across the country, including in Nevada? To rewrite the First Amendment to allow government censors to regulate political speech? To eliminate the Electoral College?

These issues will be among the long list of demands that progressives are certain to make on Congress if Democrats have a big Election Day. Sens. Cortez Masto and Rosen ran as moderates. How do they expect to straddle that fence as their party lurches further and further left?

So far, they’ve both taken the easy road by refusing to offer Nevadans real answers. On the matter of court packing and ending the filibuster, a spokesman for Sen. Cortez Masto said she “isn’t going to speculate on hypothetical scenarios.” A spokesman for Sen. Rosen took a similar, canned approach.

If Democrats win the White House and the Senate while maintaining the House, “they’ll be a runaway train fueled by pent-up progressive demand,” Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal wrote. Sen. Cortez Masto will face a re-election fight in 2022; Sen. Rosen has a bit more breathing room and doesn’t run again until 2024. Will they help fuel that runaway train off the cliff? Or will they work to apply the brakes? Their political careers may hang in the balance.