When the 119th Congress convenes on Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris will be tasked with swearing in new senators, including three Republican members of the upper chamber who mispronounced her name on the campaign trail last year.
Harris’s role as vice president includes duties performed as president of the Senate, including breaking ties and presiding over impeachment trials not involving a sitting president. It also includes swearing in new senators-elect so they can begin their terms.
While that task is traditionally accomplished quickly on the Senate floor, later photo ops will give the newly minted senators some up-close and personal time with the vice president.
This could prove awkward for some of the Republicans who she’ll swear in, such as Pennsylvania’s Dave McCormick and Tim Sheehy of Montana, both of whom made a point of mispronouncing her name while campaigning last year, including during their respective speeches at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, as Time reported Friday.
Another GOP member who will take the oath for another term is Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who spent much of last year falsely accusing Harris and Democrats in general of importing non-white migrants to use them as illegal voters as a way of stealing last year’s presidential election.
Yet another returning Republican, Senator Rick Scott of Florida, accused Harris of short-changing the Sunshine State’s hurricane recovery and not caring about Florida residents.
But not all of the incoming Republican senators will be taking their oath on Friday.
West Virginia Republican Jim Justice, who currently serves as the Mountain State’s governor, announced last week that he’d be putting off his swearing-in until his gubernatorial term ends on January 13 to avoid the chaos of having the state cycle through several acting governors in a period of days due to quirks in state law.
Another few incoming senators’ identities aren’t yet known — those who will be hailing from Ohio and Florida after incumbents J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio resign their seats to become vice president and — pending his own confirmation — secretary of state in the new Trump administration.
