The United States House of Representatives and Senate will meet on January 3 to mark the beginning of the 118th Congress, which will govern the country’s bills through January 2025.
The new Congress has a slight Democratic majority in the Senate (51-49), while the House of Representatives is led by Republicans, who won 222 seats to 213 Democrats in the November 2022 midterm elections, Prensa Latina says.
The news agency highlights that the White House is also preparing for a wave of investigations being organized by Republican lawmakers including the business dealings of Hunter Biden, Biden’s son, the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic and the current administration’s border policies.
He adds that the 118th Congress marks the beginning of a new generation of leadership for House Democrats, with New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries as party leader, Massachusetts Katherine Clark as Democratic party leader and Pete Aguilar as parliamentary group leader.
The new class of lawmakers includes several firsts, including Becca Balint, a Democrat who is the first openly gay congresswoman and person to represent Vermont, and Maxwell Frost, a Florida Democrat who at 25 is the first member of Generation Z .
This Congress, beginning in 2023, will also have a record number of women (149) serving in both the House and Senate, as well as the largest number of representatives of Hispanic descent in history, reports CNN.