In early October, CQ Politics laid out three scenarios for the how the midterms might turn out. All of them were painful to contemplate. Essentially the scenarios were ‘catastrophically bad,’ ‘unthinkably bad, and ‘just plain awful.’ In the middle scenario, the Democrats didn’t do as badly as they have a right to fear.

Democrats narrowly held the Senate, but Republicans gained eight seats, cutting the majority’s cushion to two. Votes are still being tallied in some close House races, but Republicans are poised to gain at least 45 seats, giving them a handful more than they need for control…
…Republicans knocked off four Democratic incumbents, including Sens. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Russ Feingold (Wis.) and appointed Sen. Michael Bennet (Colo.). In addition, tea party favorite Sharron Angle dislodged Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) from his seat in Nevada.

Both candidates were very unpopular by the end of the race, but Reid was never able to climb out of the mid-40s and became the second Democratic Majority Leader to lose re-election in the past four cycles.

Republicans also picked up four Democratic open seats: North Dakota, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Illinois.

What would the Senate look like under these circumstances? Well, I decided to investigate. The first thing of note is that a 52-48 ratio requires a resetting of the balance of committee assignments. So, for example, presently the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has 12 Democratic slots and 7 Republican ones. That would change to a 10/9 split under this scenario.

The present committee is skewed a little because Arlen Specter defected to the Democrats, giving them an extra vote. The ratio was initially set at 11 Democratic seats and 8 Republicans ones. The reason this committee is important is that it has jurisdiction over any climate legislation. The chairman, Barbara Boxer, doesn’t get along well with Republicans and was unable to push through a Cap & Trade bill to match what the House passed under Speaker Pelosi. Instead, it was left to the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry, to try to move a bill. He initially picked up the support of Lindsey Graham before Graham caved to the Party of No strategy. The Ranking Member of the Environment Committee is Jim Inhofe, who is the most high-profile denier of climate change in American politics. But we shouldn’t expect any cooperation out of energy-state senators like Vitter, Barrasso, or Crapo. Lamar Alexander might have the potential to be reasonable, but as a member of the Republican leadership he is on board with the Republicans’ single most important job, which is denying the president a second term.

In this scenario, the Democrats would actually have to kick one of their members off the committee. That would probably be the most junior member, Kirsten Gillibrand. The Republicans, on the other hand, would have four slots to fill. They might fill them with Joe Miller, Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, and Ken Buck, thus assuring Big Oil a good return on investment.

Another problem in this scenario would be that nothing could pass through the committee if there was a single Democratic defection, meaning that Max Baucus would be the target of endless poison pill amendments.

But, you know, you can just keep complaining about the Democrats if you want.