ANDREW MIGA, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – Republican Scott Brown took over the seat of the late Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy on Thursday, vowing to be an independent voice in a bitterly divided Senate.
Brown was sworn-in by Vice President Joe Biden Thursday at a Capitol Hill ceremony a week earlier than he originally planned, and just in time to plunge into a partisan fight over President Barack Obama’s choice of a union attorney for a top labor job.
Brown’s arrival in the Senate ends the Democrats’ supermajority and gives the GOP 41 votes they can use to block President Barack Obama’s agenda.
Depending on how Democrats set the Senate’s calendar, Brown’s first vote could be against the confirmation of Craig Becker, a lawyer for the Service Employees International Union, to a seat on the National Labor Relations Board, the federal panel that referees private sector labor-management disputes.