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Even as the final votes are being tallied in the midterm elections, it's clear that Democrats' majority in the House next year will be a boon for the Bay Area's congressional delegation.

Many of the area's lawmakers — all of whom are Democrats — are poised to run key committees or are angling to be elected to party leadership. Bay Area lawmakers are poised to play key roles on issues from immigration to the environment, voting rights to health care.

Here's an in-depth look at what local representatives will be up to:

The problem with prescription drugs is simple: The U.S. government bestows long-term monopolies on pharmaceutical companies, immunizing them from the forces of market competition and public regulation. As a result, Americans shoulder the highest drug prices in the world while receiving significantly poorer public health outcomes than most of the developed world.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) on Tuesday unveiled a bill aimed at aggressively lowering drug prices by stripping monopolies from drug companies if their prices are deemed excessive.

Sanders has long railed against drug companies for their prices, and this bill is one of the most far-reaching proposals aimed at lowering them.

Sen. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are on the same page on drug pricing onceagain.

A bill released Tuesday morning by Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to reduce U.S. drug prices takes a cue from the president's recent proposal to reduce Medicare drug costs — both proposals seek to lower U.S. drug costs by tying them to international prices.

Nancy Pelosi is facing an unexpected flare-up on climate change that is complicating relationships among House Democrats ahead of crucial leadership elections.

Incoming liberals, led by Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, are demanding Pelosi go beyond her promise to revive a select committee on global warming; they want her and the rest of the Democratic Caucus to back an ambitious plan to transition the economy to 100 percent renewable energy in a little more than a decade.

Civil rights legend James Lawson may soon have one of the nation's highest civilian awards to add to the collection of honors for his integral role in shaping the tone and tenor of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

Congressman Ro Khanna, (D-Calif.), introduced legislation on Wednesday to award the Congressional Gold Medal to Lawson, who is credited with instilling Mohandas Gandhi's nonviolent resistance techniques and principles into the movement in the 1950s and ‘60s.

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