Kings of the Hill (and the White House)

When American voters chose Republican Donald Trump as the 45th president in November, they also handed his party control of Congress. Republicans maintained a majority in the Senate, with 52 seats to 48 for Democrats. In the House of Representatives, Republicans increased their majority to 241 to 194 for Democrats. 

But having one political party control the White House and Capitol Hill doesn’t mean it will be able to pass laws at will.

“The Framers designed a system with extra checks to protect the voices of the minority against what they called ‘the tyranny of the majority,’ ” says Costas Panagopoulos, a political scientist at Fordham University in New York.

To make matters more complicated, President Trump comes into office with an unclear mandate. He won the Electoral College decisively, 306 to 232, but he lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. It remains to be seen how forcefully Republicans in Congress will support his agenda and translate his proposals into law—and how hard Democrats will battle against Trump’s plans.

Here’s what you need to know to follow the action in Washington as Trump begins his four-year term.

It means Republicans will set the agenda in Washington. President Trump will lay out his legislative priorities and work with Republicans in Congress to get them passed. Because they’re in the majority, Republicans control committees in Congress, which is where a lot of important decisions about bills—including whether they even get voted on—are made.

In short, Republicans will have enormous sway over the lawmaking process. And whatever bills Congress approves are likely to be signed when they reach the president’s desk.

That’s good news for Trump. Some of his priorities—like repealing Obamacare and reducing taxes on business—are likely to move through Congress quickly. 

“They’re going to do big, hard things right out of the gate,” says Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University in Texas. 

Not necessarily. In the 435-member House, legislation needs a simple majority of votes to pass. But in the 100-member Senate, the filibuster rule means that 60 votes are required for most bills to move ahead. (A filibuster lets a single senator or group of senators delay or block a vote by speaking indefinitely, or even just threatening to do so.) Because Republicans don’t have the 60 votes necessary to stop a filibuster in the Senate, the Democratic minority—if it sticks together—can prevent some legislation from passing. 

And the Republican Party isn’t a unified bloc; there’s a wide range of views within the party. President Trump and party leaders will try to get Republican senators and representatives to go along with his agenda. Democrats, meanwhile, will try to win over some Republicans to support their positions.

“The narrow majority in the Senate is going to constrain what the Republicans can do,” says Thomas Patterson of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in Massachusetts. “If they have a couple of defectors, then that can stop the action.”

Quite a bit, especially when it comes to foreign policy. As commander-in-chief of the military, President Trump can act without congressional approval in a lot of cases. He can send troops to intervene in a conflict (though only Congress can officially declare war), order drone strikes against suspected terrorists, and meet with foreign leaders to press for U.S. interests.

A president can also use executive orders to take action without approval from Congress. On his first day in office, Trump began signing executive orders to undo key parts of President Obama’s legacy (see “Trump’s Priorities,” below). 

Some have accomplished big things. With a Democratic Congress in 1964-65, President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through the Civil Rights Act and his War on Poverty programs. In 2003, Republican President George W. Bush passed huge tax cuts and ordered U.S. troops to invade Iraq with the backing of a Republican-controlled Congress. Most recently, President Obama used Democratic control of Congress during his first two years in office to pass a massive economic stimulus bill, major financial reforms, and Obamacare, his healthcare reform law.   

When presidential candidates strike a chord with voters, they often have “long coattails,” meaning their popularity helps other members of their party win in Congress and even in state races.* 

The last time one party controlled both the executive and legislative branches of government was 2009-10 (the first half of President Barack Obama’s first term) when Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate.

In the first half of the 20th century, having one party in power at the White House and in Congress was the norm. But in the last 36 congressional elections (since 1944), voters have given the president’s party control of both houses of Congress only 14 times.  

While divided government has been common in recent years, many Americans seem frustrated by the gridlock that often comes with it. In a recent Gallup poll, only 20 percent of Americans said they favored divided government.

The advantages of holding all the levers of power are also the disadvantages: You’re going to get credit for what goes right and get blamed for whatever goes wrong.

In the past decade, Congress has been plagued by gridlock, and if that failure to make progress continues, voters may blame Republicans. 

“There’s an expectation that they’ll govern,” says Harvard’s Patterson. “If things don’t happen or if bad things happen, it’ll be hard for them to say the Democrats did it.”

Ultimately, lawmakers will have to answer to voters. Often, the party that wins the White House loses control of Congress when midterm elections are held two years later. In 2018, every member of the House, and a third of senators will be up for re-election.

That means President Trump could have a relatively short window in which to get his top priorities approved before things get much harder for him.