Every other Tuesday, the team behind Civics 101 joins NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Furukawa to talk about how our democratic institutions actually work.
Republicans have won enough seats to have a narrow majority in the U.S. House. When President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in next January, the Republican Party will be in control of the presidency and Congress.
This week, Civics 101 senior producer Christina Phillips joined Julia to talk about what happens when one party has both the executive and legislative branches of government.
Transcript
Christina, when's the last time one party had control of both the executive and legislative branches? I mean, how common is this?
So this is known as unified control. The most recent time this happened was actually pretty recently. It was during Biden's first two years in office. And Republicans also had unified control during Trump's first two years. But I should say this is not super common these days or when it happens, it doesn't last very long. Prior to the 1960s, unified control was the norm.
Why doesn't it last that long?
I think it's a factor of the increased partisanship that we're seeing over the last couple of decades, [or] more than a couple of decades. But really, what happens now is that if one party is in control of both Congress and the White House, you often see in the midterm elections that that president and that party will lose power going forward.
When there was unified control in previous administrations, what kind of laws were they able to pass?
So unified control makes it easier to pass major lasting legislation. I think one of the most famous examples is Obamacare, which [is] the Affordable Care Act, [and] it passed in 2010 when Democrats had unified control. Trump and Republicans had the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and then Biden had the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
But it is worth pointing out, like I said, that in today's politics, unified control is pretty hard to keep. In all of those examples, the party with unified control lost that control during the next midterm election. It's easier to point to one party as a whole for your dissatisfaction in the government, when it seems like that party has all of the power.
And other than passing legislation, what else does this unified control make it easier to do?
It certainly makes it easier for a president to carry out other aspects of their agenda, for example, political appointments. That's not just members of the president's cabinet, [it] also includes judges on lower courts, which could have a lasting impact on how laws are interpreted in a way that could affect you and me.
So is unified control necessarily better or worse than having a divided government?
In terms of the function of democracy, in that we elect people and then hold them accountable for the job we've chosen them to do, a unified government is ideal because it means that the chosen leaders carry out the policies they were elected on with more efficiency. However, a divided government provides a greater check on power between the two branches, whether it be congressional investigations or the threat of a veto. Voters can provide their own check at the voting booth, of course, but that happens every two years and a lot can happen in the meantime.
