Divided government is returning to Washington. The Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives marks the end of a period of one-party control. Now the Trump administration will face something new: congressional oversight. The House GOP leaders who have refused to exercise this power are about to turn their gavels over to Democrats, who can finally initiate the investigations they’ve been requesting for months. Meanwhile, the president’s party no longer has the power to enact partisan legislation.
Will the legislature do any legislating at all? The new Congress might pass bipartisan bills—small ones built on narrow consensus, larger ones built on compromise. It might exist in a state of gridlock, with the Senate confirming the president’s appointees and the House investigating his scandals but no one passing any laws. Perhaps there will be a mix of the two, cooperation here and standoff there.
Bipartisan cooperation has long been idealized in American political culture. More recently, so has its converse: intransigent, sand-in-the-gears resistance—the approach Republicans took during the last administration and many Democrats would like to take now.
