94Ha Viewpoint
“Trump’s return” has become the hottest topic of current affairs. Countless comments are analyzing and predicting the far-reaching impact that Trump’s re-election will have on all parties. According to Trump’s personality and governing style, the impact it brings cannot be underestimated, and pessimism and vigilance have become the main tone of many comments. Judging from his current power, people’s pessimism and vigilance have sufficient realistic basis. Trump not only won the presidency with a clear advantage, but the Republican Party also controls both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court also presents a situation where conservatives are in the majority.
Such an advantageous position has greatly weakened the checks and balances faced by the president and greatly expanded the president’s policy space, which is what any aspiring American president dreams of. American political scientist Ian Bremmer even believes: “This will enable the incoming government to freely formulate Trump’s comprehensive domestic policy agenda, completely transform the federal government, and rewrite institutional norms with almost no independent checks and balances.”
Will the incoming Trump become a wild horse and act arbitrarily on the basis of successfully getting rid of the existing checks and balances?
From the perspective of institutional foundation, in the operation of presidential countries, the legislative branch and the executive branch led by the president sometimes belong to the same party, and sometimes they are controlled by different parties. Therefore, scholars use two sets of concepts to describe the above two situations respectively: when the legislative branch and the executive branch belong to the same party, it is called “unified government”; when the legislative branch and the executive branch belong to different parties, it is called “divided government”.
The complexity of the American presidential system lies in the fact that Congress is composed of two houses with equal power, coupled with different election cycles, so it is often the case that the Senate and the House of Representatives are controlled by two different parties, such as the Democratic Party controls the House of Representatives and the Republican Party controls the Senate, or the Republican Party controls the House of Representatives and the Democratic Party controls the Senate. It is relatively rare for a party to control both the Senate and the House of Representatives at the same time.
When the president’s party does not control the Senate and the House of Representatives at all, it is a situation that no president wants to face. It can be called “complete divided government”; when the president’s party controls only one of the two houses and the other house is controlled by the other party, it can be called “general divided government”; when the president’s party completely controls both the Senate and the House of Representatives, it can be called “complete unanimous government.”
Institutional checks and balances will not fail
Trump is currently facing the last situation described above, namely “complete unanimous government.” This is consistent with the first two years of his first term, that is, the 115th Congress. The term of office of the US president is four years, and the term of office of Congress is two years, so Trump’s first term corresponds to the 115th Congress and the 116th Congress. In the 115th Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives were also controlled by Trump’s Republican Party, which occupied 52 of the 100 seats in the Senate and 241 of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives.
Despite this advantage, Trump still has to face a series of institutional checks and balances, which will not disappear because the Republicans control the presidency, the Senate, and the House of Representatives at the same time.
First, there is the test of the midterm elections. The midterm elections may change the leadership of both the Senate and the House of Representatives at the same time, or one of them.
Two years later, the Democratic Party may regain control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives or one of them. In the midterm elections during Trump’s first term, the Democratic Party regained control of the House of Representatives. In the 116th Congress, the Democratic Party held 235 seats and the Republican Party only 199 seats. Although the Democratic Party failed to win the Senate at the same time, even the Democratic Party, which controlled the House of Representatives, caused a lot of trouble for Trump at the time. The classic scene of Democratic House Speaker Pelosi publicly tearing up Trump’s State of the Union speech is a clear proof.
The second is the limit of the presidential term. Even if the Republican Party still controls the Senate and the House of Representatives in the midterm elections two years later, Trump will also face the reality of the end of his term in four years. The US president can only be re-elected for one term. Since the founding of the country, except for Roosevelt during World War II, no president has served more than two terms, nor has he served two terms and sought re-election. Trump’s second term, which is about to begin, is also his last. “The White House is permanent, but the presidents are changing.” Trump cannot escape the term limit.
The third is the limitation of party organization. American political parties are very loosely organized and not very disciplined. Although Trump is the leader of the Republican Party, he cannot give orders to Republican members of Congress. The loose organization and discipline provide space for the relative independence of Republican members of Congress. In American history, it is not uncommon for members of Congress to vote against the presidential bills of their own party. Moreover, even if the same party controls both the Senate and the House of Representatives, it does not mean that the veto power between the two houses of Congress disappears, because even if the Republicans control both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the Republicans in the Senate and the Republicans in the House of Representatives are still relatively independent. The two are led by their respective party leaders and are not subordinate to each other.
(The author is an associate professor of the Department of Political Science and Administration at South-Central University for Nationalities)
