Insights

When a national election yields unified legislative and executive control, the winning party often asserts it has achieved a mandate for dramatic change. But history shows that the word “mandate” is often followed by “overreach” and “backlash.” This is especially true when the election reveals a narrowly divided nation, as the ticket splitting and tight house results of 2024 indicate. If the incoming Administration and Congress want to achieve lasting change and a durable majority, they should do something truly disruptive and unexpected – reach across the aisle and govern from the center.

Getting laws passed in a narrow Congress can be difficult, even when one party controls both chambers and the White House. But that process is much easier when the center has its say. That’s especially true when the margins are narrow. Small margins mean big megaphones for any member inclined to disrupt proceedings. But small margins also open pathways for centrist cooperation. When fringe voices take themselves out of the governing process, moderates on both sides of the aisle can step forward with better solutions.

Even amid rancor and intense polarization, the 118th Congress shows what centrist cooperation can accomplish. Mike Johnson owes his current Speaker’s gavel to the Democrats. They provided the votes that ousted Kevin McCarthy and saved Mike Johnson when a handful of Freedom Caucus renegades brought motions to vacate to the floor. Democratic votes also saved the full faith and credit of the United States government when Republicans were unable or unwilling to raise the debt ceiling and honor the borrowing necessitated by previous Republican tax cuts. Those bipartisan votes kept the government operating, the military planes flying, and the veterans’ benefits flowing when the government was on the brink of shutdown.

The 119^th Congress will come with Republicans newly in charge of the White House and the Senate, which of course provides a strong incentive for unity from a House Republican Conference that once again embodies the cliché “razor thin.” Their unanimous vote to nominate Mike Johnson for Speaker has already proven things are different. The majority party will have the opportunity to proactively pass legislation that can pass the Senate and get signed into law. And the polls show they can claim a legitimate mandate for action on immigration, taxes, and trade.

But those are precisely the issues that typically demand at least some votes from across the aisle. Tax cuts have disproportionate regional impacts – for example, the 2017 Trump tax cut effectively increased taxes on upper-middle-class homeowners in the Northeast. Immigration and trade barriers rarely break down neatly along partisan lines. Republicans will find an easier path to comprehensive achievements if they involve moderate Democratic voices. Otherwise, forcing through partisan legislation will place some Republican moderates in the position of either denying their president or their constituency.

It remains to be seen how much independence 119^th Republicans will demonstrate with Trump in power. But the President-elect seems to have already concluded he will have a fight on his hands, as evidenced by his open speculation about using recess appointments to bypass confirmations in a Senate controlled by his own party.

Trump has also signaled his desire to circumvent Congress’s power of the purse by inventing a new advisory board headed by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. The Department of Government Efficiency will be a department in name only, as Congress must provide the authorization and appropriations for any new Federal agency. In his first term, Trump may have named Space Force in a tweet, but it took a bipartisan vote in Congress to create it.

And even in the unlikely event that a bipartisan consensus could be achieved to create a new agency – expanding government in the name of shrinking it – DOGE would face the same restriction every other agency does, every year. They can propose, but Congress must appropriate. What’s more likely is the agency will never formally exist and never formally present a budget but will instead influence the overall budget proposal the President sends to Congress, which authorizers and appropriators can take into consideration – or not.

In strictly constitutional terms, DOGE has less authority than the Simpson-Bowles Commission, which was created with Congressional approval. However, much like that laudable 2011 effort, centrists should welcome any outside attempt to identify waste, fraud, and abuse, and it would be great if DOGE leads to greater government efficiency. But don’t put the cart before the horse. Implementing any of its recommendations will require Congressional action, and taking on any sacred cows it identifies will almost certainly require a bipartisan commitment to both pass and defend in the court of public opinion.

In the end, Republicans have earned the power to ignore Democrats for the next two years. But they do so at their peril.

2024 was not the first wave election to deliver a unified government, nor is this the first time newly empowered majorities rushed to claim a mandate for radical change. Usually, they did so with far greater numbers yet still ran into intraparty conflict, legislative failures, and, ultimately, midterm backlash. The better path is through the center, and the time to reach out across the aisle is now.