The Presidency: Divided Government, Unified Government, and Policy Gridlock

Concepts and Definitions of Governance

• The First Cabinet (Image $14.1$):     * Secretary of War: Henry Knox.     * Secretary of State: Thomas Jefferson.     * Attorney General: Edmund Randolph.     * Secretary of the Treasury: Alexander Hamilton.     * President: George Washington.

• Divided Government:     * Definition: A condition where one political party controls the White House and another political party controls one or both chambers of Congress.

• Unified Government:     * Definition: A situation where the same political party controls the White House and both chambers of Congress.

• Gridlock:     * Definition: The inability of the government to act because rival parties control different parts of the government.

Historical Trends in Divided and Unified Government

• Frequency and Modern Trends:     * The guaranteed majority enjoyed by prime ministers in legislatures is rare for American presidents, particularly since the mid-$20\text{th}$ century.     * From $1952$ through $2024$, there were $37$ congressional elections and $19$ presidential elections.     * More than half of these elections resulted in divided government.

• Recent Presidential Examples:     * Donald Trump ($2017$): Was only the fifth president in $40$ years to take office with a unified government. This changed after $2018$ when Democrats won control of the House of Representatives.     * George W. Bush ($2001$): Marked the first time since $1953$ that Republicans were fully in charge of both executive and legislative branches.         * Republicans had previously controlled the White House and the Senate from $1981$ to $1987$.         * Shortly after the $2001$ Senate convened, James Jeffords of Vermont left the Republican party to become an independent. He caucused with the Democrats, giving them a bare majority of $51$ votes and Senate control, returning the country to divided government.         * Divided government lasted until an additional Republican was elected to the Senate in $2002$.     * Democrats ($2007$-$2010$):         * Retook control of Congress in $2007$.         * Increased majorities in both chambers in $2009$.         * Gained the $60$ votes necessary to halt filibusters in the Senate following a contested Minnesota race where Democrat Al Franken was declared the winner.         * Lost the filibuster-proof majority in $2010$ when Republican Scott Brown won a surprise victory for the seat of the deceased Senator Ted Kennedy ($D\text{-MA}$).     * Barack Obama: Faced a partially divided government after two years in office ($R\text{-House}$, $D\text{-Senate}$). In $2014$, Republicans won the Senate, resulting in fully divided government for his final two years.     * Joe Biden ($2020$-$2024$):         * After $2020$, maintained a Senate majority despite a $50\text{-}50$ split due to the Vice President's constitutional role as president of the Senate (tie-breaking power).         * In $2022$, Democrats narrowly lost the House, leading to a partially divided government.     * Donald Trump ($2024$): Won reelection, becoming the only president besides Grover Cleveland in the late $19\text{th}$ century to win two non-consecutive terms. Republicans won the Senate and kept the House, ensuring a unified government to start the term.

The Debate Over Gridlock and Legislative Efficiency

• Critiques of Divided Government:     * Argued to increase partisan bickering, political paralysis, and gridlock.     * The Keystone Kops Comparison: During the $1990$ budget battle between President Bush and a Democratic Congress, the situation was compared to silent movie characters who chase each other without accomplishing anything.

• Scholarly Rebuttals (David Mayhew):     * Political scientist David Mayhew studied $267$ important laws enacted between $1946$ and $1990$.     * Findings: Laws were just as likely to be passed under divided government as under unified government.     * Major examples of legislation under divided government:         * The $1948$ Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe.         * The $1986$ Tax Reform Act.

• Table $14.1$: Divided Government at Work (Policy Achievements):     * Joe Biden (Partly Republican Congress): Foreign aid package (Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan), humanitarian aid for Gaza, possible TikTok ban.     * Barack Obama (Republican Congress): More flexible assessment requirements in primary/secondary education.     * George W. Bush (Partly Democratic Congress): Assessment requirements in primary/secondary education.     * Bill Clinton (Republican Congress): Federal welfare reform and balanced budget.     * George H.W. Bush (Democratic Congress): Legislation to aid people with disabilities.     * Ronald Reagan (Partly Democratic Congress): Federal tax reform.     * Richard Nixon (Democratic Congress): Federal environmental policies and programs.     * Dwight D. Eisenhower (Democratic Congress): Interstate highway system.

Structural and Ideological Realities of the American System

• The Myth of Unified Government:     * Unified government does not guarantee a shared agenda. Republican presidents may still disagree with Republican senators/representatives.     * The Constitution ensures that the President and Congress remain rivals for power, underlying the concepts of separation of powers and checks and balances.

• Examples of Internal Party Disunity:     * Lyndon B. Johnson: Could not get many Democrats to support his Vietnam War policy.     * Jimmy Carter: Could not get the Democratic Senate to ratify his strategic arms limitation treaty (SALT).     * Bill Clinton: Could not convince congressional Democrats to vote on his healthcare plan.     * Barack Obama: Facing Senate Democrats who demanded large changes to his healthcare reform plan.     * Donald Trump: Successfully passed the $2017$ Tax Cuts and Jobs Act but failed to "repeal and replace" healthcare reform despite campaign pledges.     * Joe Biden: Enacted infrastructure legislation with bipartisan support but failed to unify Democrats in $2021$ for voting reform or the $\$1.7 \text{ billion}$ Build Back Better package. In summer $2022$, he signed a bipartisan bill to invest more than $\$200 \text{ billion}$ in semiconductor chips and the Inflation Reduction Act (passed on a party-line vote).

• Requirements for True Effectiveness:     * Effective control occurs only when the same party and the same ideological wing of that party control both branches.     * Franklin Roosevelt ($1933$): Change-oriented Democrats.     * Lyndon Johnson ($1965$): Liberal Democrats.     * Resulted in: Social Security, business regulations, Medicare, and civil rights legislation.

Comparative Systems and Voter Behavior

• Presidential vs. Parliamentary Systems:     * An American president has less power to pass laws than a British Prime Minister.     * Curing this "weakness" would require changing the Constitution or strictly voting for the same party in both branches.

• The Deliberative System and Factions:     * James Madison argued in Federalist No. $10$ that a deliberative system was necessary to control factions (special interests).     * Historically, about $\frac{1}{4}$ ($25$ percent) of voters have split their tickets (voting for one party for president and another for Congress).     * While this has shrunk due to partisan sorting, it has not disappeared. Evidence is inconclusive on whether voters split tickets deliberately to magnify checks and balances.

• The Purpose of Gridlock:     * Gridlock is a consequence of separate institutions in a representative democracy.     * It causes delays, intensifies deliberations, forces compromises, and requires broad-based coalitions.     * This is the opposite of direct democracy, where the president would act like a "traffic cop" with broad powers to dictate policy direction based on raw public will.