What Democrats can do if they retake Congress
Josh Chafetz explains how Democrats can push back against Trump if they retake the House and the Senate.
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It's looking pretty likely that Democrats will retake the House in November, and some are even saying they could retake the Senate. As expected, Donald Trump is doing everything he can to avoid this outcome—from the push for mid-decade redistricting to directly threatening the elections—but unless something changes, he probably won't have complete control of Congress for long.
Donald Trump is not known for having an extensive legislative agenda. That would require negotiating and compromising, which Trump does not want to do. The one bill he is talking about is a voter ID bill that he hopes would help Republicans win in November. Losing control of Congress wouldn't quash his efforts to get transformative bills passed, because Trump isn't trying to do that, but it could derail his administration in a few important ways.
Josh Chafetz, a professor of law and politics at Georgetown University, is a well-known expert on Congress. He tells me that there are quite a few things Democrats could do if they retake the House and/or the Senate to push back against Trump's excesses.
"Trump does need appropriations bills passed, so if Democrats take one chamber, one thing they can certainly do is attach riders," Chafetz says. "They can attach riders to appropriations measures. Republicans in the Senate might try to strip them out, but if the House stood firm, they would have significant negotiating power, because Trump doesn’t want the entire executive branch to be defunded."
Chafetz says we could see some changes in federal funding if Democrats take the House, such as a reduction in Department of Homeland Security funding. He says we would likely also see significantly more oversight being carried out.
"I think you’d see a lot of very contentious hearings," Chafetz says. "We’re seeing somewhat contentious hearings even under Republican control—looking at the Kristi Noem hearings, and they just subpoenaed Pam Bondi—but under Democratic control, you’d see that much more significantly."
Obviously, the big thing Democrats could do if they retake the House is to impeach Donald Trump. Chafetz says we would "certainly" see impeachment resolutions introduced, and leadership could determine if those move forward.
"I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see at least a third Trump impeachment," Chafetz says. "I don’t think there’s any evidence that impeachment generally hurts the party that does the impeaching... If you look at presidential impeachments historically, they tend to hurt the president who’s been impeached—even when they aren’t removed from office."
Democrats could stop confirming Trump's nominees if they retake the Senate, which might significantly hamper the administration's efforts. In terms of what Democrats should do once Trump is no longer in power, and they have control of Congress and the presidency, Chafetz says an important reform that could happen would be for Congress to look at the president's emergency powers.
Thor Benson
"I think having a Congress and an administration that were dedicated to going back and looking at all the various emergency powers that have been delegated to the executive—and repealing the ones they don’t think the president should have—would be an important step," Chafetz says.
There are many powers Trump has abused during his second term, and it will be important for the next administration to look back at what Trump did or tried to do and make reforms where they're needed and generally set up more guardrails for the presidency.
Now, you might be thinking that we can't assume that Democrats will ever regain power because Trump is going to interfere with the midterm elections. Chafetz says, however, that he's not convinced that Republicans will be able to overturn the will of the people.
"I do think Democrats have reason to be in a state of heightened alert. Republicans will probably try to do some things at the margins," Chafetz says. "Those kinds of tactics might matter if the election is extremely close—if control of the House came down to one or two seats. In a race decided by a wider margin, I suspect those efforts won’t affect the overall outcome."
Considering how well Democrats have been doing thus far in special elections, unless something drastically changes, it seems quite likely that Democrats will be winning elections around the country by significant margins. Whether or not they'll be able to retake the Senate, which is a harder lift, remains to be seen. The remaining question I have is whether Democrats will keep their leadership as it is, while most Democratic voters are looking for change.
