There’s power and peril in one-party rule

President-elect Trump has a rare opportunity that also carries with it significant risks.

In the 44 years since President Richard Nixon took office in 1973, the president’s political party has also controlled both the Senate and the House for only 12½ years.

For Republicans, it is even rarer. President Nixon never had a Republican Senate or a Republican House. Neither did Gerald Ford or George H.W. Bush. Ronald Reagan had two years of a Republican Senate, but Democrats controlled the House of Representatives for all eight years of the his presidency. Of the past 28 years of Republican presidencies — Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, Bush II — only George W. Bush had any time at all when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. And even George W. Bush had a Republican Congress for only 4½ of his eight years in office.

The bipartisan precedent is that this situation carries with it potential power but also peril.

One-party rule in Washington can mean government that actually gets things done.

Franklin Roosevelt defeated the Nazis in World War II and enacted Social Security with his party, the Democrats, in control of both houses of Congress. President Lyndon Johnson enacted Medicare, the Kennedy tax cut, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 with his party, the Democrats, in control of both houses of Congress. Bill Clinton enacted a tax increase and the North American Free Trade Agreement during his first term, when Democrats controlled the House and the Senate. And President Obama used Democratic control of the House and Senate to push through his three signature legislative achievements, the stimulus bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the Dodd-Frank law overhauling bank regulation.

But, at least recently, presidents who arrive with full control of Congress have had a tendency to lose it. Bill Clinton was elected in 1992 with Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. The backlash against his tax increases and his attempt at health care reform was so strong that Republicans took over Congress in the 1994 midterm election and kept it for the remainder of the Clinton presidency. A similar thing happened to President Obama, who lost control of the House to the Republicans in the 2010 midterm election.

What lessons can President-elect Trump draw from this history?

One is to choose carefully his top priorities — and try to get them done in the first year or two. If the pattern holds, the legislative terrain will only get more hostile later in the administration.

The second is to try not to overreach in a way that provokes a furious backlash. That doesn’t mean Trump should avoid boldness, or start negotiating away his campaign promises.

But it does mean that Trump shouldn’t imagine the lack of Democratic committee chairmen on Capitol Hill to mean that he’s driving on a highway with no speed limits and no siderails.

We Americans like politicians who get things done in Washington. But we also don’t necessarily want too much done. There are lots of forces in Washington pulling toward inertia or mediocrity — the permanent bureaucracy, the lobbyists and specialinterest groups. But the most potent force of all in Washington are the voters, who every two years have the opportunity to rein in the president by electing some of his critics and firing some of his congressional allies.

In the television business, which Trump has some experience with, the network gets to decide at the end of each season if it wants to renew the show for another year. In the commercial real estate business, tenants eventually decide if they want to extend their lease. And in American politics, it’s always just two short years before the voters will get another say.