China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Gridlock expected to continue as new US Congress convenes
The 116th US Congress was gaveled into session on Thursday, convening amid a partial government shutdown that stretched into half a month on Sunday over President Donald Trump’s demands for funding for a wall along the border with Mexico.
With the Democrats sweeping back to power in the House and the unprecedented high turnover rate of the Republican president’s Cabinet staff, some US media have predicted that Trump’s first two years may ultimately look calm compared with what lies ahead.
However, some political scientists have argued that it’s going to be more of the same in the next two years, with the Trump administration increasingly consumed and distracted by the multiplying investigations.
While nobody has a crystal ball to see the future, one thing seems certain: Legislative gridlock may be a normal on Capitol Hill, as shown in the first days of the new session.
On Day 1, the Democrats, with veteran Nancy Pelosi at the helm, quickly planned to pass measures to reopen the government, but without providing additional funding for the border wall that Trump has demanded.
“We’re not doing a wall,” said Pelosi, who was elected as House speaker for the second time. “A wall is an immorality between countries. It’s an old way of thinking; it isn’t cost-effective.”
The measures were expected to go nowhere in the Senate, whose Republican majority was bolstered following the November midterm election. Pelosi said Democrats would pass new legislation to try to reopen parts of the government this week, after talks between the Trump administration and Democratic negotiators ended on Saturday with no breakthrough.
On Friday, House Democrats unveiled a sweeping elections and ethics reform package that would make it easier for citizens to register and vote, tighten election security and reduce the role of money in politics.
The legislation would also require presidents to disclose at least 10 years’ worth of tax returns. Some analysts said this was a direct response to Trump’s refusal to release his.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, pronounced the reform measure dead on arrival in the Senate.
Another effort of the Democrats, a push for gun control, was expected to meet the same fate.
Pelosi and her colleagues were expected to introduce a bill on Tuesday — the eighth anniversary of the day that former Democratic Representative Gabby Giffords was shot in the head at a constituent meeting in Arizona — to expand background checks for sales and transfers of firearms.
The background-check measure is likely to face opposition from the Republican-controlled Senate and the White House.
Mark C. Rom, associate professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, said Democrats are likely to launch many congressional investigations, which he said would be part of larger strategies.
Cal Jillson, a political scientist and historian at Southern Methodist University, said subpoena-wielding House Democrats are expected to initiate myriad investigations, including questioning Trump Cabinet members and
We’re not doing a wall ... It’s an old way of thinking; it isn’t cost-effective.” Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat and speaker of the House
officials and other administration leaders.
The investigations will be a distraction from the administration’s ability to pursue its initiatives, he said.
Stanley Renshon, a political scientist at City University of New York, said Democrats, with control over the House, will be able to issue subpoenas to make, or try to make, President Trump’s life more difficult.
But what Trump will face after the Democrats’ takeover in the House is “not really going to be all that much different than what he faced before”, Renshon said.
“They’ve been trying to do that for the last two years, so he’s had a lot of practice,” Renshon said. “I see it as more of the same. It’s going to be a very fraught couple of years.
“The problem for him really is not so much the Democrats; the problem is the American public,” he said, explaining that while Trump likes a fight, Americans don’t.
Renshon’s comments contrast with a New York Times report that quoted Michael Steel, a longtime adviser to such Republicans as former House speakers Paul Ryan and John A. Boehner, as saying of Trump, “Nothing he’s going to face in the next two years is going to be like the challenges of the previous two years.”
Given the staff turnover — he is on his third chief of staff and third national security adviser — and the increasing feeling by Trump that he is encircled or cornered by legal and political enemies, “it’s entirely possible it gets worse, not better”, Steel told the newspaper on Dec 22, the day the partial federal government shutdown began.
The problem for him really is not so much the Democrats; the problem is the American public.”
Stanley Renshon, political scientist at City University of New York