How Biden could steer a divided government
It’s easy to imagine ways Joe Biden’s presidency might open badly. COVID-19 may still be spiking. The economy could slip into recession. Mitch McConnell might still control the Senate. Donald Trump will be unleashed as National Narrator blasting everything.
Things don’t get much better in the unlikely event Democrats capture both of Georgia’s Senate seats. Republicans will go into opposition mode, and nothing will pass when 60 votes are needed to overcome a filibuster. Democrats will try to govern with a razor-thin majority.
How can Biden and team deal with this challenging circumstance?
One way was proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren: Use executive orders. She suggested some obvious moves Biden absolutely should make on day one — like reentering the Paris climate accord — but also suggested some big and expensive unilateral policy changes: raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15, canceling billions of dollars in student debt.
Opening the Biden era by stiff-arming Congress could knock the legs out from the Biden presidency.
Biden will have to get a COVID-19 relief package through Congress. Signaling that you’re going to insult the Constitution and govern by executive order doesn’t seem like an ideal way to win congressional support. Second, uniting the country was at the core of the Biden campaign. He has to at least try to fix that.
Democrats underperformed in congressional races because voters hate political correctness, “defund the police” and “socialism.”
A better approach would, next, be about finding policy measures that can win 60 Senate votes. I spoke to Sen. Mitt Romney last week, and he ticked off a series of areas where he was optimistic the parties could work together: fix prescription drug pricing and end surprise billing; an immigration measure that helps the Dreamers; green energy measures.
Oren Cass of American Compass, which is Republican-leaning, pointed out that there were a lot of newly emerging issues. Common action could be envisioned there: an infrastructure bank, reshoring U.S. supply chains so we’re not so dependent on China, expanding noncollege career pathways, industrial policy to benefit the Midwestern manufacturing base.
Getting them to the Senate floor for a vote under McConnell would be harder. His priority has always been winning GOP majorities. First, Biden could try to convince McConnell it’s in his interest to allow votes, at least in the first year. It wouldn’t look great if they achieved nothing.
Second, deal-making and moderate senators could form bipartisan gangs around specific issues and try to force McConnell’s hand. Reelected senators like Susan Collins have potentially immense power in a closely divided body.
Many senators of both parties are already frustrated by how many possibly successful bills simply get bottled up and never reach a vote. “I don’t know what the calculation is that goes on in the mind of the leaders about what to take to the floor, but we don’t vote on a lot of legislation,” Romney told me.
The threat of executive orders comes in handy. If the White House makes a good-faith effort to work in a bipartisan way, if senators come together to craft legislation, and still nothing passes, then Biden will have more justification for doing what Warren suggests.
“If the Senate refuses to tackle the major issues, then the president will, and he’ll just issue executive orders,” Romney said. “Just saying ‘no’ doesn’t enhance our power. It’s a way to cede power.”
Given the likely division of power, Biden is not going to lead an FDRstyle New Deal administration. But there is a path for him to pass a series of important pieces of legislation that would help millions of Americans. More than that, he has a chance to take a dysfunctional system of government and turn it into a humane and functioning one. That in itself would be a miracle.