PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — It’s still up in the air which party will control the U.S. House of Representatives. GOP leadership is expressing confidence Republicans will win, while Democrats insist they still have a path to majority.
Unified party control would mean President-elect Donald Trump would have a lot of support on Capitol Hill.
“It often happens that people come in, and their legislators ride their coattails,” said Associate Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College Ben Berger.
He called unified government between the House, Senate and president “the trifecta” and said it used to be more common.
“The trifectas have been the norm, not the exception during most of the years since the modern party system began in the 19th century. It only became a lot more rare in the end of the 60s when southern states switched from Democrat to Republican.”
President Joe Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act during his trifecta period, President Barack Obama was able to get the Affordable Care Act approved during his and Trump made sweeping tax cuts in 2017 when he had his majority.
“You really have had some major legislative procedures happen during very short periods of trifecta in recent years,” Berger said, “and I think we can expect to see more of that right now.”
Berger says Trump’s cabinet approval process would be smoother with unified support, and the Senate would likely clear another Supreme Court nominee if someone retires.
“Trump is going to have the power in the first two years to pressure the two of the older justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, who are conservatives. But they could retire during these first two years of guaranteed GOP control of the Senate,” Berger said.
During his victory speech, Trump said he would keep the promises made during the campaign. Some of those pledges like, mass deportations and repealing the Affordable Care Act, would have little congressional resistance with a trifecta in his favor.