What Can We Stop a Hostile House of Representatives
The Event | Historical Lessons for a President Forced to Deal With a Hostile Congress
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/eleven/05/upshot/historical-lessons-for-a-president-forced-to-deal-with-a-hostile-congress.html
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Historical Lessons for a President Forced to Deal With a Hostile Congress
So what does President Obama do at present? Mod presidential history suggests at least three plans of action for a president faced with an opposition Firm and Senate.
1. When the Republicans took Congress in 1994, for the first time in almost a one-half century, Bill Clinton, facing re-election, searched for ways to cooperate with Republicans on domestic policy, such as an overhaul of welfare and the quest for a balanced budget. Such a strategy may be harder for President Obama, because the next Congress will feature more conservative firebrands than did Bob Dole'south Senate and Newt Gingrich'southward House of Representatives.
two. Afterward losing the Senate in 1986, which gave the entire Congress to the Democrats, Ronald Reagan worked with the opposition to achieve arms control and other strange policy measures that helped to end the Cold War. This was made easier by the fact that Reagan'due south optimism about working with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was probably shared by more than Democrats than Republicans (some of whom referred to the president as a "useful idiot" exploited past the Kremlin.) To some extent, Reagan was following the 1947 playbook of Harry Truman. Later losing Congress to the Republicans, Truman worked with the other party to enact the foundation stones of his containment policy confronting the Soviet Union, such as the Marshall Plan and assistance to Greece and Turkey. President Obama may be able to constitute a like customs of interest with some Republicans on certain world issues in the next two years.
3. Responding to increased Democratic command of Congress after the 1974 midterms (fueled, in office, by public outrage over the Watergate scandals), Gerald Ford, hoping to win a full term in the White House, decided to make frequent utilise of his veto power. He vetoed more than bills during the 94th Congress than any other president during any other two-year period we take seen during the past half century. Ford's veto record is all the more surprising, in retrospect, considering as House Republican leader, he was known for his willingness to compromise with Autonomous presidents. The reason he became so antagonistic was that directorate told him that frequent vetoes would suggest to conservatives in his party that he was not as moderate as they thought, and show Americans that he had dust and spine. They too persuaded him that such a veto strategy would convey to the voters that the Democratic bills Ford vetoed must take been awfully "extreme" if they had moved the mild-mannered Ford to stand up to them. Ford hoped that this would position him well for re-election in 1976, encouraging Americans to requite him their support as the best manner of holding dorsum a "radical" Autonomous Congress. The Democratic nominee of 2016, whoever she or he is, might want President Obama to prefer the Ford veto strategy for the same reason: It would requite the party'southward nominee the opportunity to argue that in 2017, only a Democratic president tin hold back the excesses of a Republican-controlled House and Senate.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/upshot/historical-lessons-for-a-president-forced-to-deal-with-a-hostile-congress.html
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