In the first time since the times of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a president has managed to shift the power in Congress to his party after serving only two years in office.
Republicans, thankfully, haven’t taken to gloating too effusively yet. They’re playing the role of the gracious winner. But a restrained glee is evident in the party leaders’ small amount of chattering to the press, and that glee should concern not only Democrats, but all Americans.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush would now “fight for his ideas and fight for his principles,” and Sen. Trent Lott, R-Mississippi said, “We’re ready to go to work. As I’ve said to others, ‘let’s roll.’ “
According to The New York Times, Republicans have begun to push the domestic agenda policies they weren’t able to pass over the past two years – one of tax cuts, anti-abortion legislation, creation of a vast homeland security department and the confirmation of conservative judges – “as they savored a sweep of the midterm elections that gave them complete control of the Capitol.”
Republican senators said they would like to use the final days of the current Congress to push through conservative nominees for appeals court judgeships who have been resisted by Democrats who controlled the Judiciary Committee for the past year and a half.
The United States may soon have an executive branch, a legislative branch and a judicial branch controlled by a single party.
Of the 77 million votes cast in this year’s election, only 41,000 – 22,000 in Missouri and 19,000 in New Hampshire – were the deciding factor in Republican control of the Senate. The United States is still a country equally divided between two parties – parties which have differing ideologies, but not drastically different.
Americans have seemingly given President Bush consent to push his conservative agenda on the rest of the country. Yes, Republicans and Democrats often compromise and work together to make things happen. However, if representatives and senators continue to vote along party lines (or at least close to them), conservative legislation will likely be the large percentage of that passed.
Republicans have an important choice to make. Do they exploit the slim margin of power given to them by taking advantage of the lack of gridlock by striking down already-passed liberal legislation and packing the judiciary with ultra-conservatives? Will the country wage full-fledged war on Iraq next week just because President Bush has an itch to do so?
Or do they acknowledge nearly half the nation still disagrees with their ideologies and continue to listen to both sides of the issues and compromise on what’s best for the country?
Americans should closely watch the behavior of Republicans over the next two years. In 1994, after Republicans regained control of Congress, their overtly conservative agenda was a large reason President Clinton’s re-election was secured.
If the party follows the same path over the next two years, Americans should voice their concern through rebalancing the power, and vote a Democrat into the executive office.
