Can Any President Succeed with an Obstructionist Congress?

In the heated debate of which Democratic candidate is most likely to succeed as President of the United States, the issue of an obstructionist Congress has come up again and again and again. Secretary Clinton and her camp are hammering home that because she has extensive experience in today’s political landscape — be it as First Lady, Senator or Secretary of State — she is most likely to accomplish desirable goals from the White House. Bernie Sanders and his campaign argue that electing him is part of a larger political change necessary, one that should inspire more progressive candidates like him to run for Congress as well as state and local office. Without that “political revolution,” Sanders says, no change of much value to the working classes of America is going to happen anyway.

The essential point is that if either of these candidates gets elected, their immediate prospects of having a cooperative Congress are not optimistic. Which leads to the obvious parallel in our recent history: President Obama and the current Congress. I would ask each of you, particularly those who voted for him, do you consider President Obama’s latest term successful? Do you think he has “gotten things done”? It is a serious question, and one that we should all give considerable thought.

In the second term, perhaps the biggest influence Obama had in the matter was supporting marriage equality in his public remarks and in maintaining the Justice Department’s direction. There was work done, to be sure, but from one perspective the biggest thing President Obama did to drive the decision was to get re-elected.

It is useful to consider major accomplishments of the Obama administration since 2012. Here are a few worth mentioning:

• Negotiated the end to Iran’s nuclear arms program
• Signed the “Every Student Succeeds Act” into law.
• Praised the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing marriage equality.
• Sign the TPA and the TAA into law, enabling fast-track of the Trans Pacific Partnership.

Let’s be candid. The TPP is highly controversial, and passage of the TPA and TAA was widely supported by Republicans, not Democrats. I don’t know a single progressive Democrat who supports TPP, and in the context of significant achievements by a Democratic president it doesn’t really belong. To many of us, this is a demerit, not a credit.

The marriage equality decision certainly came about to some degree because of Obama’s choices, but the important choices were made in his first term. His appointment of Sonia Sotomayor and Elene Kagan preserved more progressive seats on the Supreme Court. His decision to have the Justice Department not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act led to the Court eventually reversing earlier state decisions in Obergefell v. Hodges. In the second term, perhaps the biggest influence Obama had in the matter was supporting marriage equality in his public remarks and in maintaining the Justice Department’s direction. There was work done, to be sure, but from one perspective the biggest thing President Obama did to drive the decision was to get re-elected. That was no small feat, of course, and shouldn’t be underestimated. Nor should the impact of being a President who supports an idea despite howling opposition from his Congress.

The agreement put an end to Iran’s “efforts to acquire the capability to build nuclear weapons” that had been ongoing for more than two decades. Unlike the education and the TAA agreements with Congress, this one bypassed them altogether, and has resulted in a storm of criticism from conservatives. In that respect, this negotiation with a very hostile government is without a doubt the greatest achievement of President Obama’s final term to date.

The passage of “The Every Student Succeeds Act” was the most legislatively bipartisan accomplishment of President Obama’s second term. It replaced “No Child Left Behind” and the highly unpopular “Race to the Top” program, and sent “significant power back to states and local districts while maintaining limited federal oversight of education.” That this was a bill giving states more power, it isn’t stunning the Republicans were enthusiastic about it. Hoping to reduce the “teach to the test” mentality that George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” imposed, legislators have given states much more latitude on how to weigh test scores and evaluate teachers. While there is still concern that some states might prop up private and charter schools with tax dollars at the expense of public schools, the move is more positive than negative. How this pans out remains to be seen. For Obama, it wasn’t a minor accomplishment; however, it wasn’t a significantly “liberal” or “progressive” one either.

Lastly, the administration’s negotiation of the Iran Nuclear Arms Treaty stands head and shoulders above the others in this discussion because so much of the negotiation has actually happened during the President’s second term. The agreement put an end to Iran’s “efforts to acquire the capability to build nuclear weapons” that had been ongoing for more than two decades. Unlike the education and the TAA agreements with Congress, this one bypassed them altogether, and has resulted in a storm of criticism from conservatives. In that respect, this negotiation with a very hostile government is without a doubt the greatest achievement of President Obama’s final term to date. It is historic, and has tremendous potential to chill the antagonism between Iran and the U.S. in the future. Such accomplishments are risky, but extraordinarily optimistic. We can only hope things go as well in years to come as they have in the early months of the agreement.

So these are the major achievements of the second term. The first term is rife with them, by contrast, but of course for much of that President Obama had a cooperative Congress. Second terms are notoriously less successful. For the sake of our argument, however, it is important to have reviewed Obama’s.

The takeaway is this: With a Republican-led Congress that is led by its nose by extremists, this President’s second term has had limited legislative success. By comparison to his first term, legislative wins have been ridiculously anemic. Of course, estimations that this Congress will change substantially are prohibitively conservative. I’m not saying it won’t or can’t be radically changed; I’m just repeating the general consensus of our media. (Which isn’t necessarily the same as the truth on the ground.) If that holds true in next November’s elections, the next President will face no less obstinate and disagreeable a Congress than Obama has this term.

We can expect little legislatively from either candidate if they actually become President. That’s a realistic assessment. One choice holds the possibility of some improved laws, but the question is what are the character and value of those “improvements” when they are compromises made with such intransigent extremists on the Right?

So what would that President accomplish if he or she is a Democrat?

If the candidate is a centrist, perhaps we might expect more accomplishments like “Every Student Succeeds” and perhaps full passage of the TPP. Perhaps we’ll get a slightly watered-down version of the TPP instead.

Maybe we’ll get a $10/hour minimum wage after all the compromising is done with Republicans.

Maybe, just maybe, we’ll get some incremental action in the courts toward repealing Citizens United; but hoping that Republicans will turn off the money faucet is an awfully sunny expectation.

Odds are good that we won’t get significant legislative action on institutional racism, income inequality, police brutality, gun control, women’s rights, civil rights, voting rights, or a host of other progressive issues that are of great concern to Democratic and Independent voters.

Ask yourself if that would satisfy you.

If that candidate is a progressive, a democratic socialist even, what might we expect? You can expect a veto of the TPP, and enough support from the left wing of the Democratic party to sustain that veto.

You can expect a brutal fight over raising the minimum wage to something far closer to $15/hour, and a sustained public support for that fight by a growing grassroots movement. We may not get it legislatively; but if we don’t, the Republicans will come out bruised and more clearly aligned against working class Americans than ever before.

You can expect a brutal assault on Citizens United, again backed by a vocal and energetic young electorate that is willing to give their own money to fight against corporate corruption. Again, we may not get the legislation we want to even hit the floor of the Senate and House, but it will be a blistering public fight with a President who has shown this is one of the most important causes in his platform.

You can expect, and may likely get, actual legislation to reform criminal justice in this country.

You can expect four years of a President educating the public about how much money they are still wasting on their healthcare, if they can afford it at all. You can expect an electorate in 2020 that has learned that America is being ripped off by insurance companies and that if their Congressmen aren’t ready to fight for single-payer healthcare, they will be replaced.

You can expect four years of President working to end the extortion of our college students with ridiculously high tuition and endless high-interest rate loans. You can expect that in four years, if things haven’t changed, we will know how to change them by electing representatives that will do better for us.

Again, ask yourself if that would satisfy you.

My point is this: We can expect little legislatively from either candidate if they actually become President. That’s a realistic assessment. One choice holds the possibility of some improved laws, but the question is what are the character and value of those “improvements” when they are compromises made with such intransigent extremists on the Right?

The other choice holds the possibility of accomplishments like the Iran Nuclear Arms Deal, which is arguably the most significant of Obama’s second term. If one or two of the domestic issues that are killing the middle class could be addressed as successfully, that would be a huge win. Accomplishments aren’t always executed by legislation, and those that aren’t sometimes make far greater impact than the kind of legislation we so often endure today.

A President can succeed working against Congress. A President can also fail miserably by working with an extremist Congress like the one we have today. The choice is ours. Which one inspires you with the most confidence?