What’s worse than a ‘do-nothing’ Congress? This one. 

Past presidents have treated unified government — that is, one-party control of the White House and Congress — as an opportunity to enact bold legislative agendas. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal reshaped banking protections and labor law and started Social Security. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society featured Medicare, Medicaid, civil rights and voting rights bills, as well as education reform. Barack Obama induced Congress to pass the Affordable Care Act, financial reform, and an $800 billion economic stimulus package. 

But the 119th Congress, rather than using control of Washington to legislate, has voluntarily surrendered power to a president eager to take it.

Presidents of both parties have stretched the limits of executive power. But the scale and scope of President Trump’s ambition, and the supine acquiescence of Republicans in both houses of Congress, pose a palpable threat to the separation of powers in the federal government, the defining principle in American democracy.   

Republicans’ principal legislative success this term is the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a package of tax breaks and deductions disproportionately benefiting wealthy Americans, paired with cuts to Medicaid, clean energy credits, and federal food assistance. 

Beyond that, Congress has mainly funded the government, including the annual defense appropriation, and approved a handful of narrow, partisan measures, such as the Laken-Riley Act, which requires the detention of non-citizens who have been convicted of certain crimes.

Despite repeated promises, Republicans have done little or nothing to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, pass a “massive” infrastructure program, reform drug pricing, or overhaul the immigration system.

Meanwhile, Trump has governed through executive orders, emergency declarations, agency directives, and........

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