12.5: The President versus Congress

Congress does not always freely grant the president new statutory powers. Separation of powers and checks and balances were intended by the Founders to set Congress and the president against one another, and it’s clear that this design has succeeded in creating conflict.

Modern presidents run for office promising many policy changes, but many of those promises cannot be fulfilled without the cooperation of the legislative branch. This is most easily obtained – though not guaranteed – under unified government, when the president’s party also has majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Under divided government, when the president’s party lacks control of the House, the Senate, or both, policymaking often seems to be at a standstill. Laws passed under divided government tend to be smaller in scope and limited to the set of issues on which the Democratic and Republican parties can agree. As polarization has increased, that set has shrunk. Over the past century, the United States has experienced roughly equal amounts of unified and divided government (as depicted in Figure 12.1 below).

Figure 12.1: Unified and divided government, 1929–2025

One way the president can check congressional power is through vetoes, which successfully halt bills about 96% of the time when they are used (as depicted in Figure 12.2 below). The president can also limit Congress’s power when choosing how to enforce the laws it passes, a choice which he often signals in a signing statement published when the law is enacted. The president cannot outright refuse to comply with or openly defy laws passed by Congress, but his executive authority lets him decide how vigorously to enforce those laws.

Besides overriding vetoes, Congress can thwart the president through other means. With the power of the purse, it can withhold funding from the president’s preferred policies. The president proposes budgets to Congress, but Congress is free to ignore those proposals. Additionally, the Senate has the final say on presidential appointees and negotiated treaties, and can decline to confirm the former or ratify the latter.

The most extreme check Congress can use against the president is impeachment. To impeach is to formally accuse someone of wrongful conduct. The House of Representatives can, by majority vote, impeach the president or any federal officer for treason, bribery, or high crimes and misdemeanors, according to Article II. The impeached member of the executive branch is then tried in the Senate, with the chief justice of the United States presiding if (and only if) the president is the one being impeached. A two-thirds majority vote of the Senate is required to remove an impeached president from office. (Article II specifies that presidential pardons do not apply in cases of impeachment, so impeached presidents cannot thwart their removal with a pardon.)Note

The Constitution does not specify what exactly counts as “high crimes and misdemeanors” for impeachment purposes. It is up to the House to determine whether a presidential action constitutes an impeachable offense.

Impeachment has only been used against a president four times in American history. Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 for firing his Secretary of War. Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998 for lying to Congress about his sexual affair with a White House intern. Donald Trump was impeached twice, once in 2019 for abusing his power to arrange a foreign investigation of his electoral opponent Joe Biden, and once in 2021 for inciting rioters to storm the U.S. Capitol. All four impeachments ended in acquittal by the Senate. No president has ever been removed from office through the impeachment process. (In 1974, anticipating an impeachment for his involvement in the Watergate burglary, Richard Nixon instead chose to resign, becoming the only president ever to do so.)

Figure 12.2: Total vetoes by president (Source: U.S. Senate)