History has taught us that the worst possible scenario in Congress is a Republican House of Representatives and Democratic Senate.
Since 2011, we have had this scenario, and it has been a total disaster as the GOP has made it impossible to deal with the aftermath of the Great Recession.
The last time we had such a scenario is a century and a half earlier in 1859-1861, when James Buchanan was President, and the GOP was a new party, and anarchy and chaos reigned in the nation’s capital.
When we have had a Democratic House and Republican Senate as under William Howard Taft (1911-1913), Herbert Hoover (1931-1933), and Ronald Reagan (1981-1987), all Republican Presidents, some progress and cooperation has been possible.
Notice that when Buchanan was in office, and Obama now, it was Democratic Presidents facing an impossible situation with a party dedicated to no cooperation at all on anything!
While the Republican Party of the 1850s was more to be admired for principles, the fact is that Republican control of the lower House has led to stalemate and gridlock.
One could argue that even if the GOP won the Senate, it would not change things much, as the requirement for a 60 vote majority to invoke cloture and overcome a filibuster makes the Senate always a problem in any situation, but the power of the purse in the House makes that chamber MORE important to control.
So for Obama’s last two years, control of the House, which brought about more productivity in 2009-2010 than any modern Congress, and was under Democratic control, is more urgent than control of the US Senate.
And when the opposition party has controlled both houses of Congress, as has occurred a lot in recent history, much more gets done than in a split Congress.
These are the facts of Congressional history, like it or not!