[America Future 2030 - The Future of American Hegemony: Where is America Headed After Trump?] IV. The U.S. Executive Branch and Executive-Legislative Relations, and the Future of America

Editor's Note

As the fourth report in the "America Future 2030" special commentary series, a working paper by Professor Lee Jong-gon of Ewha Womans University, which tracks changes in U.S. congressional politics and presidential-congressional relations and looks ahead to the future of the U.S. executive branch, has been published. In this paper, the author argues that partisan polarization between the Democratic and Republican parties since the 1980s has become the most representative phenomenon in American politics, leading to severe legislative gridlock in the U.S. Congress. However, the author points out the limitations of existing literature in understanding the changing landscape of U.S. congressional politics and utilizes the 'Trump Score' to examine how voting behavior varies by party, faction, and chamber (House and Senate) on issues where President Trump clearly expressed his stance for or against. The author discusses how intra-party factions are diversifying within presidential-congressional relations, asserting that it is unreasonable to explain current and future U.S. congressional politics solely through the frame of partisan polarization.

※ The following is the introduction to this working paper. Please refer to the attached file at the bottom for the full text.

Introduction

Since the 1990s, most research defining U.S. congressional politics or presidential-congressional relations has largely focused on party polarization, divided government and legislative gridlock, and unilateral executive actions, including the promulgation and amendment of executive orders. The intensification of the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s led to an increase in civic groups with specific ideologies. As the political influence of these groups grew in elections, the ideologies of party members gradually shifted from moderate to more progressive/conservative stances. Consequently, party polarization intensified, and under divided government, this polarization significantly hindered the formation of public law through Congress (Binder, 1999; Jones, 2001). During this process, the agenda-setting power for government policy began to shift from congressional standing committees to political parties. Furthermore, the president, who could make policy decisions without congressional consent through vetoes and unilateral actions on bills passed by Congress, solidified their position as party leaders, playing a significant role in agenda setting (Devins, 2017). Particularly, as partisan confrontation intensified in the 2010s, not only did major bills fail to pass Congress, but prolonged government shutdowns occurred due to a lack of bipartisan consensus on key presidential agendas related to healthcare and immigration. As a result, presidents have resorted to various unilateral actions, including executive orders, to make policy decisions, bypassing Congress (Howell, 2003; Ostrander & Sievert, 2013; Rottinghaus & Warber, 2015).

While these existing academic discussions accurately depict the broad strokes of current U.S. congressional politics and presidential-congressional relations, they do not fully capture all the changes occurring within the U.S. congressional political process. For instance, even in the late 2010s, a period of intense partisan polarization, members of Congress from both the Democratic and Republican parties frequently cast votes contrary to their party's mainstream views. For example, after the Trump administration took office in 2017, the Republican Party's mainstream position was to quickly pass legislation to weaken the Affordable Care Act (ACA). However, due to opposition from a significant number of Republican members of Congress, the bill underwent several revisions, and many Republican lawmakers ultimately voted against it. Specifically, when the American Health Care Act (H.R. 1628) was introduced in the 115th Congress, President Trump himself urged Republican members to vote in favor, yet twenty Republican House members voted against the bill. Similarly, in the 116th Congress, despite President Trump's strong opposition to the Senate Joint Resolution 7, which called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Yemen, sixteen House members voted in favor of the resolution. Furthermore, the observation that the number of presidential unilateral actions, including executive orders, has not significantly increased despite partisan polarization and legislative gridlock contradicts mainstream academic views. While unilateral executive actions, including executive orders, saw a dramatic surge during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, their frequency decreased considerably under the Barack Obama administration. For instance, the number of executive orders, which stood at 381 during Ronald Reagan's presidency, decreased slightly during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations before falling to 276 under Barack Obama. Similarly, signing statements, which averaged around 20 per year during George W. Bush's tenure, dropped to fewer than 5 per year under the Obama administration.

These trends, which diverge from mainstream academic perspectives, demonstrate that while partisan polarization, legislative gridlock, and presidential unilateral action are significant aspects of current U.S. congressional politics, they do not encompass the entirety of the American congressional political landscape. Particularly when attempting to predict U.S. congressional politics and presidential-congressional relations a decade or two from now, rather than from the present moment of 2019, it is crucial to identify the nascent changes within existing political behaviors. Therefore, this paper aims to trace the changes in U.S. congressional politics and presidential-congressional relations that cannot be explained by existing viewpoints alone, to identify emerging shifts, and to explore their implications for the future.

■ Author: Lee Jong-gon_ Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Ewha Womans University. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from UC Berkeley. His main research areas include bureaucratic politics and policy-making. His recent publications include Faction Polarization and Ideological Realignment in South Korea (2018), Network Ties and Congressional Delegation to U.S. Federal Agencies (2018), and Executive-Legislative Conflict and Regulation Outcomes: The Case of the U.S. FCC (2016).

■ Contact and Editing: Lee Young-hyun EAI Research Fellow

Inquiries: 02 2277 1683 (ext. 207) ylee@eai.or.kr

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Attachment: 4.Lee Jong-gon_The U.S. Executive Branch and Executive-Legislative Relations, and the Future of America.pdf