The Long and Extremely Urgent To-Do List if Democrats Take the House

In the 1972 movie The Candidate, Bill McKay, played by Robert Redford, shockingly wins a Senate seat. Surrounded by ecstatic staff and volunteers, a stunned and panicky McKay pulls aside his manager and asks, “What do we do now?”

That will be the relevant question for Democrats in the House and Senate if the wave election that looks increasingly possible comes true and they win control of both houses of Congress. There will be initial euphoria from everybody hoping to put a halt to the nihilism and march toward corrupt autocracy driven by the destructive narcissist Donald Trump and his minions.

But the euphoria won’t last. The task for a party holding Congress and facing a hostile president with no regard for laws, norms, or the Constitution and its separation of powers—and a Supreme Court that has unleashed him—will be daunting. If Democrats in the majority don’t handle it well, their majority may not last long—and the country’s democracy and well-being will suffer deeply.

Start with three big challenges. First, a lot of those who voted for Democrats are expecting action to improve their economic conditions: Run on affordability, you better improve affordability. Second, and related, with Democrats holding a sizable piece of power in Washington, the failures of policy driven by the reckless Trump and his administration could be blamed on them—and it is a sure thing that hundreds of millions will be spent by Trump allies to try to pin the problems on the Democrats. Americans already think Washington isn’t working; if it looks like Democrats are a part of the problem and not of the solution, that could have brutal consequences in 2028.

Third, it is clear that the Democratic Party base wants toughness and serious pushback against the corruption, misconduct, and mayhem that are the core of Trump’s presidency. Witness the negative reaction to the private meeting between House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, looking for areas of possible common ground after January 3. Rank-and-file Democrats want pushback, not compromise. Of course, compromise will be necessary to meet the first challenge of improving people’s economic circumstances. But if it is not led by Democrats using every tool at their disposal to name names, kick ass, and stop further destruction, there will be hell to pay with the base.

What are those tools? I see six of them. First, of course, is lawmaking: the ability to pass bills and get them enacted into law—or if not, to lay down markers of what you would do if in full power, and what the other side wants to negate or block. That includes putting restraints on ICE to limit and hold it accountable for its predations, reducing or removing Trump’s tariff disasters, restoring defense readiness and making sure we are ready for twenty-first-century warfare, rebuilding our food and drug safety capacity to account for the serial lapses, among other things.

And to accomplish these goals without being stymied by GOP filibusters, consider reforming the Senate’s Rule XXII, not by eliminating the filibuster but by putting the onus on the minority by flipping the numbers—41 required to continue debate, not 60 required to end it.

Second, and related, is the power of the purse: the ability to tax and spend, to replenish programs that have been slashed or eliminated, to cut funds from programs bloated and misused by a president, and to put restrictions on how dollars are redirected from the purpose specified by Congress (see Park Service maintenance used instead for Trump vanity projects, and money earmarked for minority health protections used for RFK Jr.’s security). The power is also there to increase or cut taxes on different categories and groups.

Using reconciliation, which requires only a majority in the Senate, Democrats can pass and send to Trump tough spending measures to right the balance toward decency and the rule of law—but vetoes and confrontation over appropriations bills and continuing resolutions to keep the government funded will likely lead to possible government shutdowns. Democrats cannot afford to blink and concede to Trump on these.

Third is investigations and oversight: to dig into wrongdoing, corruption, lawbreaking, and malfeasance inside and out of government, along with the failure to see that the laws are faithfully executed. Fourth, and related, is the bully pulpit:the ability to use debate on the floor and in committees, and the megaphone provided by the legitimacy of Congress, to report to the public what you are doing and to shed light on failures or gaps in norms, laws, and policy. Fifth is advice and consent in the Senate: the power to examine the qualifications and character of presidential nominees for federal courts and executive positions, and to reject those unworthy of confirmation. Sixth is impeachment: the power in the House to hold miscreants to account and recommend their removal to the Senate.

So what do they do if and when “now” occurs? It can start with accountability. That means hearings that bring in—via subpoena, if necessary—every miscreant who violated the law, implemented disastrous policy, grifted, or lied to Congress. It also requires changing the rules to change the nature of the hearings—no more of the tired, disjointed, and ineffectual five minutes of questions for the majority, five for the minority, with each majority member freelancing without coherence and witnesses able to bob and weave and filibuster for five minutes, followed by a five-minute breather from a friendly questioner. Do 30 minutes at a time, with the initial questions done by expert staff to establish the predicates for the hearing and frame the inquiry, and disciplined and coordinated questions by majority members in each 30-minute interval to follow.

One important reason for the hearings is to use Congress’s power to document the violations of law and norms by virtually every Cabinet member, key White House staffers, and nongovernment employees sent to negotiate with foreign governments. If witnesses refuse repeatedly to appear under subpoena, and they are held in contempt of Congress, no reliance on referring them to Todd Blanche’s Justice Department. In extreme cases, order the Capitol Police to arrest them and create holding cells in the Capitol. That is clearly within the power of Congress.

It also has to include making sure that the statute of limitations does not run out on illegal acts perpetrated by anyone in the federal government or among private contractors or private citizens carrying out illegal acts on behalf of the administration or with cover from it, from perjury to assault to murder to bribery to grift and insider trading. And it means passing reforms to block further misuse of office and to punish corrupt actors. If Republicans filibuster those reforms, or Trump vetoes them, hold them accountable in every venue for the cover-ups. And see above for the best way to restore the original meaning of the filibuster.

It should also include selective impeachment—not of the president, which would be a fool’s errand, but of Cabinet and other officials who have sullied their offices and endangered the security and health of Americans and of our national security. Among those who should be first in line: Pete Hegseth, Todd Blanche, RFK Jr., Russell Vought, Brooke Rollins, Kash Patel, Brendan Carr, Doug Burgum, Howard Lutnick, and Bill Pulte. Even if none would be convicted by the Senate, where a two-thirds vote is required, the process of bringing forward articles of impeachment detailing their corruption, malfeasance, illegalities, and failures, much of it to be documented in the hearings above, with debate on the floor of the House, would serve to underscore the devastation wrought by this horrific administration—and force House Republicans either to endorse the monstrous behavior or reject it. Of course, to make impeachment effective, these need to be staggered so that the enormity of their individual perfidy can sink in before moving on to the next.

Next comes a positive agenda. The policy part can include golden oldies like free community college and subsidized childcare, but it requires a fresh approach to the substantive challenges the country faces. That has to include reducing barriers to implementing policies like infrastructure, and addressing festering problems like housing shortages, childcare, the health crises amplified by radical cuts in Medicaid and the removal of tens of millions from health insurance, the climate crisis, the threats from AI, and ways to reduce the burgeoning inequality. Relying less on bureaucracy and regulations and more on creative ways of empowering individuals and implementing public-private partnerships and relationships is necessary. So is finding ways to protect women and reproductive health, and righting the wrongs against all minorities. Lots of groups are working on fresh approaches to our biggest problems. Whether laws get passed and enacted or not, the agenda has to be available for presidential candidates to embrace in 2028.

The second part of that agenda is reforms both to curb abuses and to reboot a broken political system. In the former category, we need to repeal or curb the Insurrection Act, repeal or restrict the myriad emergency powers granted the president, always under the assumption that the president would act in the national interest, an assumption that no longer holds. We need to reform the Inspectors General Act to make it far harder for the president to negate any independent oversight of wrongdoing in agencies; the Vacancies Act, which lets a president bypass the Senate’s advice and consent power, which Trump has repeatedly abused; and there is an urgent need to restore the agencies and powers that regulate ethical standards throughout the government. That includes strengthening the Hatch Act to keep political figures from using their positions for partisan political purposes.

It also includes hearings, and possibly an attempt at a constitutional amendment, to restrain the presidential pardon power, which Trump has despoiled into a pay-to-play scheme. An amendment that makes clear a president cannot pardon himself and that pardons in return for favors can be rejected by the courts should be a slam dunk.

Congress should also revisit the Budget and Impoundment Control Act to make it even more clear that the illegal use of “pocket rescissions” by Russell Vought and Trump to negate the congressional power of the purse is out of bounds; to require presidents to distribute to all states, not just the ones he likes, federal aid that uses allocation formulas; and to institute criminal penalties, with extended statutes of limitations, for officers of the Postal Service and the IRS if they use their positions for partisan purposes. It should alter the law to make clear that presidents cannot change the White House, other federal buildings, or federal property without approval from an independent body that is not under presidential control.

Congress should also work on reforming itself and fixing the parts of the election and voting system broken by Trump and John Roberts. These measures would include: enlarging the House by 150 from its current 435 members; repealing the 1967 law requiring single-member districts and creating opportunities for multimember districts with ranked-choice voting; reforming the redistricting process to require independent commissions in every state; adding not just Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico as states but also considering the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa; re-passing a tough and meaningful Voting Rights Act and campaign finance reform to overcome the outrageous Shelby County and Citizens United decisions; and taking away the power of antidemocratic billionaires to swamp the system with money and buy policies that enrich them more. Laying out markers, at least, for adjusting the imbalances in a Constitution built for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, not one where soon 70 percent of Americans will live in just 15 states, should be on the to-do list.

Supreme Court reform should be high on the agenda, starting with something that might actually get enacted—a tough and enforceable code of ethics for rogue justices who have repeatedly shown disdain for ethical standards. The code that Chief Justice John Roberts put in effect after sustained criticism is hollow and unenforceable. A code that uses an independent office of judicial ethics, akin to the Office of Congressional Ethics, consisting of former judges and judicial ethics experts, to examine allegations of unethical behavior and recommend appropriate remedies to the Judicial Conference that now oversees lower level federal judges, with the requirement that the Judicial Conference explain in writing if it refuses to adopt those recommendations, should be a part of it.

But there is more. There is overwhelming public support for term limits for justices; Congress should pass a bill calling for 18-year terms, effective upon enactment, with justices then given options of senior status or continued service on a special court of appeals, to fit the constitutional provision of service during good behavior. If it is enacted, for the Roberts court to try to negate it would be a blatant conflict of interest, worth challenging. Consideration of enlarging the Supreme Court to 13, to fit the 13 circuits, with the term limits then extended to 26 years, should be on the agenda. And if the Roberts court continues to bypass the Constitution to promote its radical unitary executive theory, protect Donald Trump, and negate congressional authority, it should at least hold hearings on returning the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction to the original specified in the Constitution: to wit, as Section 2, Article 2 states, “In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make. Congress has the power to create a new court of appeals to hold overall appellate authority.

One other idea, admittedly a stretch but not without grounding in history, is moving the Justice Department and attorney general out of the executive branch. The initial consideration of the Judiciary Act of 1793 had the attorney general chosen by the Supreme Court. If combined with court reform, it may be worth considering.

To make some or all of this happen, Democrats in the House and Senate need to do what they have failed to do up to now: create a unified and disciplined message to let Americans know what the problems are and what they are doing about them. Trump has learned from his friend Steve Bannon that if you flood the zone with outrages, they will wash over each other and few if any will stick. The media are ill equipped to handle it, and most voters, occupied with their own lives and challenges, are not paying close attention to every corrupt act or policy outrage. If Democrats, given the timidity of the press corps and its predilection to both-sides issues and let Trump define the narrative, do not develop a discipline that includes changing the old ways of doing business and communicating, their tenure in power will be short and brutal. The way to counter the zone is to have one message pursued relentlessly for at least a week at a time.

That starts with creating a message group; a collection of lawmakers from both houses to meet at least every week to craft a message for the week, from Trump selling national security for money or favors to Republicans blowing up health insurance and access for millions of Americans; to RFK Jr. and his allies undermining responses to epidemics and pandemics and causing deaths from measles and other ailments; to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins shredding food safety; to the American gestapo tactics of Steven Miller, Tom Homan, and ICE; to the deterioration of national parks as Trump drains their money to pay for his perks. The message is not just the outrage but what Democrats say they will do about it, from holding miscreants accountable to proposing solutions to policy failures.

Each week should start with a press conference, followed by coordinated speeches in morning hours, on each floor during regular business, in special orders in the evening, in as many committees with hearings and markups that are relevant to the issue of the week, and with TV, radio, and social media appearances and podcasts, including by their allies outside Congress. If the solution is legislation that passes the House but is stymied by a filibuster in the Senate, there has to be a strong and sustained element to the message that remedies are being blocked by the same Republicans who caused the problem in the first place.

Another innovation should be regular weekly prime-time debates on key issues, primed to the message of the week, on the House and Senate floors, with perhaps two members on each side, to show that Congress is serious about the importance of debate and dialogue, and to highlight in some cases the complexities of resolving complex problems at home and abroad. If Republican lawmakers boycott, replace them with outside experts—say, former member Bob Inglis of South Carolina, a conservative who believes in market solutions for the problem of climate change. And the debates do not always have to pit Democrats against Republicans. The debates can go on YouTube and be used as springboards for media coverage and even use in classrooms and elsewhere.

Of course, a lot of this is easier said than done. If Democrats win majorities in both houses, but they are razor-thin, it may be difficult to do much other than holding hearings, and discipline might be a bridge too far. In any case, it will require a different mindset than we have seen from the leaders in both House and Senate. But the road map to relevance and an ability to turn the ship of state away from its current disastrous course is pretty clear. We know what they should do when the time comes. Let’s hope for the sake of decency and democracy that they have both the opportunity—and the will—to seize the moment.

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