Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany

In 1934, Pres­i­dent Franklin Roo­sevelt and the De­moc­rats won that year’s midterm elec­tions. Since 1938, on­ly the par­ties of two Pres­i­dents have not lost seats in the US Con­gress in midterm elec­tions. Those two ex­cep­tions were Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton (1998) and Pres­i­dent George W Bush (2002). Last Tues­day, the 88-year trend of midterm loss­es for in­cum­bent Pres­i­dents con­tin­ued.

The rar­i­ty of in­cum­bent Pres­i­dents win­ning midterm elec­tions dur­ing their time in of­fice in­vites us to con­sid­er how those Pres­i­dents con­tin­ued to gov­ern based on a de­sire by the US elec­torate for di­vid­ed gov­ern­ment.

Di­vid­ed gov­ern­ment is not a phe­nom­e­non that is eas­i­ly un­der­stood by many in our West­min­ster-White­hall sys­tem of gov­ern­ment, which is based on the dom­i­nance of a par­ty-con­trolled Ex­ec­u­tive over a par­ty-con­trolled Leg­is­la­ture.

In 2009, when Patrick Man­ning of­fered the op­tion to adopt an ex­ec­u­tive pres­i­den­cy that might re­sem­ble the Wash­ing­ton mod­el, the one-per cent elites were op­posed to it, as were some el­e­ments of the lo­cal po­lit­i­cal class. The elites nev­er want­ed di­vid­ed gov­ern­ment like the USA be­cause it can di­min­ish their par­ti­san con­trol of the po­lit­i­cal process. They turned against Man­ning in 2010, and he lost.

In the di­vid­ed gov­ern­ment of the Wash­ing­ton mod­el, the Pres­i­dent does not de­pend on a ma­jor­i­ty in Con­gress to sur­vive, while Con­gress is not con­trolled by the Pres­i­dent be­cause the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate are elect­ed sep­a­rate­ly.

The pow­er of the pres­i­den­tial ve­to is a ma­jor tool in the hands of the Pres­i­dent and can on­ly be over­rid­den if both Hous­es of Con­gress se­cure a two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty to over­come it.

As a con­se­quence, both sides of the po­lit­i­cal aisle in Wash­ing­ton will now be forced to com­pro­mise to get any­thing done—the Trump pres­i­den­tial ve­to ver­sus the De­mo­c­rat House and Sen­ate ma­jori­ties will cre­ate dead­lock. On­ly com­pro­mise and con­sen­sus will break it.

The for­eign pol­i­cy of the Unit­ed States will not change, as the Pres­i­dent is en­ti­tled to ex­er­cise his Ar­ti­cle 2 pow­ers un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, as all pre­vi­ous Pres­i­dents in this sit­u­a­tion have done. In cas­es where he must get the “ad­vice and con­sent” of the Sen­ate, he will have to re­sort to deal-mak­ing with Sen­a­tors to suc­ceed, as oth­ers have done be­fore him.

As far as gov­ern­ing is con­cerned, Pres­i­dent Trump may take a page out of the play­book of for­mer Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, who fa­mous­ly said in 2014 that “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone.” He used both to cir­cum­vent the then Re­pub­li­can Con­gress to gov­ern by ex­ec­u­tive or­der and pres­i­den­tial ve­to. Af­ter that state­ment, he ve­toed five bills in 2015 and five bills in 2016. His last 2016 ve­to was over­rid­den by a two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty in Con­gress.

It is more than like­ly that Pres­i­dent Trump will al­so gov­ern by ex­ec­u­tive or­der and pres­i­den­tial ve­to to cir­cum­vent the De­mo­c­rat-con­trolled Con­gress. He has al­ready said so pub­licly. This is noth­ing new in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics.

Of the 47 Pres­i­dents, on­ly Pres­i­dents John Adams, Thomas Jef­fer­son, John Quin­cy Adams, William Har­ri­son, Zachary Tay­lor, Mil­lard Fill­more, and James Garfield did not ve­to any leg­is­la­tion.

As far as T&T is con­cerned, life goes on as usu­al. The poli­cies of the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion will not change, as the gov­ern­ment was not, and is not, elect­ed by the US elec­torate. There are many who, be­cause of their op­po­si­tion to the Prime Min­is­ter, may want to sug­gest that the loss by the Re­pub­li­can Par­ty in the US midterms will ad­verse­ly af­fect her gov­ern­ment. It will not.

Her pol­i­cy po­si­tions are based on her own be­liefs and not any im­posed ex­ter­nal du­ty to sup­port a par­tic­u­lar line. The Cu­ba vote was based on her ear­li­er pub­licly stat­ed be­lief that the Cuban peo­ple have suf­fered be­cause of the failed ide­ol­o­gy of so­cial­ism rather than any US em­bar­go. That res­o­lu­tion has been vot­ed on every year since 1992 with the same neg­a­tive re­sult re­gard­less of the Pres­i­dent in the USA or the par­ty in pow­er in T&T. Any gov­ern­ment can de­vi­ate on that vote, as it is not an im­posed po­si­tion. On the ICC vote at the UN last week, An­tigua & Bar­bu­da, Do­mini­ca, Haiti and St Kitts-Nevis joined T&T in ab­stain­ing, while Ja­maica was ab­sent. A def­i­nite Cari­com split.

Nei­ther the loss of the 2022 midterm elec­tions by the De­moc­rats un­der Pres­i­dent Joe Biden nor the vic­to­ry of Don­ald Trump in No­vem­ber 2024 stopped the Dr Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion from gov­ern­ing or from sign­ing the Sta­tus of Forces Agree­ment (SO­FA) with the USA in De­cem­ber 2024.

The 2024 SO­FA was used by the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar gov­ern­ment de­spite the fact that she was not the sig­na­to­ry. De­spite pol­i­cy dif­fer­ences, US in­ter­ests re­main rel­a­tive­ly con­sis­tent and have con­tin­ued that way re­gard­less of any pow­er shifts in Wash­ing­ton.

Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany is Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor at The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI. He was se­lect­ed by the THA to guide the dis­cus­sions on To­ba­go au­ton­o­my.