Dem
47
GOP
53
In 2016, 2020 and 2024, the White House switched parties. That could happen for a fourth time in a row in 2028. But in the past, on Day 1, the new president signed XO's to cancel all the XO's the previous president signed. That's the problem of governing by XO. What can be created by the stroke of a pen can be repealed by the stroke of a different pen. But 2028 will be different—really different.
No previous president since FDR has so fundamentally changed the way the federal government works. Donald Trump is doing that. Returning to the status quo ante Trumpum in Jan. 2029 will be exceedingly difficult. If there is a Democratic trifecta and the Democrats are willing to either abolish the filibuster or force the aged Republican senators to stand in the well of the Senate and read the Bible until they physically drop, they will be able to reconstitute agencies that were bitten by the DOGEys and died of rabies. But the government is full of experts in dozens of fields, from toxic chemicals to vaccine safety and so much more. If they are all gone, replacing them will take a long time. If potential candidates worry that they could be fired in 2033 by a new Republican president, it could be very hard to fill vacancies.
One thing Congress could do to help attract new government employees is pass laws stripping the president of his powers to fire people and provide some mechanism for enforcing that. A new law could strengthen the 1883 Pendleton Act, stating that no one in the civil service can be fired by the president and that a president ordering such a firing anyway would be personally civilly liable and could be sued for whatever damages a jury felt was appropriate. The law could specify that firings for malfeasance must go through internal civil service procedures with disputes resolved in the courts, explicitly stating that the president has no role to play. (V)