House Democrats on Wednesday unveiled a democracy reform plan, focused on a rebalancing of power to bolster Congress at the expense of the presidency, signaling it will be an early priority if their party wins control of both the White House and the entire Capitol this fall.
The legislative outline was compiled without any input from Republicans, underscoring its purpose at least in the short term as a campaign messaging manifesto.
But the plan nonetheless makes clear that Democrats would seek to move swiftly in a Joe Biden administration to reverse many of what they see as a sweeping collection of checks-and-balances abuses by President Trump.
"These reforms are necessary not only because of the abuses of this president, but because the foundation of our democracy is the rule of law and that foundation is deeply at risk," the seven House committee chairmen who assembled the package said in a statement. "Our democracy is not self-effectuating — it takes work and a commitment to guard it against those who would undermine it, whether foreign or domestic."
The proposals, all of them direct responses to Trump's varied ways of challenging democratic norms over the past four years, include:
- Curbing the president's powers to grant pardons and declare national emergencies.
- Tightening ethics rules to prevent federal officials from using their government jobs to enrich themselves.
- Creating a streamlined system for federal courts to referee subpoena disputes between the executive and legislative branches.
- Strengthening protections for government whistleblowers and the supposed-to-be-independent inspectors general at departments and agencies.
- Limiting White House involvement in law enforcement decision-making at the Justice Department.
- Enhancing laws requiring executive branch officials to spend money the way Congress appropriated and barring them from overt political activities.
- Bolstering safeguards against foreign interference in elections, in part by making candidates report such meddling to the FBI.
- Exempting a president's or vice president's time in office from the statute of limitations for any federal crime.
Democrats said their package is designed as a complement to, and not a replacement for, the sweeping election administration, campaign finance and government ethics legislation the House passed last year.
Known as HR 1, it would have faced a Trump veto had it not immediately died in the Republican Senate — and this new package would as well, which is why its prospects are entirely reliant not only on Joe Biden winning the presidency but also on his party taking over the Senate by winning at least three seats.
If that happens, the Democrats would be positioned to advance the most comprehensive set of fix-the-system proposals in the 45 years since Watergate forced the resignation of President Richard Nixon, although probably not without ending the GOP minority's power to block legislation in the Senate.
The plan was assembled before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died last week and Trump quickly secured almost unified GOP support for rushing her Supreme Court replacement to confirmation this fall — highlighting the way the Senate has all but abandoned its role as a deliberative body in favor of a more parliament-like posture and raising fresh balance-of-power questions about the future of such matters as the legislative filibuster and presidential dominance over the federal courts.
Progressive good-government groups rushed to embrace the package, while Republicans on Capitol Hill and the more bipartisan democracy reform organizations essentially ignored it.
It was introduced almost exactly a year after Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the House would pursue Trump's impeachment, an effort which ended in his acquittal by the Senate — and which has almost no resonance in a presidential campaign that's now largely focused on the administration's management of the coronavirus and an economy crippled by the pandemic.
Pelosi unveiled the bill along with the seven gavel-holders: California's Adam Schiff of the Intelligence Committee, New York's Jerrold Nadler (Judiciary), New York's Carolyn Maloney (Oversight and Reform), Kentucky's John Yarmuth (Budget), California's Zoe Lofgren (House Administration), New York's Eliot Engel (Foreign Affairs) and Massachusetts' Richard Neal (Ways and Means).
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.