The first session of the 119th Congress has been consequential: The legislative branch ceded many of its constitutional responsibilities to the executive branch, senators changed the process for confirming presidential nominees, the House rank and file grew more emboldened to sidestep their leaders and force votes, and much, much more shaped the competition among the branches of government.

When historians look back on significant years for huge shifts in U.S. politics, 2025 will be a good candidate. Article I of the Constitution explicitly states the legislative branch’s rights, responsibilities and duties, and while every president and every Supreme Court term tests the boundaries of the Constitution’s meanings, this year has presented a full-blown reconsideration of what Congress does, why and in what ways it can assert, or choose not to assert, itself.

Unified government control of the White House and the House and Senate — which Republicans currently have, at least numerically — doesn’t come along very often and doesn’t last long either. So the pressure is always on to get things done, and quickly, when a political party has unified control. That explains a lot of the stress on Congress this year — but not all of it.

Molly Reynolds, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, one of the nation’s preeminent scholars on Congress, joins the Political Theater podcast to discuss these topics and more to put 2025 into context. 

Show Notes:

• Government shutdown, reconciliation law highlight turbulent year in Congress
• Trump to cap unprecedented year that skirted Congress, tested court system
• Appropriators backed a crime-fighting unit. DOJ closed it anyway.
• Senate clears fiscal 2026 NDAA
• GAO chief’s pending exit tees up battle for a successor
• Words of the Week: Previous Question
• The Political Theater Podcast archives
• Political Theater on YouTube
• Subscribe to the Political Theater newsletter (and other Roll Call newsletters if that’s your jam).

Molly Reynolds’ title was corrected in this report.