When entering his first term as president, Bush faced the challenge of keeping up with Reagan’s policies to please his devout followers while at the same time having to deal with a Congress led by Democrats. To put it more simply, “Bush was thus threading the needle between maintaining fidelity to the Reagan legacy and offering something new” (Sinclair 2014). Bush also had to deal with the fact that the Democrats in Congress believed they could defy him without worrying about the consequences because they viewed their commander-in-chief as a man who gave vague promises with no actual plans to back them up. In other words, “Congress and the Democratic majoritywas a more formidable force than his Republican predecessors had faced” (Sinclair 2014). Thus instead of working with the president, the Democrats leading Congress chose to come together to oppose him at every turn which would create a tremulous relationship that would be carried throughout Bush’s first term.
Perhaps the most interesting fact about this relationship, however, is that the Democrats in Congress still wanted to have a positive interaction with President Bush as they sought to prove that Congress should be involved when it came to making policies (Sinclair 2014). Clearly Bush realized this as he worked to gather members of Congress that would hopefully lead to a compromise which would ensure legislative success. Bush accomplished this strategy by having people of his administration collect information on where each Congressional member stood (Sinclair 2014). Although parts of this strategy did result in by-partisan support, there were still those who opposed Bush thus limiting his success with passing his policies. Nevertheless, Bush continued to seek out support from both parties of Congress in order to promote the welfare of the American people as he worked on his domestic policies as his opposition continued to claim he was too nice even though he held the threat of veto over their heads.
According to Sinclair, “during the course of his presidency, Bush cast 46 vetoes- 29 of which were regular vetoes and the other 17 pocketed vetoes-and he was overridden only once” (2014). With facts like these, it is hard to fathom that there was any legislative success as Bush and the Democrats claimed they wanted compromise when in reality they were fighting for dominant control over which policies were passed and which were not. Nevertheless there were compromises made regarding legislature thus instilling the idea that both sides were not only worried about themselves, but about the people they were serving as well. With that in mind, one should remember that Bush overused his vetoing power to obtain what he saw as the better bargain without communicating with Democrats beforehand thus making some wonder if Bush truly wanted what was best for the country instead of what would keep the opposite party in check as he maintained his status as President of the United States. In conclusion it is evident that there were many factors affecting the relationship with not only Bush and the Democrats but the executive and legislative branches as well as they argued over policies but it must be said that there was some legislative successive even with this tremulous relationship.
Work Cited
Sinclair, Barbara. The Offered Hand and the Veto Fist. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 04 Mar. 2014. PDF.
