Tuesday Night Was a Beautiful Thing
You voted for change on November 3, and you got it. Democrats took the House, on pace for their largest majority since 2008. Democrats took the Senate too, flipping seven Republican seats to hold at least 54, and as I write this, Democratic challengers hold narrow leads in several races still being counted. On January 3, 2027, the new members raise their right hands and go to work.
Now comes the part that matters most. You want accountability and action, and you want both fast.
So here is my list. These are eight priorities I believe this Congress is able to deliver in its first 3 to 6 months. The longer fights over issues caused by Trump and the prior Republican majority Congress’s poor decisions and mismanagement, like high prices, health care, immigration, abortion rights, tariffs and climate are all fixable but will take serious dealmaking with each other and with decision makers on the other side of the aisle. I’ll walk through those at the end so you see the whole road ahead. This list sticks to what a determined majority puts on the scoreboard by early summer.
A major national poll taken in mid-October tells you where your neighbors stand. About 8 in 10 registered voters, Republicans and Democrats alike, said lowering the cost of living should be one of the highest priorities for this Congress. Roughly 7 in 10 want Congress focused on ending the war with Iran. About 6 in 10 Democratic voters call investigations of this administration one of the highest priorities. Those numbers shaped this list, and they shaped the order I put it in.
The Rules of the Road
Before we get to the list, you need to know how the machinery works, because the rules decide what gets done and how fast.
In the House, a simple majority passes a bill. That means 218 votes when every seat is filled, and Democrats already cleared that mark with dozens of races still being counted. No Republican has to cross over for a House bill to pass.
The Senate runs on a different clock. A bill passes with a simple majority of 51, and the filibuster rule means most bills first need 60 votes to end debate and reach that final vote. With 54 Democratic senators, six Republicans have to cross over on most bills, and fewer if Democrats win the two races still being counted.
Some roads skip the filibuster entirely. Budget bills moving through a process called reconciliation pass the Senate with a simple majority. Resolutions under the War Powers law get a fast track to the floor and also need only a simple majority. The House writes its own internal rules by majority vote on its first day, and a committee subpoena needs no vote from the full House or Senate at all. Neither of those last two ever goes to the president’s desk.
Then the bill goes to Trump. He has ten days, not counting Sundays, to sign it or veto it. A veto sends the bill back to Congress with his objections, and each chamber votes again. If two thirds of the members present and voting in both chambers vote to override, the bill becomes law without his signature. With full attendance, that means 290 votes in the House and 67 in the Senate. In plain numbers, overriding Trump takes roughly a dozen Republican senators and, depending on the final House count, around three dozen House Republicans willing to put the country ahead of their party leader, and every one of those votes happens on the record, where the folks back home will see exactly who stood where.
Think of a veto as a locked door. An override is a key cut by two thirds of Congress, and it opens that door whether the president likes it or not.
Constitutional amendments follow their own path. Two thirds of both chambers send an amendment to the states, and 38 states, three fourths of the country, have to ratify it. The president gets no signature and no veto on an amendment.
Subpoenas on Day One: Hegseth, Noem, Bondi and Blanche Under Oath
Voters watched cabinet officials sneer at congressional questions for two years and walk away with little on the line. The Republican majority rarely made them pay a price, and when it did, a handful of rank and file Republicans had to drag their own leaders along. Accountability feels personal because the damage feels personal, from the price at the gas pump in your town to the folded flags handed to the families of service members killed in a war that Congress never authorized and never cut off.
The facts back up that anger. The war with Iran began on February 28, 2026, without a declaration of war or any authorization from Congress. More than 50,000 American service members have deployed to the region. The war has killed at least 18 of them and wounded hundreds more. The Pentagon told Congress the war cost taxpayers $47.1 billion through mid-October, with more than 60 percent of that going to munitions like bombs and missiles. A short ceasefire deal signed in June collapsed within weeks, and in late October a third aircraft carrier and thousands more troops were heading to the region. Pentagon leaders have testified under oath again and again this year, and senators in both parties walked away without a clear plan or a clear exit.
Pete Hegseth goes first. He ran this war, and his own record raises questions any trial lawyer would want answered under oath. In late March, a report surfaced that his broker tried to put millions into a defense industry fund weeks before the bombing started; Senate Democrats demanded answers, and Hegseth calls the story false, which is exactly why it belongs in a sworn hearing. He fired the Army’s top general in the middle of the war, after earlier purges that removed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A preliminary military inquiry reportedly found that a U.S. missile, aimed with outdated targeting data, struck an Iranian elementary school on the first day of the war and killed at least 175 people, most of them children, and months later the Pentagon has released no findings. He defended a record $1.5 trillion defense budget request. In his opening statement to the House Armed Services Committee, he called the words of his congressional critics the biggest adversary the country faced. Even Republican Senator Thom Tillis said a reckoning is coming for him.
Kristi Noem comes next…
