Following on to Bitt's post, it's worth getting a little more into the procedural aspects of how the Legislative and Executive branches intertwine.

Fundamentally, the Executive is "in charge" of the government, including defense, environmental protection, drug regulation, and more. One would argue that the President's primary function is appointing all the people who head all of the various government agencies that you've heard of. Meanwhile, the Legislative does more than just pass laws. The Legislative branch has a number of "checks and balances", including:

- Congress must approve all of the relevant Presidental appointments: the President's cabinet, Federal court judges, and so forth.

- Congress can call hearings, compel testimony, and demand that witnesses are sworn in. Lying in such a setting is grounds for charges of perjury.

- Congress controls the money and must pass legislation to authorize the budget, every year. Obviously, the government spends an awful lot of money doing all the things that it does. Congress has the power to reallocate money to anything they want, and can technically direct the President and his agencies to do a variety of things with that money.

- Of course, Congress can't pass any law they want, because the President can veto it. Congress can then attempt to override the veto, but they need a super-majority of votes to do it.


In short, expect all of these mechanisms, and more, to be leveraged in the next two years as the President and Congress jockey for power. Right now, both sides are talking of working together, but it's just a matter of time until they hit irreconcilable differences on some important issue. That's when all of this starts to matter. Without compromise, neither side will accomplish its agenda. And, if the Democratic congress feels that their agenda isn't making any headway, you can expect them to spend their time doing investigations instead.

The next two years are going to be quite interesting to watch.

(For the purposes of this discussion, I'm overlooking the distinction between the House and Senate. Had the Senate remained in Republican hands, with the House in Democratic hands, then things would have been much more complicated than they are now.)