Opinion Voters gave Congress two jobs. It must do both.

Tuesday’s election was not a permission slip for revenge. Nor was it a request that Congress look away from corruption. Americans asked for relief from the cost of living and accountability for abuses of power.

Democrats will take control of both chambers of Congress in January. Their victories reached into places Republicans once considered secure. In Texas, James Talarico became the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate since 1988. In Maine, Troy Jackson ended Susan Collins’ nearly 30-year Senate career. Across the country, voters who helped return Donald Trump to the White House two years ago moved away from his party.

But Democrats should be careful about what they believe that victory means. The election was a rejection of the country’s direction under Trump, not an unconditional endorsement of Democrats or an invitation to spend the next two years settling political scores.

It was a demand for something different from Washington.

The Associated Press Voter Poll found that more than half of voters considered government corruption crucial to their congressional choice, slightly more than said the same about the cost of living. About seven in ten believed Congress was failing to provide adequate checks on presidential power, including roughly four in ten Republicans. CBS News exit polling found that nearly nine in ten voters considered corruption a major factor, about the same share who said that about living costs.

Those findings deserve attention. Americans are worried about what government is doing to their pocketbooks, but they are also troubled by how political power is being exercised. They want their government to work for them, and they have serious doubts that it does.

The first responsibility is economic, and it is felt around kitchen tables every day.

Families do not experience the economy as charts or percentages. They experience it when the same paycheck must cover groceries, housing, insurance and medical expenses that leave less for everything else. The war with Iran has driven energy prices higher, adding to costs that were already straining household budgets.

In Alabama, regular gasoline averaged $3.61 a gallon on November 9, according to AAA, compared with $2.67 a year earlier. For people who depend on their vehicles to get to work, take children to school or travel long distances for medical care, those additional costs are unavoidable.

A family trying to pay its bills has little patience for another argument about which political party deserves the blame. It wants to know whether anyone intends to make life more affordable.

Congress cannot simply order prices lower. But Democrats can develop serious proposals to reduce health care costs, expand housing opportunities, scrutinize tariffs that increase consumer prices and confront the economic consequences of the war. They can seek bipartisan agreements and put forward legislation that offers measurable relief rather than promises they cannot deliver.

Trump will remain president, with veto power and considerable control over federal policy. That will limit what the new majority can accomplish. But those obstacles do not excuse inaction. Democrats have a responsibility to propose workable solutions, negotiate where possible and demonstrate that governing involves more than assigning blame.

The second responsibility is accountability, and it cannot be postponed until the economy improves.

Congress has spent too long surrendering its constitutional duty to check executive power. When credible evidence raises questions about corruption, conflicts of interest or violations of constitutional rights, oversight is not an optional partisan exercise. It is Congress doing its job.

There are serious questions demanding answers.

Reuters reported that Trump’s financial disclosures showed more than $1.4 billion in income from family cryptocurrency ventures in 2025. That figure alone does not establish wrongdoing. But when a president derives substantial private income from an industry his administration regulates, the public has every right to question whether government decisions serve the national interest or private financial interests.

Immigration enforcement presents equally troubling questions.

ProPublica has documented more than 500 reported cases of American citizens detained by federal immigration agents during Trump’s second administration. Among them is Leonardo Garcia Venegas, a construction worker in coastal Alabama who was born in Florida.

Garcia Venegas has described three encounters in which immigration agents detained him. During the most recent, agents shackled him despite his attempts to establish his citizenship. His Alabama REAL ID failed to satisfy federal officers. The Department of Homeland Security disputes that the latest encounter constituted a detention.

An American citizen should not have to fear detention by his own government when his citizenship can be verified.

Garcia Venegas told ProPublica, “I just want to live in peace.”

There is nothing unreasonable about that expectation. It is among the most basic obligations a government owes its people.

The broader danger extends beyond individual incidents. Institutions take on the character of those who lead them. When questionable conduct is excused because it advances a political objective, people inside an agency learn what will be tolerated. What begins as an exception can become accepted practice, and safeguards meant to protect the public gradually lose their meaning.

Changing the people in charge does not necessarily change the institutional habits they leave behind.

Congress must determine what happened, who was responsible and which safeguards failed. Where laws have been broken, appropriate consequences should follow. But Democrats must understand the difference between accountability and political retaliation.

Revenge is not a strategy.

Accountability follows the facts, establishes responsibility and seeks justice through lawful means. Revenge begins with the desired punishment and works backward. One can restore public confidence in government. The other risks reducing congressional oversight to another instrument of partisan warfare.

That distinction matters. Voters who want corruption exposed and abuses of power confronted have not necessarily asked for another two years of investigations conducted primarily for political advantage. They deserve oversight that establishes the truth and produces something more lasting than headlines.

Watergate offers a useful lesson.

In 1973, the United States Senate voted unanimously to establish its Watergate investigating committee. Sam Ervin, a North Carolina Democrat, chaired it. Howard Baker, a Tennessee Republican, served as vice chairman.

Baker asked the question that came to define the investigation: “What did the president know, and when did he know it?”

The significance was not simply that Congress confronted wrongdoing by a president. Republicans joined Democrats in pursuing the facts, even when those facts threatened a president of their own party.

The investigation helped usher in a broader period of congressional oversight and institutional reform. New ethics and financial disclosure requirements followed, while related investigations exposed abuses within federal intelligence agencies and helped establish safeguards against improper government surveillance.

The lesson was not merely that a president could be held accountable. It was that exposing wrongdoing should lead to correcting the weaknesses that allowed it to happen.

That should be the ambition of the next Congress.

Investigations should have defined purposes, credible evidence, public hearings and meaningful bipartisan participation wherever possible. Their findings should lead to enforceable safeguards against presidential financial conflicts, stronger independent oversight of federal agencies and meaningful remedies for Americans whose constitutional rights have been violated.

Alabama offers a cautionary lesson. In 2010, our Legislature enacted sweeping ethics reforms. Mike Hubbard, the House speaker who helped champion those laws, was later convicted of violating them. The prosecution demonstrated that even powerful officials could be held accountable. Yet the years since have raised troubling questions about whether the state’s commitment to vigorous enforcement has endured. The laws remain formidable on paper, but their effectiveness depends on institutions willing to enforce them, even against the politically powerful.

A law cannot enforce itself.

That is why reform must extend beyond writing new restrictions. Safeguards must be strong enough to survive changes in political leadership and independent enough to function when those in power would rather they remain silent.

Democrats should be willing to impose meaningful ethics restrictions on themselves, including tighter limits on congressional stock trading. They cannot credibly demand accountability from a Republican president while preserving financial privileges for members of Congress.

Republicans should recognize the same principle. Anyone concerned about what a future Democratic president might do with unchecked executive authority should welcome meaningful limitations on that power today.

The standard cannot change depending on which party occupies the White House.

But Democrats also need to recognize the danger of overplaying their hand.

Many Americans remain dissatisfied with both political parties. Their rejection of Trump’s conduct and policies does not necessarily represent newfound confidence in Democrats. The new majority has been given an opportunity, not an unlimited mandate.

There will be pressure to answer years of Republican partisanship with equally aggressive tactics. Some Democrats will understandably want to make Trump and his administration pay a political price for their conduct. But frustration, however justified, is a poor foundation for governing.

Oversight must be vigorous, and wrongdoing must have consequences. Yet congressional investigations cannot become a substitute for addressing the economic pressures facing American families. A Congress that produces endless hearings but little economic progress will have misunderstood the election it just won.

The two responsibilities are not competing priorities. They are obligations that must be pursued together.

There is a difference between winning an election and earning the public’s trust. Winning gives a party the authority to govern. Trust must be earned through what it does with that authority.

Democrats will have subpoena power, committee chairmanships and the ability to investigate serious allegations of wrongdoing. They should exercise those powers responsibly and without hesitation when the evidence warrants it. But the purpose should be to leave the country with stronger institutions, not simply a longer record of the previous administration’s failures.

At the same time, they must demonstrate that they understand the economic struggles that brought so many voters to the polls. Families need relief they can recognize in their daily lives, not another succession of promises that disappear after Election Day.

Consider what those responsibilities mean here in Alabama. A family filling its gas tank wants to know whether getting to work will become more affordable. A construction worker who is an American citizen wants to know whether he can travel to that same job without fear of being detained by his own government.

Their circumstances are different, but their expectation is the same. Government should make their lives more secure, not more difficult.

Congress should be judged by whether it meets that expectation. Are families better able to afford the necessities of life? Are public officials held accountable when they abuse their authority? Are the safeguards meant to protect citizens strong enough to withstand the people entrusted with enforcing them?

Those questions will matter long after the hearings end and the next election approaches.

Voters have done their part by demanding a different direction. Their responsibility does not end at the ballot box. They must continue to insist that the people they elect remember whom they serve.

An election can change who holds power. Only responsible governing can change how that power is used.

Voters spoke on Tuesday. They asked for lower prices and an honest government.

The next Congress owes them both.