Bartlett: A History of Political Gridlock
Bruce Bartlett writes:
With the likely prospect that we will have divided government once again starting in January, I was curious about how often we have had unified government control or divided control throughout our history. I compiled the following data beginning with establishment of the modern two-party system with the rise of the Republican Party in the 1850s. It shows that unified government has been more the norm throughout history, with 91 years of unified government and 63 years of divided government. My hope is that those more statistically and graphically literate than I am may find correlations with economic growth and other variables.
Government Control, 1857-2010
Unified