If, as expected, Republicans win back one or both houses of Congress in the midterm elections, the most significant impact could well be summed up in two words: judges and subpoenas.

Since President Biden has two more years in office and Democrats will certainly maintain a veto-proof margin in the Senate, even a Republican sweep would not lead to much meaningful legislation. As John Pitney Jr., a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College in California, told U.S. News, expect “a lot of messaging — not a lot of actual lawmaking.”