DICK CHENEY, the vice-president, claims that his office is not “an entity within the executive branch”, and therefore not subject to the rules concerning the proper care of secret documents. Six years ago, he rebuffed a probe into his energy task-force on the ground that it “would unconstitutionally interfere with the functioning of the executive branch”. Zen masters can doubtless see how a man can be both part of the executive and not part of it. Everyone else is grateful to Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the House oversight committee, for exposing the absurd rationale for Mr Cheney's compulsive secrecy.

In November last year the Democrats trounced the Republicans to capture both chambers of Congress. On January 4th Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, celebrated her elevation to the speakership with the same prayer Margaret Thatcher used when she first became prime minister of the United Kingdom: “Where there is darkness, may we bring light. Where there is hatred, may we bring love. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.” Mrs Pelosi and her fellow Democrats have made some progress on the first of these, but not much on the other two.

In the six months that the Democrats have been in charge, they have energetically shone torches into White House nooks the previous, Republican-controlled Congress was content to leave dark. Besides chivvying Mr Cheney, the new Congress has investigated slipshod planning for the occupation of Iraq and the woeful treatment of injured veterans. It has subpoenaed the White House for documents about warrantless wiretapping, and grilled the attorney-general, Alberto Gonzales, about alleged politically-motivated sackings. Mr Gonzales still has his job, though. So does Mr Cheney.

Yet all this prodding keeps the administration on its toes. And so do efforts by the new Congress to influence the campaign in Iraq. The Democrats owe their majority in large part to war-weariness. Many of their supporters thought they would pull American troops out of Iraq. They have not. They could have done so, by refusing Mr Bush the funds to carry on fighting. But that would have shifted to the Democrats the blame for the carnage that would probably follow a sudden withdrawal.

Instead, Ms Pelosi and her Senate counterpart, Harry Reid, sent President George Bush a war budget that included a timetable for withdrawal, knowing he would veto it. Their point made, they sent him another bill, without a timetable, that will fund the war until September. The bill also included benchmarks that the Iraqi government must meet if it is to continue receiving non-military aid. It was far short of what the anti-war movement wanted, but it keeps Mr Bush on a shorter leash than he would like.

What else has the 110th Congress accomplished? Of the Democrats' campaign promises, the meatiest one so far enacted is an increase in the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour, which is widely popular and will benefit some Americans while perhaps throwing others out of work. The Democrats have also tightened up rules about lawmakers accepting gifts from lobbyists, although Ms Pelosi undermined her own anti-corruption crusade by trying unsuccessfully to place an ethically-challenged ally in the number-two job in the House.

Other pledges have been blocked, delayed or watered down. A bill to allow the government to negotiate directly with drug companies to reduce prices passed through the House but stalled in the Senate. An attempt to fund foetal stem-cell research was vetoed by Mr Bush. Bills to provide cheaper student loans and implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission are grinding their way through the legislative process slowly.

Some big business is under way. Last week the Senate passed a substantial but flawed energy bill, which imposed tougher fuel-efficiency standards on cars but failed to consider a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system. It also banned “price-gouging” by oil firms, a practice that exists only in Democrats' imaginations. The House version of the bill has yet to be revealed, so all this could change.

This week the Senate revived a bipartisan attempt to fix America's immigration system. Reformers want to curb illegal immigration but also to allow illegal immigrants who are already in the country swift legalisation and a path to becoming citizens. Opponents of the bill, mostly Republicans who decry it as an “amnesty”, nearly killed it earlier this month and were hoping to do so for real as The Economist went to press. After a quarter of its term, some lament that this Congress has done very little. That is too harsh. America's lawmaking process is designed to be slow and deliberative. And a Congress should not be measured merely by the number of laws it passes. David Boaz of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank, argues that divided government is actually working quite well, since each side curbs the other's excesses. “The Democrats are discovering oversight and the president is discovering his veto pen,” he says. That is probably helping to restrain spending, at least for the time being.

But still, neither side shows the slightest appetite for reforming Medicare (health care for the elderly) or Social Security (public pensions), the two entitlement programmes that will bust the budget when the baby-boomers retire. And Americans are hardly enthused about their new Congress. At 25%, its approval rating is now even lower than Mr Bush's.