Today in the Morning Line:

Just two of the 18 items President Obama asked Congress to work on in his 2014 State of the Union became law

Expecting little congressional action, the White House has taken to executive action and calling on the states to act.

Not many of Obama’s priorities are likely to get through Congress: State of the Union speeches get a lot of attention. A prime-time address by the President of the United States to a joint session of Congress is pretty impressive stuff. Lots of policies and priorities are laid out, but how much can and will actually get done, especially with a divided Congress? Answer: Not much. Recent history provides a pretty good roadmap. In last year’s State of the Union, when Democrats controlled the Senate and Republicans had a smaller majority in the House, President Obama laid out 18 specific action items he wanted Congress to take up, but just two of those — on job re-training and increasing funding for research — got through Congress and became law, according to a NewsHour analysis. (And funding for research only kept with inflation, not representing much of an increase.)

Here’s a list of the priorities and the (lack of) congressional action taken (in order of when Obama mentioned them in his speech):

NewsHour’s Ashira Morris contributed research.

Taking executive action: To address some of the priority areas the president mentioned in last year’s State of the Union that Congress did not take up, the president acted on his own, raising the ire of the right. Seeing the success of state initiatives on things like the minimum wage, which Congress hasn’t raised for nearly six years, the president has been encouraging states to move on more of his priorities. Among the items mentioned in his 2014 State of the Union that he wound up taking executive action on:

immigration

carbon caps

minimum wage (for federal contractors)

personal finance (MyRA)

student loans

establishing public-private partnership on expanding public pre-school

protecting some federal lands

Daily Presidential Trivia:

On this day in 1937, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to be inaugurated on January 20. Which amendment to the Constitution established January 20 as the start and end of every presidential term? Be the first to tweet us the correct answer using #PoliticsTrivia and you’ll get a Morning Line shout-out. Congratulations to William C Rives ‏(@MrWmCR) for guessing Monday’s trivia: Which president held the first live news conference? The answer: John F. Kennedy.

2016

LINE ITEMS

TOP TWEETS

Hillary Clinton laser-focusing on the needs of hurting, hard-working Americans by holing up in her Chappaqua mansion. http://t.co/l8KZGxc0rG — Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) January 20, 2015

What we were looking at on this day in the 2008 cycle… http://t.co/xzKlGQm3E9 pic.twitter.com/lJ2pMU3BJB — Jack Bohrer (@JRBoh) January 20, 2015

Reid sustained broken bones, concussion, eye injury exercising. His drs don’t want him to stay til 11 pm on his 1st day back at work — Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) January 20, 2015

Jon Stewart just made Mike Huckabee look ridiculous. Mike Huckabee helped. — Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) January 20, 2015

For more political coverage, visit our politics page.

Sign up here to receive the Morning Line in your inbox every morning.

Questions or comments? Email Domenico Montanaro at dmontanaro-at-newshour-dot-org or Rachel Wellford at rwellford-at-newshour-dot-org.

Follow the politics team on Twitter:

Follow @DomenicoPBS

Follow @elizsummers

Follow @rachelwellford

Follow @sfpathe