When President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, he will have a Republican-controlled House and Senate to aid him. Or not.

One-party rule is often less harmonious than might be imagined, and Trump's GOP street cred is a bit shaky. He is a relative newcomer to the abortion issue; he swings opposite his party on trade, and he has been talking up infrastructure spending and inner-city revitalization in a way that is bound to make fiscal conservatives on the Hill nervous. Congressional Republicans themselves are divided, and there is some question as to whether Speaker Paul Ryan will hold on to his leadership post. As a candidate, Trump lit into Republican leaders who failed to line up behind him and boasted he would remake the party.

All of which means this may not be the prolonged honeymoon one might normally expect between a Republican president and a GOP Congress. Hopefully, it also means Congress will exercise its full powers to act as a check on some of Trump's more expansive and even reckless promises. Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani has already said the administration could start building a wall via executive order, taking money from the budget for immigration enforcement already approved by Congress.

Republicans who were quick to accuse President Obama of overreach when he used executive order to shield otherwise law-abiding immigrants from deportation should be just as leery of attempts by a Trump administration to commit them to a costly, ineffective wall that would suck other enforcement efforts dry.

Veteran members of Congress are unlikely to look warmly on Trump's push for term limits — literally the first item in his "Contract with the American Voter" and something the Editorial Board has opposed in the past. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in fact, has already said bluntly that term limits "will not be on the agenda in the Senate."

But Trump's iconoclastic nature also gives him a potentially unique opportunity to carve a path between the two parties on issues. He might find a warmer reception for infrastructure spending and plans to direct funding to poverty-stricken urban areas among Democrats such as Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken of Minnesota.

If Trump makes good on his promise to reach out to those with differing viewpoints for guidance, trade would be a good place to start. Trump has said he will withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and seek to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement within the first 100 days, but his primary objection has been that the U.S. "made horrible deals." This is where Minnesota Rep. Erik Paulsen should develop some influence.

Paulsen, a pro-trade Republican, sits on the powerful Ways and Means committee and co-chairs the trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Caucus, which promotes trade with Europe. He has trade expertise and some seniority in the caucus and should use both to steer a Trump administration in the direction of tough negotiations that lead to that better deals, rather than a wholesale withdrawal from agreements or costly trade wars.

On other issues, members of the Minnesota delegation should act as loyal opposition. Trump has promised to revoke federal funding for cities that do not use their own resources to enforce federal immigration laws. Minneapolis, which got $35 million in federal grants for 2016, is among those the political right has labeled "sanctuary cities." So is St. Paul. And Anoka. And Austin. And all of Hennepin and Ramsey counties. Practically every member of this state's delegation has an interest in ensuring this does not happen, for the economic health of the state.

The days ahead could prove tumultuous. Americans will be relying on the time-honored principles of checks and balance among three equal branches of government to provide a measure of stability and to curb the worst excesses among the executive and legislative branches.