Killing the filibuster – and with it, the GOP’s ability to hold-up far left judicial nominations – allowed Obama to install 13 lifetime appointments to the federal courts of appeal.

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Unless voters unexpectedly send Republican super-majorities to both chambers of Congress this November, radical policy change isn’t coming to Washington, D.C., during President Obama’s last two years in office.

But that doesn’t mean there’s no hope for improvement. A unified, Republican-led Senate and House of Representatives can do a lot to move the policy agenda in a more conservative direction. 

The most obvious difference will be legislative action on ObamaCare. To date, the House has passed more than 50 bills that would repeal or reform part or all of the controversial health care law. All of those bills have been dead-on-arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Already Politico reports talk of several strategies to weaken ObamaCare, including voting to repeal the medical device tax, the individual and employer mandates and the 30-hour workweek now required to qualify for coverage, which has driven many employers to cut back  workers' hours to avoid unsustainable costs.

Of course, any coordinated legislative attack on ObamaCare will be met with a presidential veto. But this should be welcomed by conservatives since it draws a clear contrast between the law’s statist defenders in the White House and its market-friendly critics in Congress.

Done right – meaning explained effectively to the public – a series of presidential vetoes can be framed as the work of a “do-nothing” president more interested in preserving a tarnished legacy than improving American health care.

And while the president and his congressional minority are busy defending ObamaCare’s clunky status quo, Republicans in Congress should be defining the principles that will guide health care reform in the 2016 presidential election.

At a minimum, those principles should promote a national commercial republic within a constitutional framework. That means preserving and extending a robust free market in health care that lets states compete for business and citizens – and returns to those citizens the truly affordable choices they want and deserve.

Congress doesn’t have to create a consensus around one alternative to ObamaCare. That’s virtually impossible without White House support. But the Republicans in charge should insist on clearly defining what is and isn’t acceptable from a constitutional, free market perspective.

Another benefit of a GOP takeover would be enacting a nuclear freeze on liberal judicial confirmations. Ever since Harry Reid (D-NV), the Democratic Majority Leader, struck the Senate filibuster rule, President Obama has been able to fill federal court appointments with nominations much more liberal than otherwise possible. A Republican majority in the Senate stops that process immediately.

This would be a bigger victory than most people realize. Killing the filibuster – and with it, the GOP’s ability to hold-up far left judicial nominations – allowed Obama to install 13 lifetime appointments to the federal courts of appeal. “The bottom line result is that appointees of Democratic presidents are now the majority on nine of the 13 appellate courts – a nearly total reversal since Obama took office, when 10 had majorities of GOP appointees,” writes David Hawkings of Roll Call.

There’s also a good chance that a Republican majority in Congress reasserts the legislative branch’s role in matters of war. While it’s true that the president takes the lead in foreign policy, it’s the legislature’s responsibility to keep the president honest.

That’s a tall order in the Age of Obama. In less than a week the president has promised he won’t send ground troops to fight ISIS and then had to distance himself from a dissonant statement made by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He says he needs Congress to spend money arming Syrian rebels, but is completely free to start a conflict anywhere in the Middle East without consultation. 

Making President Obama deliver a coherent argument on foreign policy would go a long way toward restoring the public’s confidence in our ability to wage war, if not in the Commander-in-Chief.

If Republicans gain control of Congress this November, the next two years should be about proving the party knows not only how to govern, but what to govern for. Getting that right will make winning the White House in 2016 a much easier task.