Republicans in Congress have been making behind-the-scenes efforts to cross main home laws by way of the federal price range course of. They embrace potential cuts to Medicaid and lengthening the 2017 Trump tax cuts.
However though it’s Congress’ job to cross a price range and set tax coverage, most media shops have been content material to border key components of the laws as being pushed not by Congress however by the president.
Together with Casey Burgat and SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor, I’m co-author of a textbook titled “Congress Explained: Representation and Lawmaking in the First Branch.” In that guide, it was essential to us to focus on Congress’ clear position because the preeminent lawmaking physique within the federal authorities.
However since Trump’s inauguration, Congress has ceded big swaths of its policymaking accountability to the president. That makes the media’s deal with Trump unsurprising. And there’s no denying that Trump has had huge affect throughout his first 100 days in workplace.
Throughout that point, Congress has been unwilling to say itself as an equal department of presidency. Past policymaking, Congress has been content material handy over lots of its core constitutional powers to the chief department. As a Congress professional who loves the establishment and profoundly respects its constitutionally mandated position, this renunciation of accountability has been tough to observe.
And but, Congress’ path to irrelevance as a physique of presidency didn’t start in January 2025.
It’s the results of many years of abrasion that created a political tradition during which Congress, the primary department of presidency listed within the Structure, is relegated to second-class standing.
President Donald Trump holds one of many many govt orders he has signed throughout his second time period.
Alex Wroblewski/AFP by way of Getty Photos
The Structure places Congress first
The 18th-century framers of the Structure considered Congress as the muse of republican governance, intentionally inserting it first in Article 1 to underscore its primacy. Congress was assigned the pivotal duties of lawmaking and budgeting as a result of controlling authorities funds was seen as important to limiting govt energy and stopping abuses that the framers related to monarchy.
Alternatively, a weak legislature and an imperial govt had been exactly what lots of the founders feared. With legislative authority within the arms of Congress, energy would at the very least be decentralized amongst all kinds of elected leaders from totally different components of the nation, every of whom would jealously guard their very own native pursuits.
However Trump’s first 100 days turned the founders’ authentic imaginative and prescient on its head, leaving the “first branch” to play second fiddle.
Like most up-to-date presidents, Trump got here in along with his social gathering in command of the presidency, the Home and the Senate. But regardless of the lawmaking energy that this governing trifecta can deliver, the Republican majorities in Congress have principally been irrelevant to Trump’s agenda.
As an alternative, Congress has relied on Trump and the chief department to make adjustments to federal coverage and in lots of instances to reshape the federal authorities fully.
Trump has signed greater than 140 govt orders, a tempo quicker than any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Republican Congress has proven little curiosity in pushing again on any of them. Trump has additionally aggressively reorganized, defunded or just deleted whole businesses, such because the U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth and the Shopper Monetary Safety Bureau.
These actions have been carried out though Congress has a transparent constitutional authority over the chief department’s price range. Once more, Congress has proven little to little interest in reasserting its energy, even throughout current price range talks.
Many causes, no straightforward options
Even so, Congress’ weakening didn’t start with Trump. There’s nobody perpetrator however as a substitute a group of things which have supplied the ineffectual Congress of right this moment.
One overriding issue is a course of that has unfolded over the previous 50 or extra years referred to as political nationalization. American politics have change into more and more centered on nationwide points, events and figures relatively than extra native considerations or people.
This shift has elevated the significance of the president because the symbolic and sensible chief of a nationwide social gathering agenda. Concurrently, it weakens the position of particular person members of Congress, who are actually extra more likely to toe the social gathering line than characterize native pursuits.
A participant holds an indication throughout a GOP city corridor assembly with U.S. Reps. Celeste Maloy and Mike Kennedy on March 20, 2025, in Salt Lake Metropolis.
AP Picture/Rick Egan
Because of this, voters focus extra on presidential elections and fewer on congressional ones, granting the president larger affect and diminishing Congress’ impartial authority.
The extra Congress polarizes amongst its members on a party-line foundation, the much less the general public is more likely to belief the legitimacy of their opposition to a president. As an alternative, congressional pushback − generally as excessive as impeachment − can thus be written off not as principled or substantive however as partisan or politically motivated to a larger extent than ever earlier than.
Congress has additionally been been complicit in giving freely its personal energy. Particularly when coping with a polarized Congress, presidents more and more steer the ship in price range negotiations, which may result in extra native priorities – those Congress is meant to characterize – being ignored.
However relatively than Congress staking out positions for itself, because it usually did by way of the flip of the twenty first century, political science analysis has proven that presidential positions on home coverage more and more dictate – and polarize – Congress’ personal positions on coverage that hasn’t historically been divisive, equivalent to funding assist for NASA. Congress’ positions on procedural points, equivalent to elevating the debt ceiling or eliminating the filibuster, additionally more and more rely not on bedrock ideas however on who occupies the White Home.
Within the realm of overseas coverage, Congress has all however deserted its constitutional energy to declare battle, settling as a substitute for “authorizations” of navy power that the president desires to say. These give the commander in chief broad latitude over battle powers, and each Democratic and Republican presidents have been comfortable to retain that energy. They’ve used these congressional approvals to interact in prolonged conflicts such because the Gulf Battle within the early Nineties and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade later.
What’s misplaced with a weak Congress
Individuals lose quite a bit when Congress arms over such drastic energy to the chief department.
When particular person members of Congress from throughout the nation take a again seat, their districts’ distinctly native issues are much less more likely to be addressed with the facility and sources that Congress can deliver to a difficulty. Vital native views on nationwide points fail to be represented in Congress.
Even members of the identical political social gathering characterize districts with vastly totally different economies, demographics and geography. Members are supposed to maintain this in thoughts when legislating on these points, however presidential management over the method makes that tough and even unattainable.
Possibly extra importantly, a weak Congress paired with what historian Arthur Schlesinger referred to as the “Imperial Presidency” is a recipe for an unaccountable president, operating wild with out the constitutionally supplied oversight and checks on energy that the founders supplied to the folks by way of their illustration by the primary department of presidency.
