How Congress made itself irrelevant

The Constitution of the United States gives Congress enormous power.

So how does America end up with a feckless Congress? If Congress is supposed to be a coequal branch of government, how did this happen? Take a look at just some of the great powers given to Congress in the Constitution.

-- “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.”

-- “To regulate commerce ... among the several states.”

 -- “To coin money, regulate the value thereof."

-- “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives."

-- “The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes ... to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.”

-- “To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.”

-- “No money shall be drawn from the treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law,:

So, how does a Congress which is given power to make all the laws, regulate commerce, coin all money, levy all taxes, appropriate, and to make all laws necessary and proper for the execution of its enumerated powers as well as the powers vested by the Constitution in the government and departments, end up feckless and servile?

First, Congress delegates its powers. Second, Congress accedes to presidential encroachments upon its powers.

In the late 1800s,  Congress began delegating its powers to a fourth branch of government”  -- administrative agencies --  a branch nowhere mentioned in the Constitution.

In doing so, Congress acted pursuant to its power to regulate commerce, conjoined with its power "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution” its commerce power. This process of creating agencies apart from the traditional departments of government began in 1887, when Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Subsequently, it created the Federal Trade Commission (1914), the Securities and Exchange Commission (1934), the National Labor Relations Board (1935) and the Environmental Protection Agency (1970). 

Other independent agencies made part of the Executive Department now include the Food and Drug Administration, (now part of the Department of Health and Human Services), the Nuclear Regulatory Agency and the Federal Energy Regulation Agency (now both parts of the Department of Energy), and the IRS (Treasury) .

In almost every case, Congress has delegated to these administrative agencies the power to make rules and regulations  with the force of law to further the public interest, public convenience, or public necessity. The result has been tens of thousands of pages of regulations, by which the agencies have “legislated” down to the minutest detail.

Congress has been relieved of the duty of writing legislation, and in the process has rendered itself irrelevant. Congress retains power to undo agency regulation, but does so rarely. (Word limitations prohibit discussion here of the Federal Reserve.)

Congress can also be weakened by acquiescing to a president’s executive orders. The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, power to declare war. Congress is also given power “to establish an uniform rule of naturalization” and to the Senate is given power to approve or disapprove of treaties.

But what happens when the President embarks a kinetic action -- resembling war -- in Libya, or when the president refuses to faithfully execute the uniform rule of  naturalization (the immigration laws)  passed by the Congress, or makes executive agreements with foreign nations, in the nature of treaties, which the president refuses to submit to Congress for its advice and consent?

When the Congress acquiesces, it accedes to the diminution of its powers.

Finally, there is a third factor: feckless leadership. There was a time when House and Senate  leaders were willing take on a president who dared to encroach on the powers and coequal status of Congress.

In England, during the reign of the Stuart kings, members of the House of Commons went to the Tower of London to preserve the House’s “power of the purse.”

When the Commons refused to vote subsidies demanded by Charles I to finance his domestic policies and foreign adventures, and when the King embarked upon the device of forced loans to circumvent Parliament’s control over the purse, peers and commoners alike chose prison rather than acquiescence.

In our country, members of our colonial assemblies went to war to defend the principle of “no taxation without representation.”

The present Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, appear to be two men content with their reelection to high office, and otherwise spineless and clueless. Opposed by a president who says “What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is negotiable,” they say, “let’s negotiate, and see what of ours we can give you.”

To loosely paraphrase Winston Churchill, the President demands 75,000 new IRS agents to run Obamacare, Boehner and McConnell, promising to repeal Obamacare, demand negotiations, and then agree to provide and pay for every IRS agent demanded.

Speaker Boehner rather than saying, “This House controls the purse, Mr. President; we oppose Obamacare and were not going to appropriate funds for a single new IRS agent,” says, “We’re afraid we’ll be blamed for a government shutdown; you demand, Mr. President; we’ll deliver!”

When the Congress acts like a rubber stamp, who can blame the president for treating it like one.

Posted Online:  Mar. 17, 2015 11:00 pm - Quad-Cities Online

by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2015

John Donald O'Shea