I recently listened to Juliette Sellgren’s 36-minute interview of Washington Post columnist George Will. Juliette does an excellent job of briefly stating Will’s argument about the growth of presidential power at the expense of Congress. Her statement starts at 5:15 and ends at 5:52. Will says that she has “efficiently and accurately” distilled his argument about the presidency. I agree.
From about 5:52 on to about 8:15, Will lays out his argument in more detail.
In doing so, though, he presents a puzzle and it’s not clear that Will sees it as a puzzle.
Here’s what he says, starting at about 7:45:
Congress, out of careerist interests, job security interests, and the sheer press of time has hollowed itself out. We constantly hear people complaining that presidents are usurping powers. Well of course they do. The Founders understand that all people in power try to usurp more power. But, to say that Congress’s powers have been usurped is too kind to Congress. Congress has all too willingly given them up.
I agree with Will about the factual issue: Congress has all too willingly given up its power.
But notice the contradiction in the last three sentences. All people in power try to usurp more power. Surely that would include members of Congress. Yet Congress has willingly given up power.
So it’s not true that all people in power, or, at least in the case of Congress, even most people in power, try to usurp more power.
So Will has contradicted himself. But possibly more important, he’s presented a puzzle. Why does Congress give up power? Is it just that they want the job and the perks that go with it–the first 2 of the 3 reasons Will gives in the quote above?
I don’t know.
READER COMMENTS
Tom
Aug 8 2020 at 10:55am
I don’t see the contradiction. Congress isn’t single person. The optimal power-building strategy for a member of Congress is to grandstand and never compromise. Each individual rationally attempting to increase his own power makes Congress dysfunctional. A dysfunctional Congress cedes power to the other branches of government.
Philo
Aug 8 2020 at 1:34pm
Good point. There is a conflict between increasing the power of Congress and increasing the (relatively long-run) prospects for power of the individual Congressman. The individual Congressman values Congressional power, but his overriding concern is to increase or maintain his own chances for re-election. Achieving this goal may often require actions that result in some ceding of power to the executive branch, while it will be rare that a President can enhance his prospects for re-election by ceding power to Congress.
Jon Murphy
Aug 8 2020 at 1:39pm
I don’t think this could be an explanation. Firstly, Congress has willingly given up powers through legislation that grants vast powers to the Executive branch. In order for such legislation to pass, Congress must be at least as functional as needed to pass legislation (further assuming the legislation is signed by the President and upheld by the courts). If Congress were truly made up of people “grandstand[ing] and never compromise[ing]” then Congress as a whole would cede little power, not lots.
John Ruf
Aug 8 2020 at 1:57pm
I think the real answer is that for an individual congressmen, additional power can come via gaining “currency” with the presidency, especially when the presidency is of their own party.
A way you can probably test this via a correlational study is to see if congressmen who give into presidential demands more often tend to be in “power” longer.
Mark Z
Aug 9 2020 at 2:39am
It may not even necessarily even be yo curry favor with the president. If giving up power helps a particular congressmen stay in Congress, it may be the power-maximizing thing to do, since he doesn’t have any power at all if he loses his seat. This is another way each individual congressman pursuing his power-maximizing strategy leads to the institution as a whole losing power. A similar thing sometimes happened with monarchs in the past: individual kings ceded power to parliament, weakening the power of the office and future kings, but doing so in order to preserve as much power as possible personally.
Michael
Aug 9 2020 at 7:39am
But consider. Congress does not (legally or Constitutionally) have the power to pass laws that bind future Congresses. In theory, any time a delegation of power from Congress to the executive was (in the eyes of Congress) misued, Congress is free to put a stop to it by passing legislation to the effect. But that seldom happens. As a consequence, these delegations have the effect of being permanent.
One reason for this is that individual members of Congress may not want the responsibility or accountability for various government actions. If Congress passes a law that “The President cannot do X”, and then a situation arises where much of the public thinks the President should do X, those members of Congress who voted for the law may be held accountable. Or vice versa, if Congress passes a law requiring the President to do X.
In the alternative, where no such law is passed but the President’s counsel can “find” a basis for doing/not doing X in a broad delegation of authority, this frees Congress from direct responsibility and accountability. Those who agree with the President’s decision can say that it is a valid exercise of the President’s lawful power, and those who do not can claim overreach.
And, because there has been no vote specifically on the question of X, members of Congress are free to take whatever stance they view as most politically advantageous for them, regardless of their personal beliefs.
As others have said, Congress as a body has an interest in maintaining its institutional power. But individual Congressmen or Senators don’t have that same interest.
Thomas Sewell
Aug 10 2020 at 11:37pm
Yep. Congress doesn’t want to give up power. Members of Congress want to give away political accountability.
The Congress still has as much power as they always did, if they want to use it. They choose to have others ostensibly use it instead because they don’t want to be held accountable for it’s use.
Consider a situation where Congress has passed a law granting the executive branch the power to delay any tax payments for up to a year during a national disaster. For example, U.S.C. 7508A. Now if the President orders a tax payment delayed under that, depending on their political needs, they can either:
A. Claim responsibility for the popular results (Tax deadline pushed back from April to July)
or
B. Claim the President has usurped their power unconstitutionally (Payroll taxes deferred for Sept – Dec.)
It’s the exact same law Congress passed being followed by the President in both examples, but somehow Congress is able to spin their delegation of power in order to claim or avoid responsibility as desired. Apparently, this feature of delegation to the executive is popular amongst Congressional politicians.
Daniel
Aug 8 2020 at 11:26am
Delegation to the executive offers the guise of ‘doing something’ (‘we passed a law that created the agency’ or ‘increased powers’) without the challenge of parsing the issue themselves or the liability of doing the wrong thing. It is only when delegation backfires that Congress reins in the executive.
As far as Congresspeople are concerned, this helps solidify their position (i.e., retain power). But the cost is the full Congress’s power, at least temporarily.
Mike
Aug 9 2020 at 5:37pm
In the context of Will’s greater body of work, you have nailed it. He has often written about Congress passing legislation that sounds great in a sound bite, but that leaves all the details vague for the executive agencies to interpret in what amounts to be a substantial portion of the rule making. I would posit that of the two motivations you mention for this that laziness is the primary culprit.
Alan Goldhammer
Aug 8 2020 at 4:31pm
Will covers this and more in his magisterial book, “The Conservative Sensibility.” Those interested in political theory will find this a good source of thought.
Theodore Lopez
Aug 8 2020 at 11:42pm
Confusing a thing called “Congress” with a group of people called “Congressmen” is a common mistake. What gets a particular Congressman ahead surely is not anything close to preserving the integrity of his institution.
MarkW
Aug 9 2020 at 7:40am
My theory is that Congress willingly cedes power to the Presidency, the courts, and the administrative agencies because all members of Congress face the problem of getting re-elected over-and-over again (sometimes for many decades) while none of the others do. Presidents face re-election just once, while federal bureaucrats and federal judges have, effectively, lifetime positions. And note that members from ‘safe’ districts can’t relax either, since there is always the treat of losing in the primary.
Members of Congress do love to wield certain kinds of power (showering money on their districts and on supporters who will hire their relatives and even themselves should they find themselves out of office), but, entirely predictably, they hate casting tough votes on controversial issues.
Tom O'Neill
Aug 10 2020 at 5:23pm
Another view may be that Congress is not so much relinquishing power, but exchanging it. The power to make laws, budget, declare war, confirm nominees, conduct oversight are awesome, but those powers come with accountability to voters. That accountability means vulnerability. If we assume the powers granted by the Constitution are what they value, and expanding those powers would be what Will refers to, then Will is contradicting his own argument. However, if we assume they are exchanging those powers for the power to be reelected, and that simply winning political battles and feeding at the trough is more important than expanding Constitutional powers, then Will can still be consistent. Not an attractive assumption, but it may be the case.
Michael
Aug 15 2020 at 10:51am
McCain Feingold campaign ‘reform’ changed behavior of Congress.
Less time on legislation, delegate that stuff to your staff.
More time dialing for dollars.
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