Comment by ratamacue
6 days ago
"Act of Congress" has always implied "something that is hard", but it has also implied "something that is fairly definitive". Today, congress can be largely ignored by the executive and congress seems to support it vocally. Is this also something that has been true more often than not in the American Republic?
> Today, congress can be largely ignored by the executive and congress seems to support it vocally.
I seem to remember the 116th and 118th Congresses pushing back against executive power, which were the last times the US had divided government. https://history.house.gov/Institution/Presidents-Coinciding/...
And I wouldn't exactly say that Congress is wholly supporting unrestricted presidential power currently either. E.g. Senator Thune continually shooting down Trump's more oddball pleas.
There are very vocal supporters of the president in both the House and Senate GOP caucuses, but they're not the majority.
I think the strongest version of your argument would be something like 'In recent US Congressional history, both parties when in power have used congressional power to tactically check opposition party presidents, but neither have sought to permanently expand and defend the bounds of congressional power.'
Wouldn’t a functioning congress have resisted the executive aborbing its powers? After all, congress was supposed to be the most powerful branch. For good reason.
> congress was supposed to be the most powerful branch
Just re-read the USA constitution. Despite much effort, I did not find any "power rankings" of the three branches. Please point me in the right direction.
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