POGO’s Priorities for an Effective 119th Congress
The 119th Congress can and should take steps to reclaim its role as the first branch among equals.
(Photos: Getty Images; Department of Defense; Paul Becker / Flickr CC BY 2.0; Illustration: Leslie Garvey / POGO)
The American system of democratic self-governance is facilitated by a constitutional structure comprised of three distinct and interactive branches. Contrary to popular mythology, the three branches are not meant to be coequal. As set forth and structured through Article I of the Constitution, Congress was always meant to be the first branch among equals.
Congress has the power to hire and fire officials from the other two branches through the confirmation and impeachment processes. Congress is specifically and explicitly given the authority to tax and spend the country’s resources, write and enact the laws of the land, ratify international treaties, and declare war. The country’s founders always intended for the branch that is closest to the people — the one that must face accountability through regular and frequent elections — to be the most powerful of the three branches.
Unfortunately, due to factors ranging from self-defeating cultural shifts to overreach and aggrandizement on the part of the other two branches, Congress has been rendered subordinate. As the new congressional session commences and a new presidential administration begins, the 119th Congress finds itself in the perfect position to fundamentally transform the relationship between itself and the rest of the federal government and address the power imbalance.
Below are concrete, actionable steps that Congress should take to achieve this necessary and overdue constitutional course correction.
Reclaiming the Congressional Power of the Purse
One of Congress’s clearest and most important authorities is its purview over the nation’s spending and taxing policy, otherwise known as the power of the purse. The founders of the country and the framers of the Constitution intentionally placed this vital responsibility in the hands of the first branch, the government entity closest and most responsive to the American people.
Over the two centuries since, Congress has slowly but surely lost its grip over this essential power, and the executive branch has just as surely absorbed much of that power to itself. This has created a number of problematic constitutional and democratic challenges. It is past time for Congress to reassert itself when it comes to spending and firmly reestablish itself as the exclusive owner of the power of the purse.
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Fact Sheet: Reclaim Congress’s Vital Power of the Purse
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Fact Sheet: Increase Federal Spending Transparency
Improving and More Effectively Conducting Congressional Oversight
Aside from legislation, Congress’s primary purpose is to conduct rigorous and useful oversight of pressing public policy issues. In an ideal world, oversight would be done in a serious, objective, and fact-driven manner. Increasingly, however, oversight is simply an exercise in partisan point-scoring and salacious political theatre. While partisan politics and electoral considerations have always been and will always be a core component of congressional activity, they should not be the primary objective.
With ever tighter majorities in both chambers of Congress, legislating will only become more difficult and more infrequent. In this environment, serious and productive congressional oversight offers a parallel track through which Congress can represent the American people and address the issues of the day. Unless Congress reforms the way it conducts oversight and undertakes a cultural shift in its use of oversight powers, this critical role will only deteriorate and devolve even further.
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Congressional Oversight and Investigations
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Fact Sheet: How Congress Can Strengthen Its Oversight Capacity
Reining In and Reforming Potentially Dangerous Emergency Powers
Checks and balances and the separation of powers are foundational elements of our constitutional system. Each of the three branches is supposed to deploy and guard its core powers responsibly and assertively. In the case of emergency powers, however, Congress long ago gave the executive branch a broad and extremely potent set of authorities that the president can unilaterally invoke with next to no accountability.
These powers can be abused to do anything from declaring an insurrection for purposes of stifling political opposition to circumventing the explicit will of Congress to use taxpayer funds in ways it did not intend. There are almost no meaningful guardrails or checks on the use of emergency powers by the president — and Congress must change this by enacting key reforms to the Insurrection Act and the National Emergencies Act.
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The Sweeping Powers Allowed by National Emergencies
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Fact Sheet: Reforming the National Emergencies Act
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Fact Sheet: Reforming the Insurrection Act
Strengthening Congress’s Role in Nominations and Federal Agency Leadership
Congress is an institution divided into two chambers, each with their own culture, rules, and specific duties. The Senate is constitutionally tasked with providing advice and consent to the president on nominations for certain high-level executive branch positions. This structure is intended to provide some level of congressional input into who will be leading federal agencies and placed in charge of implementing congressional directives.
In recent years, the increasing number of vacancies in Senate-confirmed positions across a wide array of federal agencies has led to disruptions and discontinuity in the work of those agencies. Moreover, intentional abuse of the system for interim appointments demands congressional attention to the law that governs this process — the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. To improve the effectiveness of our government and further reinforce the importance of its advice and consent, the Senate needs to take its role in the nomination and confirmation process seriously, and it must work with the House to reform the Vacancies Act.
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Abuses of the Vacancies Act
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Fact Sheet: Amend the Federal Vacancies Reform Act
Reclaiming and Reasserting Congressional Centrality in War and Peace
Another of Congress’s most sacred duties is the power to declare war, specifically allocated to the legislative branch through Article I of the Constitution. Given that war brings with it massive costs, both human and financial, the war power is arguably the most critical and solemn congressional responsibility. Partially due to its own negligence and partially due to executive branch overreach, Congress has steadily abrogated its war power responsibilities and given the president an undue opportunity to unilaterally decide to send Americans to fight and die overseas.
Congress must realign the scales of power when it comes to war and peace by clawing back its rightful authority over declaring war and overseeing the deployment of the military. This rebalancing can only be achieved through the repeal of obsolete authorities given to the president and reforms to key laws that govern the use of the military.
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Congress Must Reclaim and Reassert War Power
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Fact Sheet: Reclaiming Congress’s War Power
Reining in Exploding Costs and Effectiveness Failures in Major Military Programs
In order to deliver on its mandate to protect the nation, the U.S. military must be able to obtain cost-efficient, effective goods and services. In recent decades, the Pentagon has faced increasing challenges when it comes to major defense acquisitions, in terms of both effectiveness and financial responsibility.
Recently, major programs like the F-35, the Littoral Combat Ship, and the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program have seen costs to taxpayers spiral out of control even as they fail to provide promised capabilities. The problem is clear. Congress must step in and enact reforms to key laws and processes that can help contain costs, cut down on waste, and ensure effectiveness in critical military platforms and programs.
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Congressional Oversight of Defense Spending
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Fact Sheet: How Congress Can Improve Oversight of Weapons Programs Acquisition
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Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette
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