News. Debate. Community. Levers for a better democracy.
The State of Reform
Download Unite America’s free report
Download Unite America's free report analyzing the impact of four key political reforms.
MOST READ
Get some leverage.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter.
Patrick Foto/Getty Images
Congress is losing ground on the budget; it's time it claws that power back
Jun 30 2020
Hedtler-Gaudette is a policy analyst at the Project On Government Oversight, a nonpartisan group that investigates misconduct and conflicts of interest by federal officials. Dayton is a policy advocate at Protect Democracy, a nonprofit working "to prevent our democracy from declining into a more authoritarian form of government."
<p>Back in April, President Trump said he would halt federal funding of the World Health Organization, on the grounds it was too slow to sound the alarm about the global spread of the coronavirus. The next month, he announced the United States was withdrawing from the WHO altogether. </p><p>Like so many of the president's norm-shattering proclamations, that raised the question: Can he do those things?</p><p>The answer, as it happens, is complicated — and it shines a bright light on the vulnerabilities in the congressional appropriations process and the wobbly balance of legislative and executive power. As Congress begins to exercise the power of the purse again, by starting this month to produce spending measures for the coming year, it would do well to learn from the troubling weaknesses the WHO issue raises.</p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>Congress provided the president with discretion when it appropriated this year's funding for "international organizations," as has been typical. It neglected to specify an amount for the WHO, created after World War II to combat diseases of global import, or even mention the organization by name. </p><p>Instead, the law instructed the administration "to meet annual obligations of membership in international multilateral organizations, pursuant to treaties ... conventions, or specific acts of Congress," and provided a bucket of funds for doing so. Absent more specificity, the administration may be technically entitled to redirect funds originally destined for the WHO.</p><p>After more than seven decades as a dues-paying member, the United States is changing course by executive decree, but it's far from clear Congress intended to grant the executive such sweeping authority.</p><p>Lawmakers commonly appropriate without including line-item details, with the understanding that policymaking benefits from some reasonable flexibility. Undergirding this practice is trust. In exchange for granting some discretion, Congress expects the presidents will not run loose and suspend the flow of money clearly meant for a program or organization — or pursue policies clearly at odds with the nation's commitments as decided upon by Congress.</p><p>Whether the president has the technical authority misses the bigger point: The administration's actions risk further eroding trust between the two branches. The president is chipping away at the presumption of good faith. And, just as troubling, lawmakers are steadily losing control over their most critical constitutional prerogative.</p><p>In this respect, the WHO issue is one of many. Last year, for example, the White House's Office of Management and Budget informed federal agencies they need not reply to inquiries from Congress' Government Accountability Office about potential violations of appropriations law.</p><p>No statute specifically mandates agency cooperation with the GAO in this regard; the law only obligates agencies to report violations themselves. But traditionally, cooperation prevails. Alarmed, the GAO wrote to tell Congress the novel OMB guidance was an abrupt departure from long-standing norms.</p><p>As the president sidelines bedrock congressional authority, it falls on Congress to reassert its power to spend money. Otherwise, Congress' power and interbranch trust will continue to erode.</p><p>First, Congress should start with requiring spending transparency within the executive branch. While Trump announced termination of WHO funding, Capitol Hill has little visibility into whether and when funds would actually be withheld or redirected. </p><p>Congress should require publicly available and regular apportionment reports, and mandate compliance with requests for information from oversight bodies like the GAO. Congress should have little tolerance for being left in the dark when exercising its most basic constitutional duties.</p><p>Second, it's time to add some teeth to its lawmaking by authorizing disciplinary measures for officials who violate appropriations law. The Congressional Power of the Purse Act, a bill proposed this spring by the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Democrat John Yarmouth of Kentucky, would make progress on both fronts.</p><p>Perhaps most importantly, members of Congress should speak up in defense of their branch of government — and forcefully. </p><p>This pushback must include public statements but also assertive action to claw back the legislative branch's rightful position in our system of separated and balanced powers. Trump's letter to the WHO suggests the power of the purse lay squarely with the executive — Congress, meanwhile, entirely absent from the picture. </p><p>A president's usurpation of congressional authority is not novel, to be sure; every one of them has sought to accrete more spending power for himself. Still, recent episodes risk further muddying the constitutional waters, communicating to the public (and the world) that our government's spending authority resides with the executive. The Framers certainly disagreed, unequivocally vesting Congress with the sole constitutional power of the purse.</p><p>Reasonable people can disagree on policy, such as whether the United States should be the 194th member of WHO or keep current on its dues to belong. That's not the issue. This is about the president's unilateral decision and Congress' power to determine government spending priorities.</p><p>While the issue right now may be Trump's decision to leave the WHO, next year may bring a new administration. Congress should want to reassert its power of the purse regardless of who is in the White House. Congressional Democrats have excoriated this administration for assuming Congress' spending authority; should Joe Biden move into the Oval Office, we can expect congressional Republicans would rightfully do the same.</p><p>Congress' real struggle, then, is less about any one president and more over its own role as envisaged by the Constitution. The latter is certainly more enduring and more important, so Congress should stand up now and reclaim its authority.</p>
From Your Site Articles
- Congress needs to reassert its authority - The Fulcrum ›
- President Trump, Congress and broken standards of democracy ... ›
- Will Congress Fight for Its Right to Govern? - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Keep reading...
Show less
News. Community. Debate. Levers for better democracy.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter.
ajansen/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Soren Dayton and Anthony Marcum arugue, "Members of the Rules Committee have taken the important first step of setting the model for other members and committees."
Some good news from the Hill: Congress is standing up for itself, together
Mar 13 2020
Dayton is a former House GOP aide and a policy advocate at Protect Democracy, a nonprofit that works "to prevent our democracy from declining into a more authoritarian form of government." Marcum is a governance fellow at the R Street Institute, a pro-free-market public policy research organization.
It is rare these days that people have happy news to share in the nation's capital. But we are here to do just that.
Last week, the House Rules Committee held an extraordinary hearing on ways Congress could reassert authorities it has long ceded to the executive branch. It was extraordinary for its form, its substance and its energy. (And yes, we're still talking about a Rules Committee hearing.)
First, the form. The hearing used principles that were first developed by the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. Established just last year, part of the purpose of this rarely discussed Modernization Committee is to "help Congress help itself" with new processes that make it more effective and less polarized.
<p>Last week, the Rules Committee practiced what the Modernization Committee has recently preached. And the result was a hearing conceived on a bipartisan basis, with witnesses picked jointly by committee staff from both parties, and with unlimited time for committee members to probe witnesses and dive more deeply into substantive and complex policy questions. </p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>Beyond these bipartisan successes, perhaps the most important symbolic moment of the hearing was this: Instead of turning over the gavel to another member of his majority, as is almost always done, when Democratic Chairman Jim McGovern of Massachusetts had to leave the room he <a href="https://twitter.com/RulesReps/status/1234991909430583296" target="_blank">handed it to the panel's top Republican</a>, Tom Cole of Oklahoma.</p><p>To understand the importance of this small but significant gesture, it's important to understand that the Rules Committee's members are appointed by the Speaker with an eye toward making sure the majority always wins. Almost all controversial legislation passes through Rules, which sets the procedures for debating and amending bills on the House floor. The Rules majority has the most lopsided majority of any committee, essentially guaranteeing the Speaker will get the ground rules she asks for.</p><p>This means most committee proceedings are entirely party-line affairs. But, last week, as Cole <a href="https://twitter.com/RulesDemocrats/status/1234898032321323008" target="_blank">noted in his opening statement</a>, the committee did not function in "usual partisan camps of 9-4" but instead came out 13-0 in favor of improving the institution of Congress. </p><p>And this leads to the substance of the hearing, focused on how Congress can reassert national security authorities it has long lost or delegated to the executive branch. In a joint statement announcing the hearing, McGovern and Cole argued that Congress for many years has been abdicating its authority to presidents over such fundamental matters as going to war, monitoring the regulatory process and controlling federal resources and powers during national emergencies. This "has happened regardless of which party controlled Congress or sat in the Oval Office," they noted, and so bipartisan diligence on Capitol Hill will be the only way to recalibrate the balance of power toward the legislative branch. </p><p>In his opening, Cole furthered this sentiment, noting that the Founders positioned Congress in Article I of the Constitution for a reason: "It was no accident that they first described the powers entrusted to Congress on behalf of the American people. Indeed, the legislative branch established in Article I remains the most closely connected to the views of our nation's citizens to this day."</p><p>The witnesses, who fell across the ideological spectrum, agreed. Testimony from professors<a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/RU/RU00/20200303/110603/HHRG-116-RU00-Wstate-BelmonteL-20200303.pdf" target="_blank"> Laura Belmonte</a> and<a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/RU/RU00/20200303/110603/HHRG-116-RU00-Wstate-SpaldingM-20200303.pdf" target="_blank"> Matthew Spalding's</a> provided a historical background of an ever-expanding executive branch coinciding with a legislature that has become more reluctant to use it foreign affairs powers. Professors<a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/RU/RU00/20200303/110603/HHRG-116-RU00-Wstate-PrakashS-20200303.pdf" target="_blank"> Saikrishna Prakash</a> and<a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/RU/RU00/20200303/110603/HHRG-116-RU00-Wstate-PearlsteinD-20200303.pdf" target="_blank"> Deborah Pearlstein</a> offered a number of possible reforms. </p><p>The hearing's bipartisan goodwill and institutional focus were only surpassed by the committee's genuine energy for reform. In addition to McGovern and Cole, most of the committee attended the entire hearing. This is a rarity in Congress, let alone for a hearing that went on for nearly four hours. </p><p>Members had also clearly done their homework. Two members of both the Modernization and Rules committees, Democrat Mary Scanlon of Pennsylvania and Republican Rob Woodall of Georgia, asked detailed questions about Congress' structural role. Republican Debbie Lesko of Arizona emphasized deep thinking about these issues happening across the political spectrum and referred to a<a href="https://rsc-johnson.house.gov/sites/republicanstudycommittee.house.gov/files/GEAR%20Report_Single%20Spread%20FINAL_0.pdf" target="_blank"> recent Republican Study Committee report</a> that included many recommendations about taking back power it has long abdicated. Democrat Donna Shalala of Florida, who was Health and Human Services secretary in the Clinton administration, explained that executive branch officials often "celebrate" this abdication and try to "drive a car through" broadly (or badly) drafted legislation. </p><p>Optimism for congressional reform, however, is always marred by subsequent inaction. Members of the Rules Committee have taken the important first step of setting the model for other members and committees. From here, it is up to the public — and the people's branch of government — to continue this important discussion. </p>
Keep reading...
Show less