Conor here: “Where is the Senate, where is the people? The senate is missing, the people have perished.”
By Charlie Hunt, Associate Professor of Political Science, Boise State University. Originally published at The Conversation.
Many Americans will be voting on Election Day – or have already cast votes – in races for statewide office, local positions and on ballot initiatives with major implications for democracy.
Congress is not on the ballot this November, but it will be in the 2026 midterms. A year from now, Americans in every state and district will get to vote for whom they want representing their interests in Washington.
But right now, Congress isn’t giving the American people much to go on.
As the shutdown of the federal government passes the one-month mark, the U.S. House of Representatives has been in recess for over 40 days. That’s the longest it’s ever stayed out of town outside of its typical summer recesses or the weeks leading up to their own elections.
Notably, the shutdown does not mean that Congress can’t meet. In fact, it must meet to end the shutdown legislatively. The Senate, for example, has taken votes recently on judicial nominations, a major defense authorization bill and a resolution on tariff policy.
Senators have also continued to hold bipartisan behind-the-scenes negotiations to end the shutdown impasse.
But with dwindling SNAP benefits, skyrocketing health care premiums and other major shutdown impacts beginning to set in, the House has all but abdicated its position as “The People’s Chamber.”
Long ‘Path to Irrelevance’
In addition to not meeting for any votes, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has refused to swear in Democratic U.S. Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva of Arizona. Despite Johnson’s assurances, the shutdown does not prevent the House from meeting in a brief session to swear in Grijalva as a member for Arizona’s 7th District, which has been without representation since March.
Along with Casey Burgat and SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor, I am co-author of a textbook, “Congress Explained: Representation and Lawmaking in the First Branch.” In that book, it was important to us to highlight Congress’ clear role as the preeminent lawmaking body in the federal government.
But throughout the shutdown battle, Congress – particularly the House of Representatives – has been unwilling to assert itself as an equal branch of government. Beyond policymaking, Congress has been content to hand over many of its core constitutional powers to the executive branch. As a Congress expert who loves the institution and profoundly respects its constitutionally mandated role, I have found this renunciation of responsibility difficult to watch.
And yet, Congress’ path to irrelevance as a body of government did not begin during the shutdown, or even in January 2025.
It is the result of decades of erosion that created a political culture in which Congress, the first branch of government listed in the Constitution, is relegated to second-class status.
The Constitution Puts Congress First
The 18th-century framers of the Constitution viewed Congress as the foundation of republican governance, deliberately placing it first in Article 1 to underscore its primacy. Congress was assigned the pivotal tasks of lawmaking and budgeting because controlling government finances was seen as essential to limiting executive power and preventing abuses that the framers associated with monarchy.
Alternatively, a weak legislature and an imperial executive were precisely what many of the founders feared. With legislative authority in the hands of Congress, power would at least be decentralized among a wide variety of elected leaders from different parts of the country, each of whom would jealously guard their own local interests.
But Trump’s first 100 days turned the founders’ original vision on its head, leaving the “first branch” to play second fiddle.
Like most recent presidents, Trump came in with his party in control of the presidency, the House and the Senate. Yet despite the lawmaking power that this governing trifecta can bring, the Republican majorities in Congress have mostly been irrelevant to Trump’s agenda.
Instead, Congress has relied on Trump and the executive branch to make changes to federal policy and in many cases to reshape the federal government completely.
Trump has signed more than 210 executive orders, a pace faster than any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Republican Congress has shown little interest in pushing back on any of them. Trump has also aggressively reorganized, defunded or simply deleted entire agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
These actions have been carried out even though Congress has a clear constitutional authority over the executive branch’s budget. And during the shutdown, Congress has shown little to no interest in reasserting its “power of the purse,” content instead to let the president decide which individuals and agencies receive funding, regardless of what Congress has prescribed.
Many Causes, No Easy Solutions
There’s no one culprit but instead a collection of factors that have provided the ineffectual Congress of today.
One overriding factor is a process that has unfolded over the past 50 or more years called political nationalization. American politics have become increasingly centered on national issues, parties and figures rather than more local concerns or individuals.
This shift has elevated the importance of the president as the symbolic and practical leader of a national party agenda. Simultaneously, it weakens the role of individual members of Congress, who are now more likely to toe the party line than represent local interests.
As a result, voters focus more on presidential elections and less on congressional ones, granting the president greater influence and diminishing Congress’ independent authority.
The more Congress polarizes among its members on a party-line basis, the less the public is likely to trust the legitimacy of its opposition to a president. Instead, congressional pushback − sometimes as extreme as impeachment − can thus be written off not as principled or substantive but as partisan or politically motivated to a greater extent than ever before.
Congress has also been complicit in giving away its own power. Especially when dealing with a polarized Congress, presidents increasingly steer the ship in budget negotiations, which can lead to more local priorities – the ones Congress is supposed to represent – being ignored.
But rather than Congress staking out positions for itself, as it often did through the turn of the 21st century, political science research has shown that presidential positions on domestic policy increasingly dictate – and polarize – Congress’ own positions on policy that hasn’t traditionally been divisive, such as funding support for NASA. Congress’ positions on procedural issues, such as raising the debt ceiling or eliminating the filibuster, also increasingly depend not on bedrock principles but on who occupies the White House.
In the realm of foreign policy, Congress has all but abandoned its constitutional power to declare war, settling instead for “authorizations” of military force that the president wants to assert. These give the commander in chief wide latitude over war powers, and both Democratic and Republican presidents have been happy to retain that power. They have used these congressional approvals to engage in extended conflicts such as the Gulf War in the early 1990s and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade later.
What’s Lost with a Weak Congress
Americans lose a lot when Congress hands over such drastic power to the executive branch.
When individual members of Congress from across the country take a back seat, their districts’ distinctly local problems are less likely to be addressed with the power and resources that Congress can bring to an issue. Important local perspectives on national issues fail to be represented in Congress.
Even members of the same political party represent districts with vastly different economies, demographics and geography. Members are supposed to keep this in mind when legislating on these issues, but presidential control over the process makes that difficult or even impossible.
Maybe more importantly, a weak Congress paired with what historian Arthur Schlesinger called the “Imperial Presidency” is a recipe for an unaccountable president, running wild without the constitutionally provided oversight and checks on power that the founders provided to the people through their representation by the first branch of government.
31 comments
Comments are closed.
It might be informative to have two panels on one page side by side. In the panel on the left you would have those sections of the US Constitution dealing with Congress and its powers written out word for word. On the right panel you would have the same but it would be rewritten to reflect what the actual reality is in 2025. Let people see for themselves what has been changed.
It might be more appropriate to have all of Article I on the left side of the page and leave the right side blank.
The following provides another sterling example of Congressional non-oversight concerning one of those stupefyingly dull war and peace issues.
https://newrepublic.com/article/202537/trump-boat-bombings-venezuela-alarm-bells
It is interesting to look at the longer term. Agree that the decline of the u.s. Congress has been ongoing for some decades.
I’ve read that Congress today spends most of its time calling donors and collecting opinions and cash. I suspect that is likely true.
I think it’s been a long time that the national party line has been paramount as opposed to any local considerations a particular Congress person might have.
Perhaps Congress ceased to have much significance some time ago? After all the donors also fund trump and often fund both parties for that matter.
So what comes next?
I’d be surprised if the facade (for donors) that Congress has become ceased to exist. First, no investor likes to throw money away. Second, Congress still had the function of providing legitimacy. While surveillance and incarceration capacities are being expanded at a massive pace, repression is more costly than the free cooperation of the masses.
They aren’t just calling donors either. About a year ago I was at the dinner table with a high ranking Congressperson who told those in attendance about a recent fundraising trip to Europe. Did I mention this was a Unites States Congressperson, and not a European MP? A couple eyebrows were raised at this declaration, at which point the Congressperson said they were only soliciting donations from US citizens overseas, and not taking any foreign money. I don’t believe them for one second.
Getting paid to take European vacations – nice work if you can get it!
It takes a globe full of such people to create exploitative systems all around the globe.
One overriding factor is a process that has unfolded over the past 50 or more years called political nationalization. American politics have become increasingly centered on national issues, parties and figures rather than more local concerns or individuals.
Yes, it’s not national politics, it’s globalisation and corporatism and our little local issues don’t matter for nothin’, and I, as well as the author and the commentariat, don’t see a way out.
Other than just crash it already which they seem to be doing in order to consolidate and double down on ruling the world. A dubious goal.
Aw, just on a fact-finding trip to see what they can learn from the orcs in the shires. Consultants and lobbyists in tow, often suggesting optimal historic dining and drinking spots, noting new revenue opportunities stateside.
When I found out the dirty secret going on at Congress, it all made sense…
All they do presently on a bipartisan basis is rename post offices and other Federal buildings, in terms of making new laws.
That’s how pathetic our leadership is, there is none.
It’s a small DC club and we ain’t in it. Costs millions to get a membership.
Unfair criticism! They also named the buffalo the national animal. But just remember,
a congressperson only makes $174K a year. That amount by itself cannot buy
the necessary house in Northern Virginia. What, are you going to have a party
for your donors in a manufactured home? Might as well hang out on 14th and T
street in Washington with a harmonica and a tin cup.
It’s the house mortgage that keeps Congress critters glued to the phone cajoling Donors. Maybe D.C. needs affordable public housing for these folks.
Since I believe that Congress members of both Houses should be meeting with their constituents and spending at least half or more of their time in their districts I am perfectly fine with there being Congress Dorms. These should be small single en suite rooms with housekeeping once a week, a small communal kitchen on each floor and maybe a media room in each building.
But then I would also have clear laws regarding lobbying and fundraising where most of which that is considered the norm today would land them, the lobbyists and the donors in prison.
A girl can dream…
It’s been about a month since expressing the unlikely but devastating concern about no Congress before the mid-terms. I’m up to 7% likelihood, increasing at 1..2% per week. Linear so far, should flatten out, I tend to run over-sensitive, but Dang…
Since the government of a capitalist entity is the executive committee of the ruling class and we have a president who is a member of the inner ruling class – congress is obviously unneeded and, along with the millionaire boys club called the senate, can go about doing harm to the women, immigrants, impoverished workers and youth the congress critters so love to target.
“men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties. 1. those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2dly those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them cherish and consider them as the most honest & safe, altho’ not the most wise depository of the public interests. in every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.” -From Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, 10 August 1824.
“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” Thomas Jefferson
‘The sickly, weakly, timid man fears the people, and is a Tory by nature. The healthy, strong and bold, cherishes them and is formed a Whig by nature” Thomas Jefferson
To this present time, I find both parties lacking in those men disposed who identify -themselves with the people, have confidence in them cherish and consider them as the most honest & safe, altho’ not the most wise depository of the public interests.
As to opinions upon the different administrations for the past 50yrs, Whether, they fit “The sickly, weakly, timid man fears the people” or “The healthy, strong and bold, cherishes them” is left up to the reader — personaly it is a pretty easy sort for me.
I come to this opinion through my belief that the ‘aristocracy of our moneyed corporations’ has indeed come to power and control of both parties as a direct and, end result of legislative capture via the Finacial capitalist(neoliberal economic structure) –
This was good. More like this? We luv history.
Here in SC our Lindsey is a prime example of how localism is out since he is so much a swamp creature. Every now and then he may pipe up about a South Carolina issue but clearly that’s not really his thing.
It should be very clear that all three branches of US govt. have been “captured” by the oligarchy. The courts make a mockery of the constitution, and after the now infamous Citizens United decision, political bribery is legal. Congress is openly bribed, but we don’t call it that here, they receive “contributions” from “donors” in typical Orwellian euphemism. We don’t call oligarchs by their true name, we call them “philanthropists” or “tech moguls” etc. The oligarchs were on full display, hiding in plain sight, during the so-called inauguration. Which oligarch will become the world’s first trillionaire?
Congress has indeed given away its constitutional power to the imperial presidency (emperor) because that’s the way the bribe-masters want it. The systems of “checks and balances” is now a myth. SCOTUS makes a mockery of the constitution and we have seen SCOTUS members take bribes as well.
The US has no functioning democracy, only a stage-managed, BigMoney spectacle we call elections. Elections Inc. are merely a lucrative PR stunt. It generates billions for PR, advertising, media, political parties etc. It also creates the illusion of choice and narrowly frames what issues to talk about.
The emperor openly boasted that a certain Israeli/US billionaire bribed him with 10s of millions of dollars. Policy is sold off to the highest bidder, but we plebs are not supposed to notice. Funding and supporting genocide is normalized, no big deal.
The US is now a lawless, corrupt, rogue empire that ignores the constitution, ignores the law, and ignores norms and values of most of humanity. The US is not capable of agreement, and is now playing a game of hegemony or destruction.
Elections Inc…yes
a disenfranchised citizenry grappling with the economics of oppression…to stave off insolvency…..indignation towards big media’s concilliatory messaging….adding to the derision of enduring the mockery of a prospective obsolete republic.
Maybe this is the imperial collapse — the imperial administration is closed. The longer it is going on, the more suspicious it becomes. Certainly, more furloughed and unpayed gov employees will look for other jobs the longer the gov is closed. Many will not return when the gov is opened — involuntary quitting. Gov contractors and gov grant supported entities will run out of funds and will also need to find something else to do.
Or maybe it is a test of the country’s resilience in the absence of gov support and subsidies — yank the contracts, grants and subsidies and such and see how long it would take before criminality is through the roof and hungry/angry crowds run amok… certainly possible in the context of the reports about the military deployment in the cities and training for handling civil unrest. Although, a way to pay the military will need to be found, otherwise the military may join the crowds.
The is anger in the highest echelons. The gov closure is taking place over the background of mass firing of the white color workers and a scolding and depredation of the universities — higher education is no longer needed. Even the military generals got an earful about being fat and flabby.
For the gov closure to be effective for the above purposes, it probably needs to last until January of 2026. Let’s see.
Autocorrected “white collar” incorrectly– apologies…
As long as we don’t kill each other, we win.
I would submit that a major issue is structural: simply mathematical. Today, the average House member “represents” more than 760,000 people. This is over 20x what existed at the founding of the USA, although, admittedly only white male property owners could vote at the very beginning. Even disregarding the input of big money into perpetual campaign funds, it is not possible for a congressperson to represent that many people. (And we haven’t even touched on the issue of gerrymandering). Simply put, the population of the USA is too large to accommodate the idea of a representative being close enough to the citizens in their district to represent their will.
Living in the capital city of a sparsely populated state, I have had the great luxury of being able to interact face-to-face with my representative over the years, but this is not the case for the great majority of USAns, many of whom might not even know the name of their representative. And why should they when that individual votes against their collective will most of the time?
aye. for nigh on 30 years, i have been an advocate of finishing the procedures related to “Article The First”, which was the first amendment to the Constitution propsed(congressional Reapprtionment Amendment)…that would expand the number of Representative so that they could maybe actually represent their constituents. All it requires is ratification by the states.
from GOPers, and especially libertarians, i get “oh, noes! not Moar government!”…from Dems(when i can find one), i get a zealot gleam of contempt for having unapproved ideas.
of course, this would require a new capital building(i propose a giant pole barn, like they shear sheep in in Montana)…because the House would swell to a few thousand members(i dont remember the exact number, and its sunday, so no math)…and would resemble the Galactic Senate in the Star Wars Prequel trilogy.
and, of course, by now, i have just plain given up on fixing any of all that,lol.
It’s a good idea, big dawg!
Let’s use it!
As long as it makes sense and it’s got it’s roots in the American 🇺🇸 Revolution, we should use it!
I agree, the number of Representatives hasn’t been changed since the 1910s even though US population has tripled. Just matching that would give us about 1300 representatives. Constitution allows up to 1 per 30,000 (currently 1/786,000) which would be 11,400. Can’t really say what a good number would be, but it should be at least 1,000.
Until relatively recently, the regular session of Congress didn’t meet until the first week of December. Mid-term sessions could last as long as August, but typically wrapped up by the end of the fiscal year in July. End of term sessions ended in March, though when co-incident with Presidential terms the new Senate would typically meet in executive session after the inauguration to confirm appointments.
Then of course the XVII Amendment changed the Senate structure. From what I’ve read of political science, that was largely due to state legislators not liking their election being used as a proxy for the Senate election.
If anything in the US, we now have government where life-tenure judges set much of policy, down to the district court level. When district court judges determine what must be funded, a large segment of “the people” are going to feel unrepresented.
State and Local options – check the Institute for Local Self Reliance.
http://www.ilsr.org
It just may be that the hope for some kind of collapse and magical uprising is a profound delusion.
In the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) Marx and Engles wrote that:
“Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbances of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeoise epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions are swept away, all new formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned!”
Talk about a profound economic, political, and cultural critique.
Is our present regime (in our economy, in our politics, and in our culture) presently so unstable that it will become self-liquidating not through some kind of crash (which seems to be the commentariat hope/consensus) but through a transition from one supposed appliance upgrade (presently AI) to another–forever and ever?
And, as a consequence of this process, market power, political power, and cultural power becomes more and more concentrated with the winners rigging the competition to benefit their offspring.
The end result is an extremely powerful mafiacracy (see writings of Michael Lind) that resturctures our regime in such a way that neither democratic socialism or distributisim (the rule of small, local businesses) are viable alternatives.
Yes, warlords are the future social organization. Unless…
Like Lincoln found out, slavery in the US could not be reformed, it had to be abolished. That is called a Revolution.
I beg to differ. It’s not a revolution, but a swindle. A lie. A scam. A fable for small children and naive adults. Modern day USA is nothing short of slavery with extra steps, which means that slavery was successfully reformed and is doing great (unless you are one of the slaves, that is).