Why is Congress not legislating? Congress is the national legislature. The Constitution vests Congress with exclusive legislative rights. Then why will the Members of Congress not legislate?
Among the exclusive legislative jobs for Congress is to
appropriate funds for the operations of government. This is a regular, annual task. This must be well understood: for Congress to fail to fund the operations
of the federal government is a dereliction of duty of the highest order. Nothing prevents the Members from doing that
duty, and no one else can do it.
The President cannot legislate, least of all appropriate. That limitation is firmly placed as a check
on executive power. The President may
not write a single word of legislation, he may not appropriate one penny. If the agencies of government are not funded,
it is because Congress has failed to fund them.
No one else can fund them, and no one else can fail to fund them. Currently, Congress has not done its job for
much of the federal government, and the Members of Congress have no excuse, no
justification for the failure.
The President can make recommendations to Congress, he can
ask for appropriations. Congress can
heed or disregard such recommendations and requests entirely at its discretion. They have no effect except as Congress
chooses.
Some might say, but what about the President’s veto? Can he not refuse to sign an appropriation,
and send the bill back to Congress?
Indeed he can. He may send it
back, but he cannot change it, he cannot add or remove a single word. Congress can decide whether to change the
legislation, do nothing, or vote to override the veto. Those decisions are entirely in the hands of
the legislators.
It is no excuse for legislators to say that they cannot find
sufficient agreement whether to override a veto or even to pass a law. Whose fault is that? True representative legislatures (not the
rubber stamps of communist dictatorships) have always had the difficult job of
dealing with disagreement. That is why
we have legislatures with numerous members.
It is expected that there will be varying points of view. The legislators’ responsibility is to resolve
these differences sufficient to pass necessary laws.
Appropriations for government operations are necessary laws. They are also among the most malleable of
questions. When the consideration is
money for government projects, there is a compromise to be found. We will
not pass anything is not an acceptable option. It is legislative failure.
Presidents may say that they will veto a bill that does not
meet certain standards. That is a President’s
prerogative, but the Constitution is careful to make it a surmountable
obstacle. The Members of Congress,
working through the legislative process, may either find a sufficient majority
to pass a law that the President will not veto or a sufficient unity of view
that will allow them to override the veto.
Doing nothing until the President changes his view is dereliction.
Presidents have had vetoes overridden. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Democrat, vetoed
635 Acts of Congress passed by strong majorities of fellow Democrats. Congress overrode several of those. Ronald Reagan vetoed 78 Acts of Congress,
several of which were overridden.
Most often, a significant number of Members will sympathize
with the President’s view. That calls
for legislative efforts to find a formula reasonable enough that the President
does not reasonably veto it. That is
what the national legislature traditionally does and is expected to do. That is what this Congress has so far failed
to do. That failure is entirely the fault of the Members of
Congress.
