Congress should be able to follow constitutional procedures

 

This post was printed in the Wilson Times Aug. 14, 2020

            During all the times I served on councils, boards and other bodies responsible for churches, nonprofit groups and charities, I always insisted that the board members adhere to the official rules set down in charters, bylaws and other governing documents.

            It’s too bad the U.S. Congress — the “People’s House” of Representatives and “the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body,” the U.S. Senate, frequently ignore the rules and U.S. Constitution, which give them their authority.

            Once upon a time, public school students learned early on in mandatory civics classes about the system of checks and balances among three co-equal branches of government — Legislative, Executive, and Judicial — divisions that make American democracy unique and successful. But these policies and rules set down in the first three articles of the Constitution are ignored or skirted or forgotten more often than not. Civics classes are rarely offered in today’s public schools.

            Last week’s case in point was the second corona virus relief package. The House, dominated by Democrats, passed a relief package totaling $3 trillion (that’s in addition to $3 trillion in the first relief bill), but the Republican-dominated Senate found the House bill too generous and expansive. The House found the Senate’s $1 trillion proposal too stingy to address the crisis. The two chambers were at an impasse.

            The Constitution and generations of civics books have told us that when this happens, a conference committee with members of both houses shall meet to work out the differences. In the current impasse, neither chamber would take up the other’s bill, a sign of the partisan chasm of our politics. Instead of organizing a conference committee to resolve the differences in the two proposals, congressional leaders began negotiating with the Executive branch, not with members of Congress.

            President Trump has “come to the rescue,” as he sees it, with a series of executive orders that partially restores the recently expired $600 weekly federal unemployment benefit. Trump offers $400 a week, but with many strings and barriers attached, along with an order to “consider” a housing foreclosure ban, which the House wanted to implement.

            Trump has ordered that the payroll tax on earned income should not be collected through the end of the year. The payroll tax supports Social Security  (6.2 percent from employees and 6.2 percent from employers) and Medicare (1.45 percent each from employees and employers), both funds face long-term shortages. The temporary tax holiday will have little impact on consumer spending but a potentially large impact on the solvency of Social Security and Medicare, two of the most successful and popular government programs in U.S. history. He also touts the plan as a loan that has to be repaid, perhaps. Trump says he’ll forgive the payroll tax loan, and, hey, if he’s reelected, he’ll extend the loan forgiveness into next year!

            Trump’s announcement was aimed at maximum electoral impact, but the more bothersome issue is the Executive Branch taking over legislative matters. Certainly, the Constitution doesn’t grant a president the right to circumvent what happens in Congress. The president’s only constitutional duty in this process is his right to veto a bill passed by both houses, with the limitation that if both chambers reject his veto by a two-thirds vote, the vetoed bill becomes law.

            Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution clearly states: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress … which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.”

             Modern presidencies (post-World War II) have taken an outsized view of the office, leading to complaints of an “Imperial Presidency.” Congress shares responsibility for its loss of constitutional authority. Members of Congress have negotiated with the president, not with fellow legislators, to get bills passed. Congress has also passed laws that leave to the executive branch the creation of rules and regulations implementing those new laws.