Is the US Congress Too Powerful - Essay Example

Is the US Congress too powerful The United s Congress is part of a triumvirate of power that was put in place by the framers of the Constitution. The three parts of this systems are the Congress (House and Senate), the Executive in the form of the Presidency, and the Legal branch led by the Supreme Court. Thus a series of checks and balances was put in place that would not allow any one branch of government to become too powerful. This discussion will argue that the US Congress is not too powerful, but rather has a degree of power and authority commensurate with its position as the law-making branch of the government, and with the fact that its members directly represent the people. In evaluating whether the Congress is "too powerful", it is necessary to consider what it actually does. Congress makes laws, and within the United States this "law-making" role has in fact been made difficult rather than easy. In the United States of America laws are difficult to pass for a number of reasons and in a number of ways. American law is based upon a mixture of English and French law, and the Constitution was designed to produce three co-equal branches of government that would provide checks and balances on one another (Friedman, 1998) . These checks and balances are designed to make laws difficult to pass for a good reason: it stops any one individual, political party or branch of government dominating too much. A weak government makes for a strong people. The co-equal branches of government are designed to make laws difficult to pass. However, in a well-organized administration in which the President has a good relationship with Congress laws can be passed quite quickly and easily. But even when one particular Party has control of the Legislative and Executive branches: the House, the Senate and the Presidency, it can still be difficult to pass laws. This is shown by the difficulties that President Clinton had in 1992-1994 and President Bush has had for much his Presidency. The making of an American law has a number of hurdles placed in its way that were deliberately created by the writers of the Constitution. For example, a single Senator can filibuster a Bill and stop it becoming law even if it has received every vote in the House, would receive 59 votes in the Senate and also the signature of the President. This stops what has been called "the tyranny of the majority" (Brennan, 1996). The President can also veto a bill if it does not have the support of 2/3 of both the House and Senate in order to override the bill. However, pressure put on individual members by key positions such as the Speaker of the House or the Leader of the Senate may moderate the effects of this individual power. Members of each party tend to vote with their party. The process of moving from a Member/Senator's idea through to Bill and on to Law is deliberately set in a complex way. The Bill may be stopped at a number of hurdles, and indeed, the vast majority of Bills never make it to be laws (Sabato, 2006) Overall, a Bill may be introduced by a member of the House or Senate. It is then distributed to each member of the House. The Speaker of the House can then give it to a Committee which will recommend that it be released with a recommendation for passing, release with revision or be set aside entirely and not considered at all. Bills introduced by the majority party tend to be taken more seriously than those form the minority. The majority of Bills that have the support of the major powers in Congress (House, Senate, Presidency) do make it to be laws - the other bills are often never intended to become laws by the Members/Senators that introduce them. In fact they are for discussion or to score political points. The relationship between the House and Senate is designed to produce either compromise or to stop Bills making it to be a law. Bills that pass the House need to be introduced into the Senate, and there they may be adapted or changed to be something completely different in "conference committees" (Wilson, 2005). These committees are designed to delay the passage of laws that are too extreme or ill thought-out. Conference committees tend to be dominated by whichever party controls that particular Chamber. In recent history either the Democrats or Republicans have controlled both chambers of Congress. The moderating influence often doesn't exist. The Supreme Court acts as a moderating influence on the passage of laws. Laws that are passed through Congress at a rapid pace tend to have been not considered in the wider constitutional sense. If a law is too extreme or infringes upon rights guaranteed in the Constitution, it is often struck down by the Supreme Court. In one sense a law can only be seen as "firm law" once it has been considered by the Supreme Court. If it hasn't been it is on more shaky ground and always open to challenge (Woll, 2005). Most laws are never challenged in court, and of those very few get to Appeals Courts. Of those cases sent to the Supreme Court, it only agrees to hear about 2% of them (Rehnquist, 2002). Thus a law that may be unconstitutional stands a good chance of remaining on the books. Because the Supreme Court is apolitical I nature, an overactive government run by one part cannot pass too many laws as they will be struck down. In recent years a number of laws have been passed that were designed to stop children getting access to pornography on the Internet. These were popular with voters, and thus popular with politicians. Despite their personal opinions, the Supreme Court has struck down all these laws as a contravention of the Constitutional Right to Free Speech guaranteed in the First Amendment (Wilson, 2005). While the Supreme Court is theoretically "apolitical", in fact it is anything but this. The decision in Gore versus Bush (2000), in which Conservative judges voted against the State rights they normally support showed that their wish for a particular political outcome often trumps their faithful, objective interpretation of the law. Similarly, the fact that the four Liberal Justices voted with Gore shows a parallel bias. The Supreme Court is not above politics, as the Justices are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. This is an essentially political process. Thus it seems sensible to argue that laws are relatively difficult to pass in the United States in a number of ways and for a number of reasons. Far from being too powerful, in fact the Congress of the United States has a number of hurdles placed in its way for the passing of laws. The balance of powers that exists within the government assures that a tyranny of the majority cannot occur. At a number of different stages along the way to becoming a law a Bill may be stopped or, perhaps more importantly, be reconsidered by various expert people. But laws are sometimes rushed through Congress with little apparent thought, such as the Patriot Act that was passed after the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001. However, some of the more extreme elements of such laws tend to be struck down and the fact that "sunset provisions" (dates on which the laws are no longer valid) tend to make them moderation. If laws were easier to pass then the people would, ironically, become less free. The government often claims that it is seeking to "protect" the people from wrongdoing by passing a host of laws, but the American system of government seeks to do something even more important: protect the people from government. Laws need to have a good reason for passage, and a support of a wide range of interests and points of view in order to actually become law. Government tends to be made up of ideologically motivated people, and the law-making process makes such ideology less important to the making of law. Too extreme a Bill is unlikely to become law, and this a good thing for the freedom of citizens of the United States. One power that Congress holds is the power to remove a duly elected President for "high crimes and misdemeanors". It takes a majority vote within the House to impeach a President, and a two-thirds majority in the Senate to actually remove him from office (Rehnquist, 2002). This would appear to be a remarkable power as it involves removing from office a President who has been elected by the people. In one sense, the Congress is overriding the will of the people. The need to have a power of impeachment is perhaps best explained by an examination of the case of President Nixon, who resigned from office before he was impeached. The possible risks involved with impeachment are shown by the actual impeachment of President Clinton, an action that seems to have been based upon personal hatred and political vitriol than upon genuine threat to the country. In a case such as Nixon, the President had taken it upon himself to use some of the powers of his position to attempt to intimidate opponents, to lie to Congress and even to prosecute those he perceived as enemies. Nixon even had an infamous "Enemies List" that listed an eclectic group of American citizens that he wished to destroy. He was apparently willing to use the FBI in order to carry out these wished destructions. In cases such as this, in which a President is seeking to take on almost dictatorial, or at least unchecked, powers, there must be some method of removing him from office. While removing a President from office may seem extreme, the framers of the Constitution placed it within their blueprint for the country to avoid the kind of abuse that occurred in Europe when Kings claimed a "divine right" to do anything they wanted to. However, the power of impeachment placed in the wrong hands can be fearful weapon that threatens the very tenets of democracy. The case of the impeachment of President Clinton is prime example of the risks of impeachment. Thus while he may have lied to a Grand Jury, perjured himself in sworn testimony etc. his "crimes" clearly did not rise to the level at which they could threaten the country. When impeachment is used as a political weapon rather than as a last resort then the balance of powers may become unhinged. The precedent has been set and it is thus not surprising that there is serious talk of impeaching the current President, George Bush, now that the Democrats control Congress. It is not the actual power of impeachment that is questionable however, but rather the manner in which it is used. If Congress takes its responsibilities seriously, the impeachment will only occur in the most extreme cases. Thus if a President shows clear signs of mental illness or general insanity, or if he is using his office for corrupt purposes, of if, as in the case of Nixon, he appears to believe that he is above the law, then there must be a method available for removing him (or her) from office. But this method should only be used in the most extreme cases. To conclude, it seems clear that the Congress of the United States is not too powerful. Any democratic country needs a representative body that passes laws, and the US Congress is as well-designed a body for such a purpose as the world has seen. It is not perfect, but then no man-made institution ever is. The influence of lobbyists within the current political system has in some cases made a mockery of the idea of an objective law-making process, but such influence is perhaps one of the sacrifices that needs to be made in order to have genuine freedom of speech. Congress may seek to increase its power, but the other two branches of government nearly always push it back. In turn, if one of the other branches appears to be extending its powers too broadly then Congress may use its enormous subpoena power and the right of impeachment to push them back. Thus the system of checks and balances is central to the manner in which Congress works, and assures that neither it (nor any of the other branches) will become too dominant. ___________________________________ Works Cited Brennan, William. Fundamentals of American Law. Oxford UP, London: 1996. Friedman, Lawrence. American Law: An Introduction. RS means, New York: 1998. Rehnquist, William. The Supreme Court. Vintage, New York: 2002. Sabato, Larry. O'Connor, Karen. American Government: Continuity and Change. Longman, New York: 2006. Wilson, James. American Government, Longman, New York: 2005. Woll, Peter. American Government: Readings and Cases. Longman, New York: 2005. Read More