AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
1
How Congress Lost, Part I:
The Defeated Congress
February 2024
Congress was intended to be the most important insti-
tution in our national government. This might come as
a bit of a surprise. It is common nowadays to think that
our government is one of coequal branches. Even mem-
bers of Congress say this.
A few years ago, I took a group of high school stu-
dents on a tour of the Capitol, and the introductory
video produced for Congress declared Congress a
coequal branch. I couldn’t believe it. Nothing could be
further from the truth, I thought. And, frustrated, I lec-
tured my (rather bemused) students that Congress, of
all institutions, should understand its intended role.
But, upon reflection, I had to acknowledge that
there is a difference between original intent and cur-
rent result. And today, it might be optimistic to say that
Congress is a coequal branch of our government. The
more sober assessment is that, of the three branches of
government, the legislature has the least preeminence.
Insofar as the framers envisioned checks and balances
as a vast conflict among the institutions of the state,
Congress has lost this fight, despite its substantial con-
stitutional advantages.
The legislative branch’s rather pathetic mewling
about coequality is perhaps the greatest indication
that the battle is over. The president has won. Even
the courts claim power over Congress that would
have shocked many of the framers.
This series of reports will explain how Congress
has become so diminished. The animating impulse is
that this downslide is bad for our nation. In a govern-
ment built on the republican principle that the people
should rule, the institution over whose composition
the people exercise the most influence should not
wield such a diminished amount of governing power.
Reforms should be undertaken to fix this sorry situa-
tion. But as the explanation for its cause is not a sim-
ple one, nor did it happen overnight, reformers would
benefit from a careful historical exposition that teases
out the hows and the whys of the legislature’s defeat.
This introductory report will begin this explanation
by contrasting the founding vision of Congress with
how it behaves today, lay out the argument in brief,
and point in the direction of potential reforms.
****
Jay Cost
Key Points
• Congress was not intended to be coequal with the other branches of government, as is oen
claimed today.
• The framers of the Constitution intended for Congress to dominate the other branches because
it was where the public will was to be expressed.
• Today’s Congress, on the other hand, is dominated by the executive branch, and it hardly
reflects the public will.
• Congress’s defeat is the result of multiple factors, which will be explored over this series of
reports.
