Several years ago, I encountered an initiative of Republican Sen. Mike Lee called the Article I Project. I have followed it with great interest over the years and have seen the need for it steadily increase. Introduced in February of 2016, the project is a series of initiatives designed “to strengthen Congress by reclaiming constitutional powers now being exercised by the executive branch.” The project is named after Article I of the Constitution, which outlines the powers of Congress.
While initially designed to be the most powerful branch of government, Congress, over the last several decades, has ceded more and more of its authority to the executive branch. In the words of Lee, “The premise of the Article I Project is simple: the federal government is broken, and congressional weakness is to blame.”
For several administrations now, the problems with excessive executive power have become abundantly clear. President Joe Biden used executive authority to try and push through massive student loan debt relief, President Barack Obama used executive power to create the DACA program and President Donald Trump has used emergency powers to enact sweeping tariffs. While any of these policies may have reasonable arguments, enacting them through a single office with a pen is counter to our intended structure of government.
Not only has our nation begun to operate like a monarchy, but our “monarch” changes out every four to eight years, whipsawing the country back and forth from legal and regulatory extremes, creating chaos and instability and preventing lasting policy change.
As the adage goes, this is no way to run a railroad.
As Republican Rep. Chip Roy stated in a 2023 press release, “The presidency was never meant to have monarchical power over the American people; that’s why the framers of our Constitution designed a system of checks and balances.”
Lee said in the same release, “This kind of lawmaking-by-proclamation runs directly counter to the vision of our Founders and undermines the safeguards protecting our freedom.”
While reducing executive power has long been a siren call of conservatives and libertarians, particularly in the Tea Party era, Democrats have resisted efforts to reduce the power of the executive branch, preferring the speed and judgment of experts and scientists to Congress. What we can now see is that the idea of experts crafting wise policy is more of a wish than a reality, as a change in president results in sweeping changes by the same agencies interpreting the same laws. The experts are not making the rules as much as the president is.
From Biden’s sweeping DEI and environmental regulations to DOGE’s rapid reshaping of American government, we may be standing at a unique moment in time when the issues of excessive executive power have become apparent to both sides of the aisle. Democrats who were once opposed to reducing executive power may now find themselves in bipartisan support for Article I Project initiatives.
One such initiative is the ARTICLE ONE Act, a bill sponsored by Lee in previous sessions of Congress. It functions as a step toward reclaiming powers that properly belong to the legislative branch, specifically regarding emergency powers. The act “would automatically end all future emergency declarations … after 30 days unless Congress affirmatively votes to extend the emergency.” If there is a true emergency requiring more than 30 days of policy, Congress should be the one affirming it.
Utah recently encoded a very similar statute into law in response to the emergency powers used during COVID-19. This act would have allowed Congress to reclaim the power it should have over tariffs enacted by the Trump administration. I encourage Lee to quickly reintroduce the ARTICLE ONE Act and work diligently for new bipartisan supporters while the political moment might allow it.
While in our current moment, it may feel counterintuitive for Republicans to vote to reduce the power that “their team” currently has, Republicans in Congress have a unique opportunity for bipartisan success of a long-term goal that sets our nation on a stronger path forward. Such an achievement will likely be impossible if it is delayed to wait for “their team” to no longer be in power. Republicans should maintain a principled position of opposition to excessive executive power, no matter who holds it.
According to Lee, Trump himself would presumably be in favor of such an act. When campaigning for Trump in 2020, Lee said that Trump “seeks not power, but to pull it down.” What better way to pull down power than to affirmatively reduce your own? It’s time for Mike Lee and other Republicans to work with their colleagues across the aisle to seize this opportunity and restore our republic to a proper balance of powers.