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Speaker 1: This is a podcast from wor.

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Speaker 2: Now more of the wr Saturday Morning Show and Larry

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Speaker 2: Minty welcome back. Slowly but surely, the executive branch has

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Speaker 2: claimed more and more power, and it seems Congress has

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Speaker 2: just allowed that to happen. ABC's Sarah Isker says, that's

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Speaker 2: not what the framers of our constitution intended. There is

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Speaker 2: a great article in the New York Times in the

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Speaker 2: opinion column called Actually the Supreme Court has a Plan.

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Speaker 2: It's an opinion piece on the growing power, on the

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Speaker 2: growing size and power of the presidency and the continued

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Speaker 2: well impotacy of the Congress. And it's written by Sarah

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Speaker 2: Isker from ABC News. She's a contributor there. She's with

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Speaker 2: in Washington with us every Wednesday at this time. If

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Speaker 2: you get a chance, go out and read this. Actually

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Speaker 2: the Supreme Court has Plan. It's something that we should

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Speaker 2: all be interested in. Sarah, nice job. It really was

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Speaker 2: a great piece.

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Speaker 1: Oh thank you, that's very kind.

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Speaker 2: Well, it was, And I think it is a problem

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Speaker 2: that's been around for a long time. This isn't just

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Speaker 2: a Donald Trump thing. The presidency has been getting more

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Speaker 2: power and more power, and it seems like Congress is willing,

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Speaker 2: especially if the party of the president is in the

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Speaker 2: majority of giving it to him or her.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly right. I mean, this problem again might go

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Speaker 1: back for one hundred years, but let's just look recently

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Speaker 1: when President Obama said, I have a pen and a phone,

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Speaker 1: and if Congress won't pass, you know, exactly the legislation

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Speaker 1: that I want, I'll just use executive orders to you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of do these things. And from that point forward,

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Speaker 1: Congress realize that they don't have to take hard votes

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Speaker 1: if the president of their party will just do the

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Speaker 1: thing that they want without any of the compromise or

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Speaker 1: delay or sort of messiness of legislation. And Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: did it, Joe Biden did it. The problem with that

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Speaker 1: is that, of course, a it's not very stable. Next

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Speaker 1: president who comes in just signs in just an executive order,

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Speaker 1: and you know, we move on this pendulum back and

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Speaker 1: forth every four years. But also we lack the stability

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Speaker 1: of legislation to actually solve some of these problems like

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Speaker 1: immigration or climate change or anything else you might care about.

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Speaker 2: Right, but how did it happen that Congress allowed itself?

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Speaker 2: Because I believe that they're willing participants in this allowed

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Speaker 2: itself to have so little power.

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Speaker 1: There are lots of fun reasons that we can point to,

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Speaker 1: but the ones that I point to in this, you

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Speaker 1: know piece for the New York Times again go back

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Speaker 1: about one hundred years where Congress was like, Okay, let's

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Speaker 1: have these administrative agencies and experts, and these agencies really

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Speaker 1: decide what the rules should be, but we're going to

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Speaker 1: keep some strings attached. One of those strings is that

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Speaker 1: those experts you know, will be bipartisan. The president won't

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Speaker 1: be able to remove them, so there won't be like

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Speaker 1: sort of messy pernison pendulum swings based on the president.

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Speaker 1: And two, we'll keep a legislative veto so if those

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Speaker 1: agencies do something we don't like, or the president has

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Speaker 1: an executive order we don't like, we can just have,

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Speaker 1: oftentimes a single House of Congress vote and say like, no,

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Speaker 1: I don't like that. Including at one point, people who

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Speaker 1: were being deported. The list would go to Congress and

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Speaker 1: Congress could like check names off the list and be like,

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Speaker 1: do deport that person, don't deport that person. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it got really into the weeds. Well, the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: mixed that legislative veto power. Back in nineteen eighty three,

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Speaker 1: but they kept all the laws in place, and then

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Speaker 1: they've also been sort of, you know, taking away little

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Speaker 1: pieces of the independence of those agencies so that they

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Speaker 1: do report to the president. And so in the end

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Speaker 1: you have all the power that Congress gave to the president,

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Speaker 1: but none of the strings attached because those violated the

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Speaker 1: separation of powers. And so again you see Congress fading

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Speaker 1: into the background of our system of government, and you're.

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Speaker 2: Looking to a future Supreme Court ruling not to remedy

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Speaker 2: all of this, but at least be a step in

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Speaker 2: the right direction.

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Speaker 1: So that's right. This term, the Supreme Court's actually hearing

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Speaker 1: two cases that I think you have to sort of

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Speaker 1: think work in tandem. One, we'll say, yeah, we're not

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Speaker 1: doing these independent agencies. People have to report to the president.

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Speaker 1: Voters have to be able to hold someone accountable for

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Speaker 1: these big executive decisions that these agencies are making. You know,

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Speaker 1: we say it's the most important election of our lifetime,

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Speaker 1: but the president doesn't have control over large swaths of

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Speaker 1: the American economy that are under these independent agencies. The

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Speaker 1: other thing, though, is to make Congress actually give real

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Speaker 1: guard rails and guidelines to the executive branch in legislation.

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Speaker 1: Don't just say like, ah, we want clean water. Figure

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Speaker 1: it out. Congress needs to make some of these decisions

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Speaker 1: and the trade offs that come with that, not the

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Speaker 1: independent agencies. And so that's really at stake in the

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Speaker 1: Terraf case. How clear does congres need to be before

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Speaker 1: a president can sort of claim sweeping emergency powers, for example,

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Speaker 1: to set worldwide tariffs, which would normally be a power

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Speaker 1: of Congress. And so if you put those two together,

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Speaker 1: put those two cases together, you can really see separation

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Speaker 1: of powers and having a Congress that actually does Congress

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Speaker 1: things and a president that only does president things, and

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Speaker 1: that maybe the system can work.

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Speaker 2: Again. Yeah, I agree with everything you say, and this

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Speaker 2: should not be a bipartisan issue. One of the big

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Speaker 2: problems is is it seems like Congress willingly gives up

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Speaker 2: this power. And normally it's because if the president is

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Speaker 2: the same party as whoever is in the majority in Congress,

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Speaker 2: they more than willing give it up. And the only

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Speaker 2: time there ever seems to be any battles is when

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Speaker 2: there's two different parties. But even then it's so political,

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Speaker 2: very little gets done.

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Speaker 1: You know what's interesting is that we actually have the

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Speaker 1: weakest political parties that we've had in American history right

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Speaker 1: now because of campaign finance reform, but the strongest partisanship

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Speaker 1: that we've ever had before. By the way, as someone

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Speaker 1: who's worked in politics for twenty years, that was a

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Speaker 1: big surprise to me that that would be the consequence

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Speaker 1: of weak parties high partisanship. You have to kind of

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Speaker 1: wrap your head around it. But you're exactly right that

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Speaker 1: Congress is willingly gone with this. But frankly, so have we,

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Speaker 1: the voters. We have been electing people to Congress who

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Speaker 1: sit there like raising money on Instagram or saying outrageous

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Speaker 1: things on cable news about how evil the other side is,

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Speaker 1: instead of electing people who actually legislate and make her

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Speaker 1: decisions do the compromise with the other side to create

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Speaker 1: that stability. So frankly, some of this is on us.

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Speaker 1: We need to be voting in primaries, We need to

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Speaker 1: be actually prioritizing people who want to be congressmen.

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Speaker 2: By the way, I want to point out that you

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Speaker 2: have a new book coming out in April, Last Branch Standing,

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Speaker 2: a potentially surprising, occasionally witty journey inside today's Supreme Court.

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Speaker 2: I've seen you on Bill Maher enough to know that

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Speaker 2: you're more than occasionally witty. Sarah. I look forward to

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Speaker 2: the book, and thanks so much for being with us

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Speaker 2: this morning. Thank you ABC correspondent Sarah Isker. This has

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Speaker 2: been a podcast from wor