Everyone who follows American politics is going to spend a lot of time thinking about presidential and judicial power over the next few years. But to really understand the coming clashes between the president and the courts, and the constitutional environment in which they're taking place, we have to pay attention to what isn't happening in our system of government almost as much as to what is. Congress is not doing its job, and the vacuum that its dereliction has created is encouraging presidential and judicial overreach. Congress's weakness is our deepest constitutional problem, because it is not a function of one man's whims and won't pass with one administration's term. It is an institutional dynamic that has disordered our politics for a generation. It results from choices that members of Congress have made, and only those members can improve the situation. It is hard to imagine any meaningful constitutional renewal in America unless they do. A weak Congress is not the norm in...
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