Gregg Nunziata in The Atlantic: “Congress must rediscover its role.”

Society for the Rule of Law Executive Director Gregg Nunziata was in The Atlantic urging that conservatives restore boundaries to executive authority and reinvigorate the power of Congress. He narrates the recent history of the conservative legal movement’s attitude toward the executive and legislative branches, and warns that too much power has accumulated in the presidency.

The central premise of the Constitution is that liberty requires divided authority. The accumulation of power in one branch of government is, as James Madison warned, “the very definition of tyranny.” Americans are already feeling the consequences of this imbalance: Because executive orders, emergency declarations, and unilateral action lack the durability of legislation passed by Congress, policies swing wildly from one administration to the next. Families and businesses cannot plan ahead, which undermines investment, growth, and prosperity.

Nunziata proposes solutions that would restore Congress’s Madisonian role in our system of checks and balances.

Courts should refuse to read broadly any executive power not firmly tethered to the language of the Constitution, and reject clearly pretextual claims of national emergencies. They might, as the conservative legal scholar Yuval Levin has suggested, adopt a doctrine that resolves ambiguous legal questions in favor of republican government, which would mean pushing policy disputes to the legislature rather than the executive.

Read the full article here.