The Importance of Congress
This election year, as is the case every four years when we vote for president, the nation is much more focused on the presidential contest than on who’s running for Congress. Yet the focus should be reversed. As important as it is who occupies the White House, who sits in Congress — particularly the House of Representatives — is even more important.
Under the U.S. Constitution, the three branches of the national government — legislative, executive, and judicial — may exercise only those powers delegated to them by the Constitution, and in this division of power the Congress is granted more powers than the president.
Consider the war powers. In The Federalist, No. 69, Founding Father Alexander Hamilton observed: “The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first General and admiral of the Confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the DECLARING of war and to the RAISING and REGULATING of fleets and armies, all which, by the Constitution … would appertain to the legislature.”
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