"Solid ground for optimism as well as cause for foreboding." So
James L. Sundquist views the outcome of the struggle by the
Congress in the 1970s to recapture powers and responsibilities that
in preceding decades it had surrendered to a burgeoning presidency.
The resurgence of the Congress began in 1973, in its historic
constitutional clash with President Nixon. For half a century
before that time, the Congress had acquiesced in its own decline
vis-?-vis the presidency, or had even initiated it, by building the
presidential office as the center of leadership and coordination in
the U.S. government and organizing itself not to initiate and lead
but to react and follow. But the angry confrontation with President
Nixon in the winter of 1972-73 galvanized the Congress to seek to
regain what it considered its proper place in the constitutional
scheme. Within a short period, it had created a new congressional
budget process, prohibited impoundment of appropriated funds,
enacted the War Powers Resolution, intensified oversight of the
executive, extended the legislative veto over a wide range of
executive actions, and vastly expanded its staff resources. The
Decline and Resurgence of Congress, after reviewing relations
between president and Congress over two centuries, traces the long
series of congressional decisions that created the modern
presidency and relates these to certain weaknesses that the
Congress recognized in itself. It then recounts the events that
marked the years of resurgence and evaluates the results. Finally,
it analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the new Congress and
appraises its potential for leadership and coordination.
General
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