Good news: Congress is a few steps closer to reining in presidential emergency powers. Last month, I wrote about how a whole host of national-emergency declarations, dating back to the Carter administration, already empower the president (and could empower him further) to act beyond the ordinary extent of his constitutional prerogatives. Some ability for an executive to react to exigencies is necessary. But both the reality and the potential of the extent of these capacities currently threaten the proper functioning of our political system.
There has been recent congressional action on bills that would curtail the president’s emergency powers. The ARTICLE ONE Act, which would force the president to seek approval for an emergency declaration after a certain period, passed the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure with unanimous consent; the REPUBLIC Act, a companion Senate bill, passed the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee by a 13–1 vote.
Some additional steps remain before the bills can become law. But it is now a serious — and welcome — possibility that the next president will have to operate under the restraints on the office’s power that they would impose.