The first branch really is supposed to be first

Also: Hill staff salary data, why folks don’t vote, and an ugly moment in Senate history

Years ago, I wrote about how the U.S. Constitution made Congress the mightiest of the three branches:

Madison declared in the Federalist Papers, "the legislative authority necessarily predominates." It "alone has access to the pockets of the people," enabling it to extend "the sphere of its activity" and draw "all power into its impetuous vortex."

Article I of the Constitution establishes the national legislature and grants all lawmaking power to it. Only Congress, not the government generally, may "coin Money" and regulate its value, "lay and collect Taxes," and "establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization." Congress, and especially the House of Representatives, is to be the place where the will of the people, the ultimate fountain of power, is represented.

In contrast to Article I, Article II of the Constitution is brief — a little more than 1,000 words, half of which are devoted to outlining how a president is to be selected, compensated, and removed.

Not least is the often forgotten fact that Congress established all the agencies within the executive branch and built the vast majority of the federal judiciary. What Congress creates it can abolish either by repealing a law or by zeroing out appropriations.

I am not sure how many people saw my article or believed it, because an awful lot of folks (including legislators) still treat the president —no matter who it is— as a quasi emperor.

So I am thrilled that my colleague Jay Cost recently published an essay in The Dispatch to call hooey (my word, not his) on the notion that we have three co-equal branches of government.

Exactly what does coequal mean? It depends. If it means equal in status, that is a perfectly acceptable understanding of our Constitution. The executive, legislative, and judicial branches serve essential but distinct functions of government and are thus deserving of equal respect. But in fits and starts, coequal has come to mean equal in power. This is not what the framers of our Constitution had in mind at all.

Cost offers some clues as to how we got to this mistaken place. Please read his essay and share it: our Republic will not function better until more of us understand that Congress really is the First Branch.

New leadership for one of Congress’s corps of wonks

This week I chatted with Boyd Matheson about the importance of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the news that it got a new director. Boyd rang me because he read my column in the Hill about CRS. (Listen in.)

ICYMI: Hill staff salary data, why folks don’t vote, and an ugly moment in Senate history

• Legistorm has posted aggregate data on Hill staff pay.

• Gabe Fleisher’s explainer on the SAVE Act, which House Democrats voted against when it was tacked onto a continuing resolution: "The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 already makes it a crime ... for non-citizens to vote in federal elections — but it doesn’t require prospective voters to do anything to prove their citizenship."

• Karlyn Bowman shares data on why many Americans don’t vote and how many report impediments to casting a ballot.

• Jamie Dupree reports “LaMonica McIver (D) to replace the late Rep. Donald Payne Jr. in Congress from New Jersey. McIver heads the city council in Newark, which anchors this district.”

• Adam White reminds us that the “fact that our Constitution requires each president to swear the constitutional oath is the stark reminder that a president must be the kind of person who would bind himself with a solemn oath to ‘faithfully execute the Office of the President,’ and then go on to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’”

• Ed Whelan recounts the Democrats’ thwarting of the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the D.C. district court in 2002-2003. It was an ugly fight, and re-reading it one can see it was a major moment in the descent of the Senate.

Quote of the week

“The SAVE Act is, in this Congress, a messaging bill designed to highlight one of the campaign's top issues. The Senate and the President will denounce this egregious attack on democracy (though passing legislation is kind of the idea of democratic government) and announce the CR dead on arrival. Schumer will then ask the Senate to pass a clean CR at the current year’s funding levels, which will pass with some Republican support. The legislation will return to the House. After numerous political threats to the Speaker, including the Freedom Caucus TP’ing his office, on September 27, the House will pass the Senate legislation on the Suspension Calendar with nearly 300 votes. Then everyone will go home to campaign.”

-Mark N. Strand, “The Phony Suspense,” Politics and Sausagemaking