Congress’s Structure: Legislative Authority and the Separation of Powers

Congress is broadly presupposed to be the least efficient department of the federal authorities. However as Josh Chafetz exhibits on this boldly unique evaluation, Congress in reality has quite a few highly effective instruments at its disposal in its conflicts with the opposite branches. These instruments embody the ability of the purse, the contempt energy, freedom of speech and debate, and extra. Drawing extensively on the historic improvement of Anglo-American legislatures from the seventeenth century to the current, Chafetz concludes that these instruments are all means by which Congress and its members battle for public assist. When Congress makes use of them to have interaction efficiently with the general public, it will increase its energy vis-à-vis the opposite branches; when it doesn’t, it loses energy. This groundbreaking tackle the separation of powers might be of curiosity to each authorized students and political scientists.