Demonstrating and Explaining Congressional Abdication: Why Does Congress Abdicate Power?

Abstract

This article responds to Louis Fisher’s article, Congressional Abdication: War and Spending Powers. Dr. Fisher's provocative article highlights an important issue of constitutional governance. First, and most importantly, it illustrates a potentially grave fault in the framer's design of our governmental structure. By focusing on ways to limit power and to protect against the aggrandizing and encroaching tendencies of the separate branches toward the other branches, the framers seem to have given insufficient attention to the problem of shirking, or "abdication."

Second, Dr. Fisher's article provides an opportunity to move beyond the current stalemate in constitutional theories of war powers and to more fully [*1045] appreciate the import of changing congressional responses to presidential assertions of war powers. By characterizing recent congressional behavior as "abdication," Dr. Fisher raises a host of interesting issues about how we are to understand the nature of our republican form of government as we approach the twenty-first century.

Finally, by asking "why does Congress abdicate power," Dr. Fisher highlights the complexities associated with current debates in the area of explaining human action. These debates, when placed in the context of war powers, underscore the need for more productive and consistent ways of rendering congressional behavior intelligible. Only then can we devise appropriate incentives to change that behavior. The task is complex and difficult, but we may thank Dr. Fisher for at least putting the issue on the table.