Checks and Balances Are Making a Comeback!

Despite the Executive Branch focus of many public administration scholars and practitioners, the U.S. Constitution provides each branch of government with a critical role in public administration. Congress is Article I, and for good reason. It’s literally the first branch of government, with significant power to shape our administrative institutions through legislation, appropriations, and oversight. Article II defines the executive power vested in the office of the Presidency and allows the Executive Branch, within the bounds of statutes passed by Congress, to establish management priorities and direct policy implementation.

Congress has stood down its Article I role since the beginning of President Trump’s second term, but now we're starting to see signs that it’s taking some of its power back. A system built on separate branches of government can only function to its fullest potential if each branch fulfills its enumerated powers.

In granting distinct powers to separate branches, the Constitution places limits on the power of each branch of government. The boundaries between Congress and the President, however, have become blurred by waves of unilateral executive actions. While presidential use of executive orders is prevalent in American history, President Trump in his second term has taken this to new levels to override legislative prerogatives. These actions have shaken the separation-of-powers system to its core.

A partisan lens has always been brought to bear on these issues. When one party controls both Congress and the Presidency, legislators tend to see themselves as a cohesive partisan team advancing an ideological agenda, not a separate but equal branch with independent responsibilities. This longstanding dynamic, Trump’s outsized charisma, and his key advisors’ deep institutional knowledge on how things get done in the complex federal bureaucracy have been effective in yielding strong Republican support on major policy matters. Equally important is the extensive use of executive orders to advance the President’s priorities in government spending reductions, tariffs, college admission, research, and immigration policy, among others. Since his second inauguration, President Trump has issued over 200 executive orders across domestic and foreign policy areas, including those overriding prior Congressional decisions, such as dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, impounding approved appropriations, and creating new exemptions to career civil service protections. Not since the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt has the president exerted so much influence in shaping the landscape of America’s administrative institutions and established policies.

Recently, however, Congress is showing signs of waking up:

• Congress reopened the federal government in November 2025 following the longest shutdown in US history. This pivotal action involved bipartisan compromise despite partisan, ideological differences. This required rank-and-file members to resist their own party, especially in the U.S. Senate, which broke a filibuster threat to reach agreement across partisan lines.
• Members of both parties have continued to negotiate solutions to address Affordable Care Act subsidies—the issue that led to the shutdown in the first place.
• The Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group of legislators, recently released a set of policy proposals to address the public’s critical concerns on affordability. Many of their proposals focus on using administrative mechanisms to address the root causes of high energy, healthcare, housing, childcare, and food prices. Permitting reform, for example, may not sound catchy but has the potential to unlock new sources of housing and energy supplies.
• Congress’s recently passed full-year FY 26 appropriations for 95 percent of the federal government rejected many aspects of the President’s proposed Budget. Specifically, Congress restored half of the cuts in the Internal Revenue Service, kept the funding levels stable in the State Department, maintained the federal commitment to scientific research at the National Science Foundation, and rejected the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for Global Media and several independent agencies. Currently, Congress is working on a bipartisan basis to make reforms to ICE and CBP, the two agencies that led to a short-lived government shutdown due to their tactics in Minnesota.

Moving forward, I hope that individual Members—and Congress as an institution—will continue to exercise their Article I responsibilities while compromising across partisan and ideological lines. It’s a good thing when Congress steps up to its constitutionally assigned role, and we should encourage that now and into the future, regardless of the party or ideology of the Administration in power.

Author – Kenneth K. Wong is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and the Kerry Group Professor in Public Policy at the University of Hong Kong. He also serves as the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Professor Emeritus of Education Policy at Brown University.