Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Mia Love spoke at the Hinckley Institute of Politics on Thursday, saying Congress needs to take power back from the executive branch.
Lee and Love, both Republicans from Utah, are promoting the Article One Project, a series of legislation designed to strengthen Congress by reclaiming legislative powers.
“Congress is broken,” Lee said. “It has chosen, very deliberately, to make itself weak. The authors of the Constitution went out of their way to make certain that Congress would be the most powerful.”
Lee said Congress has willingly handed over many of its powers and responsibilities to federal agencies, such as the C.I.A. or the Department of Commerce and many of these agencies allow unelected officials to create laws or policies with no oversight. The Article One Project focuses on four areas: Congress’s financial power, legislative cliffs, establishing authority over federal regulators and reining in executive power.
“My job, I believe, is to try and restore power back to people,” Love said. “If you aren’t standing up, if you are not offering your life, then you run the risk of someone else doing it for you.”
Love, the first black female Republican in Congress, said federal agencies are “a fourth branch of government that isn’t supposed to exist — they don’t answer to anyone.” She said since the beginning of her term in Congress in 2015, the House has written 580 bills with 100 becoming laws, but the regulatory agencies have written 3,378 bills directly into law. She feels this is unacceptable and the people need to have a say in their laws.
Lee said Congress is not popular — joking that the body polls are just above the influenza virus — but acknowledged that they do work for citizens and that if the American people are dissatisfied, they can vote out their representatives and senators every two or six years, respectively. The project does not yet have any specific bills, but have outlined a policy for proposed reforms.
Travis Wald, a junior in economics and political science, attended the event and asked Lee and Love whether they thought they could get bipartisan support for their project, which is currently only endorsed by Republicans. Lee hopes the possibility of a Republican president would help sway Democrats to support the endeavor.
Wald believes the project is a good idea and that more people need to focus on Congress as opposed to the presidential race.
“If we change the institutions, we’ll be able to change the process and actually get things done,” Wald said. “This is what’s actually going to get us results, more than any personalities among presidential candidates.”
Lee formally announced the Article One Project on Feb. 3, borrowing the name of the project from the first article of the U.S. Constitution, which gives all legislative powers to the Senate and House of Representatives.
The event was part of the Hinckley Institute’s ongoing forum series, “Pizza and Politics,” designed to encourage students and the community to be more engaged.
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