As President Trump pursues his agenda, House Republicans are making waves for saying that they “need to get Americans off the sidelines.” It’s Congress — which President Madison, father of the Constitution, called the “predominant” government branch — that’s warming the bench, ceding power rather than fulfilling its constitutional role.

“Get yourselves off the sidelines,” a syndicated radio host, Erick Erickson, said of Tuesday’s GOP tweet. He noted that the Congress hasn’t passed the “DOGE rescission package” or “tax cuts.” He described it as “the least effective Congress in the last 200 years.”

The lack of productivity carries forward a trend. The previous Congress, according to the Congressional Archives, produced fewer bills than any in half a century. Although laws enacted aren’t the sole indication of productivity, sluggishness defines many other legislative duties.

Despite the conventional wisdom, the Constitution doesn’t establish “co-equal” branches. The Federalist Papers used the term only to describe relations between the national and state governments or the House and Senate. Yet the fiction endures, emboldening presidents and cowing Congress.

On Wednesday, Speaker Johnson told reporters that it was “not my lane” to weigh in on whether the 747 jet Qatar proposes to give America is legal. Yet the prohibition in the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause forbids accepting gifts from any “king, prince, or foreign state” without the approval of Congress. 

A single bill could legalize the gift. Instead, Congress is working — at Mr. Trump’s behest — to cram as many priorities as possible into a single “big, beautiful bill.” Seems like a fine strategy, but Republicans, with a narrow majority, do risk putting all their eggs in one basket. 

If the bill is defeated, the constitutional order would be served by pursuing Henry Clay’s strategy in the Compromise of 1850. To confront the issue of slavery’s expansion, he broke an unpopular bill into five. They passed and postponed the Civil War. 

The flurry of executive orders from recent presidents also indicate congressional apathy. Government policy is meant to be submitted to the representatives of the people, to be debated, and then to be passed into law or rejected. President Washington, wary of ruling as a monarch, issued just one executive order a year.

In 2014, Speaker Boehner said that President Obama’s executive orders were “undermining the rule of law” and “damaging the presidency itself.” Yet representatives have stood and grinned, hoping for a souvenir pen, as presidents of their party sign executive orders. 

Gone are the days when even partisans on Capitol Hill guarded against Oval Office infringement, and when powers like recess appointments — a tool for when Congress isn’t in session — weren’t exploited to dodge confirmation hearings.

The Iran nuclear deal also relied on an end-run around Congress. Fearing a treaty wouldn’t pass the Senate, whose ascent the Constitution requires, Mr. Obama decided against submitting the deal for ratification. Mr. Trump was then able to cancel it with the same ease.

Mr. Trump is also cutting Congress out of foreign policy. On Wednesday at Riyadh, he announced intentions to cancel sanctions on Syria. This ignored 2019’s Caesar Act, which sanctioned Syria’s government for war crimes and forbids normalization — though the government that ran Syria in 2019 no longer exists.

The tug of war between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue is built into the republic. Having driven out all the king’s men at bayonet point, the Founders sought to separate the governmental  powers. Over the centuries, however, the presidency has grown into the supreme branch, often with congressional compliance.

Tariffs are another enumerated power of Congress, which has the sole power to tax. With the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934, that started to change. Presidents ever since have been given broad powers to handle trade agreements alone. 

Americans are seeing their legislative chambers reduced to producing speeches over substance. Congress attempted to claw back control of tariff policy last month, but the doomed effort was for show. Senator Booker, a Democrat of New Jersey, broke the filibuster record last month — with no bill at stake. 

“The president is relevant here,” President Clinton said in 1995 after government action shifted to the Republican House and Senate. Today, it’s Congress facing irrelevance. Rather than protect the powers bestowed by Madison & Co., its members are letting presidents rule, having decided that life is a whole lot easier on the sidelines.