To protect democracy, Congress must act soon

In the wake of presidential abuses of power during the Nixon administration, Congress responded with a broad set of reforms to strengthen the institutions of our democracy. The same must be done following the Trump administration.

That is why the House on Thursday passed the Protecting Our Democracy Act to shore up our institutions against presidential abuses. It is essential the Senate does the same.

After President Richard Nixon resigned, Congress implemented new campaign finance and ethics laws, transparency requirements and mandatory financial disclosures. It stood up inspector general offices to search out corruption and malfeasance. It also organized committees to oversee the intelligence agencies and circumscribed the president’s power to declare war.

These post-Watergate reforms and others did a great deal to preserve the balance of power for much of the past half-century, even if successive presidents wore them down.

Then came the election of Donald Trump. During the course of his four years in office, many of the Nixon-era norms were broken down, exposing new vulnerabilities to our democracy. The wall separating the White House from the Justice Department, for example, was obliterated as Attorney General William Barr acted on the president’s urging to reduce the sentence of a man convicted of lying to Congress as part of the Russia investigation. Barr also made a case go away completely against another of the president’s men, who lied to the FBI to cover up his own contacts with the Russian government.

The emoluments clause of the Constitution proved impossible to enforce effectively, and Trump paved the way for future presidents to enrich themselves while in office as he bridled at the idea of divesting his family business of interests patronized by foreign powers bent on currying favor with the first family.

The list of Trump administration presidential abuses is nearly endless: violations of the Impoundment Act and usurpation of Congress’s power of the purse; the temporary appointment of Senate-confirmable positions to evade the need for Senate approval; the abuse of presidential emergency declarations; Trump’s gleeful acceptance of foreign help in one election and efforts to coerce another foreign power into helping him in the next (which led to the first of his two impeachments).

This is why Congress needs a new set of democracy-affirming reforms. Indeed, because the Trumpian abuses of power are far more sweeping than anything undertaken by Nixon - and ultimately led to a violent attack on our Capitol - the need for stronger guardrails is greater than ever.

The Protecting our Democracy Act would address many of the vulnerabilities that Trump’s years in office exposed. Of particular significance, the bill would expedite enforcement of congressional subpoenas, the necessity for which is being demonstrated in real time as top officials from the former administration once again seek to stonewall subpoenas and prevent the public from learning of their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. A Congress that cannot enforce its subpoenas is no more a Congress than a court would remain a court without the power to compel witnesses to testify at trial. Instead, it becomes a kind of plaything for a despot.

Although Trump’s presidency demonstrated the need for a wholesale reinforcement of our democratic institutions, the bill is less about the past than it is about the future. The bill’s provisions address each of the deficiencies identified above and more, not as a punishment of the last president, who is now beyond legislative reach, but to guard against any future president of either party who may be tempted to make himself a king.

Many of the protections in the bill have had bipartisan support in the past; in fact, many of these provisions had once been authored by Republicans. One would expect the GOP to embrace such reforms as desirable limits on the current Democratic administration. But Republicans may fear the reforms will alienate the former president and bring his disdain upon them. Once again, they will have to answer the question: Does their devotion to our Constitution outweigh their fear of Trump? For the sake of our country, we must hope that it does.