WASHINGTON — Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, thinks President Trump and his designated spending-slasher, Elon Musk, are acting beyond the limits the Constitution places on executive power as they hack away at agencies and programs Congress enacted.
“To have the executive basically come in and dismantle something that was legislatively created — that's outside the bounds of the executive,” she said Monday. “So it requires us, in the legislative branch, to then assert our responsibility, which is to not cede the authority.”
But how?
“Well, you got to claim it back,” she said.
Murkowski cited, as an example, congressional earmarks. That’s the practice of writing spending bills that direct money to particular projects and grantees. It came to be seen as pork-barrel politics. So for a decade, Congress didn’t earmark. It just sent money to the government agencies and let them decide which projects to fund. Starting in 2021, Congress reclaimed its power to earmark.
“It's a small example of, I think, some of the steps that have to be taken to say that these authorities are the congress’s and to push back,” Murkowski said.
That assertion of congressional power, though, didn’t require taking on the Trump administration.
To push back against Trump’s attacks on agencies and programs, Murkowski said one avenue is to sue.
Judges have already issued temporary stays. Ultimately, the Supreme Court could tell Trump not to tread on the authority of Congress.
Murkowski recognizes a problem in relying on the courts to rein in the president: It only works if the president abides by it.
“You're now having some in the executive branch saying, ‘We don't think the courts should be deciding this. We think that this is our authority,’” she said. “You then call into question the legitimacy of your courts. That’s not … That's not a recipe for good governance.”
Some scholars and law professors put it in harsher terms. They say we’re heading for a constitutional crisis, if we’re not in one already.
Trump, in the Oval Office Tuesday with Musk at his side, didn’t sound worried that a judge would stop him from what he characterizes as rooting out waste and fraud.
“It seems hard to believe that a judge could ‘say, we don't want you to do that,’” Trump told reporters. “So maybe we have to look at the judges, because that's very serious. I think it's a very serious violation.”
Murkowski said everyone wants government to be efficient and free from fraud. But, she said, Congress passed laws requiring transparency and congressional review that Trump is ignoring.
“The means and the methods actually matter, and the rule of law matters,” she said.
At the Capitol Monday night, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, didn’t stop to take a question about Musk’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“We’ll get back to you if you have questions,” he said, walking away.
Another reporter asked about cuts to research grants from the National Institutes of Health.
“I haven’t seen it,” Sullivan said. “I’ll comment when I see it.”
Some of the USAID cuts may hit close to home for Sullivan. He is the chairman (unpaid) of a nonprofit called the International Republican Institute, which fosters democracy overseas. It has received millions of dollars in USAID grants.
His office has not responded to our questions in time for this story.
