Congress: An Irrelevant Institution or Guardian of the Republic

For more than half a century, presidents of both parties have steadily expanded their power while Congress has quietly surrendered its own. Each new president inherits-and enlarges-the authority of the last, eroding the separation of powers that protects liberty and leaving the people increasingly unrepresented by the one branch they directly elect.

In Congress: An Irrelevant Institution or Guardian of the Republic, William L. Kovacs delivers a sobering warning: the decline of Congress is not an abstract constitutional concern-it is the breakdown of the separation of powers and the silent path toward authoritarian rule. Drawing on decades of experience in government, law, and public policy, Kovacs shows how members of Congress have broken faith with the Constitution by transferring their loyalty from Congress to presidents and political parties.

From the Vietnam War to the Trump and Biden presidencies, Kovacs traces the steady concentration of power in the executive branch and Congress's retreat from its coequal role. Yet this is not a book of despair. It is a call to civic courage.

Kovacs identifies the concrete actions Congress can take to restore the separation of powers and reclaim its role as the people's branch-or, if it will not, the responsibility that falls to citizens to elect leaders who will.

With clarity, conviction, and urgency, Congress: An Irrelevant Institution or Guardian of the Republic asks Americans a stark question: Will Congress become a constitutional relic-or reclaim its duty as the Guardian of the Republic?