In a Wednesday op-ed, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) called subversive actions taken by President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk “undemocratic” and declared that they threatened to “unravel our constitutional form of government.”
DeLauro is the ranking member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which is charged with drafting federal spending bills that go on to be approved by the full chamber.
Titled “My Fellow Members of Congress: This Is a Naked Power Grab,” The New York Times column offered a basic U.S. civics lesson.
“The Constitution is clear about many things,” she began. “There are three branches of government. Presidents can only be elected to two terms. And Congress, not the executive branch, has the power of the purse, meaning the power to control federal spending.”
“It is right there, as clear as day in Article I, Section 9, Clause 7: ‘No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law,’” she wrote. Congress, of course, makes laws.
DeLauro went on to say that Trump and Musk were trying to get around the Constitution through Trump’s flurry of executive orders, Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, and the impoundment of federal funds.
Impoundment, DeLauro said, has already been litigated in the courts in past decades: “Let me be clear that nowhere does the Constitution give the president unilateral power to impound funds appropriated by Congress.”
She argued that Musk, a major donor to Trump’s last campaign, is clearly engaging in self-dealing: “He is trying to disguise this self-serving crusade as a blue-ribbon commission, but it has no legal authority and aims to substitute the will of a rich few for the will of the people.”
“What all these tactics to get around Congress have in common is simple: They are undemocratic,” DeLauro wrote. “I will not surrender the authority of Congress and the Appropriations Committee, where I serve as ranking member, to the tide of cronyism and unlawful decision making that threatens to unravel our constitutional form of government.”
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