Articles Posted in U.S. Federal Government Information

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The legislative branch of the United States government (embodied in Congress, which consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate) is the cornerstone of the federal lawmaking process and a central pillar of the constitutional system of checks and balances. Through its exclusive powers to enact laws, oversee the executive branch, and shape national policy, Congress functions within a broader framework of shared authority known as the separation of powers.

In this posting, we explore key questions surrounding the legislative process, followed by overviews of congressional powers beyond lawmaking, the practical operation of separation of powers, and the exercise of war powers in a divided government. Our goal is to provide material that will be useful to law and legislative librarians, the legal profession at large, and anyone whose work or civic responsibilities require engagement with these fundamental issues.

I. Lawmaking Authority

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In this June 18, 2025 Report, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)  provides information concerning outlays for the government’s major mandatory programs and tax credits that are primarily means-tested and provide assistance to people with relatively low income or few assets.

Summary:

House Budget Committee Chairman Arrington has asked CBO to provide information concerning outlays for the government’s major mandatory programs and tax credits that are primarily means-tested; that is, for programs and tax credits that provide cash payments or other forms of assistance to people with relatively low income or few assets.

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From the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), June 12, 2025:*

OVERVIEW:

“This interactive tool illustrates the distributional effects of H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It allows users to explore how H.R. 1, as passed by the House of Representatives on May 22, 2025, would affect the economic resources available to households grouped on the basis of their income. (See CBO’s estimate of the budgetary effects of the bill.)

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Congressional Budget Office’s  transparency efforts are intended to promote a thorough understanding of its work, help people gauge how estimates might change if policies or circumstances differed, and enhance the credibility of its analyses and processes

SUMMARY:

Transparency is a top priority for the Congressional Budget Office, and the agency continues to bolster its efforts to be transparent. Those efforts are intended to promote a thorough understanding of CBO’s work, help people gauge how estimates might change if policies or circumstances differed, and enhance the credibility of the agency’s analyses and processes.

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The U.S. Constitution enshrines a system of separation of powers, ensuring that legislative, executive, and judicial branches operate independently while keeping one another in check. This structure is meant to prevent the concentration of power and to safeguard individual liberty. But in recent years, many legal scholars, judges, and concerned citizens have raised a critical question: Has the balance of power shifted too far in favor of the Executive Branch?

Following a brief discussion about what the Founding Fathers believed about separation of powers, this post examines key constitutional flashpoints—executive orders, emergency powers, war powers, pardons, and more—illustrating how modern challenges are testing the limits of our separation-of-powers framework.

What the Founding Fathers Believed About Separation of Powers

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April 10, 2025

From  The Legal File by Reuters Legal.

The rundown on the top legal news of the day.

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From VERDICT, Legal Analysis and Commentary from Justia, 27 March 2025.

SUMMARY:

NYU Law Professor Samuel Estreicher and JD candidate Andrew Babbitt analyze President Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) during his second administration to impose and threaten tariffs on several countries. They highlight how this approach bypasses the usual legislative and procedural processes required for implementing tariffs. According to Estreicher and Babbitt, this tactic marks an unprecedented and legally questionable expansion of executive authority—one that sidesteps congressional intent and oversight and raises significant constitutional concerns about the broad, unchecked use of the IEEPA.

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The Congressional Budget Office (CBO)* has created a workbook to allow users to define and analyze alternative economic scenarios by specifying differences in the values of four economic variables relative to the values underlying CBO’s January 2025 projections.

SUMMARY:

This workbook allows users to define and analyze alternative economic scenarios by specifying differences in the values of four economic variables—productivity growth, labor force growth, interest rates, and inflation—relative to the values underlying the Congressional Budget Office’s most recent projections. Those projections were published in The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2025 to 2035.

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In his essay, Do State Legislatures Have to Obey U.S. Supreme Court Decisions?  Amherst professor Austin Sarat discusses how several state legislatures, particularly Alabama, are passing laws allowing the death penalty for child rape despite a 2008 Supreme Court ruling, Kennedy v. Louisiana, that declared such punishment unconstitutional. Professor Sarat argues that this strategic legislative defiance represents a dangerous trend that threatens constitutional order, as lawmakers are deliberately passing unconstitutional laws hoping the current conservative-majority Supreme Court will overturn precedent, similar to the strategy that led to Roe v. Wade being overturned.

Reflecting on the urgency expressed by professor Sarat regarding this question, we have prepared our own report, titled Do State Legislatures Have to Obey U.S. Supreme Court Decisions?, An Overview, to provide an added frame of reference for considering the implications of professor Sarat’s posting. Our Report, which follows, is based on our search of related sources, including Deep Research, the advanced AI research application recently introduced by Open AI.

DO STATE LEGISLATURES HAVE TO OBEY U.S. SUPREME COURT DECISIONS?, An Oveerview

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Introduction

Materials consulted in preparing this posting were curated from various sources including the recently introduced Deep Research by OpenAI.

With Elon Musk at the helm of the Department of Government Efficiency,   various agencies within the U.S. government may experience restructuring aimed at streamlining operations, reducing costs, and integrating advanced technologies. One area likely to be affected is government agency libraries—institutions that provide critical research, archival, and information services to federal employees, policymakers, and researchers. These libraries, usually housed within agencies such as the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and the Department of Defense (DoD), play an essential role in supporting government functions. This essay explores how Musk’s efficiency-driven policies might reshape these libraries, with potential consequences for automation, digitization, data management, funding, privacy and information security. Although the focus of this posting is U.S. government libraries, its implications are far reaching.

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