{"id":2697501,"date":"2026-11-04T00:39:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T05:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/a-plea-to-the-next-congress\/"},"modified":"2026-11-04T00:44:30","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T05:44:30","slug":"a-plea-to-the-next-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/a-plea-to-the-next-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"A Plea to the Next Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fa-plea-to-the-next-congress%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2697501&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Here\u2019s a concise paraphrase of the provided piece:<\/p>\n<p>On Election Day in Virginia the weather and neighborhood activity-PTA bake sales,smiling party volunteers-made for an idyllic,typically American scene. Still, the country faces serious problems. Early returns suggest democrats made gains in the House (and possibly a split Senate), producing a new group of lawmakers who face a daunting task: reviving a Congress that has become ineffective and disrespected.<\/p>\n<p>the author doesn\u2019t expect the next Congress to fully fix these problems but feels obliged to urge the new members to try. A priority should be the nation\u2019s war involvement. The governance has pursued a prolonged, unwinnable conflict without seeking a congressional declaration of war, which the Constitution assigns to Congress.Despite legalistic arguments and assertions that the fighting is a \u201csoft war,\u201d the reality is that it is a war, begun unlawfully; Congress must act to reclaim its constitutional authority. That could include <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gaetz-introduces-house-resolution-to-force-vote-on-removing-u-s-troops-from-syria\/\" title=\"Gaetz Introduces ... Resolution to Force Vote on Removing U.S. Troops from Syria\">war powers resolutions<\/a> and NDAA language to end combat and withdraw troops, but most critically Congress should use its power of the purse-conditioning or cutting off funding for the conflict, similar to the Vietnam-era Case-Church approach.<\/p>\n<p>Appropriations more broadly are another urgent area. In recent years the executive has effectively drafted its own budget, withheld needed details from congressional appropriators, sidelined normal negotiations, and used reconciliation to push partisan, costly measures. Fiscal conservatives who should push back have too frequently enough acquiesced. The next Congress should restore the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/house-conservatives-reject-bidens-ukraine-funding-request-as-nonstarter\/\" title=\"... conservatives refuse Biden&#039;s Ukraine ... request, calling it a &#039;nonstarter&#039;.\">regular appropriations process<\/a> and treat budgeting as an self-reliant exercise, not something dominated by the White House.<\/p>\n<p>lawmakers should work to make Congress less ridiculous: stop theatrics designed merely to go viral, behave with basic dignity, actually pass laws, and stop taking excessively long recesses and other evasions of real work. Change might potentially be unlikely, but unless the public demands more from its representatives, the country will continue to endure a weakened, farcical legislature.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"c-blog-post__content s-wysiwyg s-wysiwyg--blog\">\n<div style=\"margin-bottom:30px;\" id=\"elevenlabs-audionative-widget\" data-height=\"90\" data-width=\"100%\" data-frameborder=\"no\" data-scrolling=\"no\" data-publicuserid=\"cb0d9922301244fcc1aeafd0610a8e90a36a320754121ee126557a7416405662\" data-playerurl=\"https:\/\/elevenlabs.io\/player\/index.html\" >Loading the <a href=\"https:\/\/elevenlabs.io\/text-to-speech\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Elevenlabs Text to Speech<\/a> AudioNative Player&#8230;<\/div>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/elevenlabs.io\/player\/audioNativeHelper.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script>                            <\/p>\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\">In Virginia, Election Day dawned as beautiful as is possible for early November, perfectly embodying the \u201cmellow fruitfulness\u201d assigned by Keats to this most wonderful of seasons. I write having just returned from my local polling place, where the mild autumn weather combined with a tableau of civic participation\u2014a PTA bake sale, cordial representatives of both parties smilingly manning their respective booths\u2014to produce an archetypically American scene.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yet all is not well in our republic. By the time you read this, control of Congress should be clear; and unless the polls have been spectacularly off, at least the House will have been carried by insurgent Dems capitalizing on popular fury over, <em>inter alia<\/em>, the cost of living and the ongoing Iran imbroglio (my own low-conviction guess for the Senate is a 50\u201350 tie). <em>[Editor\u2019s Note: It was in fact a bloodbath for Republicans on all fronts.]<\/em>  Whatever the precise balance of forces, there is an urgent and unfortunately herculean task at hand for the next batch of lawmakers. This is nothing less than the resuscitation of their institution: The rescue of Congress from the impotence and disgrace into which it has latterly sunk. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I should say here that I don\u2019t expect the 120th Congress to accomplish this work. But I would be remiss in my duties as a columnist if I failed to give appealing to the civic sense of our newly-elected representatives the old college try. <\/p>\n<p>                         <!-- \/22404337467,3946880\/theamericanconservative-Leaderboard-Top -->                         <\/p>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1742316429780-0' style='min-width: 300px; min-height: 50px; max-width: 100%; '>                         <\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The place to start is war. We have now entered the ninth month of an asinine and unwinnable conflict prosecuted by the White House in open defiance of the Constitution\u2014which, for those who have forgotten, sagely reserves to Congress the power to declare war. And for all the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/05\/01\/trump-congress-war-terminated-00902681\">casuistry<\/a> and careful word-games of executive branch lawyers, for all the attempts by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/09\/03\/politics\/lutnick-apology-iran-troop-deaths\">cabinet officials<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/shorts\/ILngkK_UG0Y\">congressional leadership<\/a> to cloud and complicate the obvious, for all the recent <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/11\/03\/us-news\/trump-calls-iran-conflict-a-soft-war-insists-us-holds-the-cards-ahead-of-midterm-elections\/\">protestations<\/a> of the president himself\u2014usually admirably forthright about the essential warrishness of the war\u2014that this is \u201cnot a war\u201d or a \u201csoft war,\u201d it is, in fact, a war. Its commencement without congressional authorization was unlawful; its termination by congressional action is essential if our legislature is to regain its constitutional role (not to mention its institutional self-respect). The 120th Congress must address itself to the question posed by Henry Clay nearly two centuries ago: \u201cDoes the [war] power belong to the Nation, to the collective wisdom of the Nation in Congress assembled, or is it vested solely in a single functionary of the government?\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Any effectual answer to the Great Pacificator\u2019s question will require Congress to pursue an \u201call of the above\u201d approach. War powers resolutions, symbolic though they are, should be a part of this; so, too, should NDAA provisions requiring the cessation of combat operations and the removal of U.S. troops. But most important will be the wielding of the power of the purse\u2014the war machine is kept going by appropriations, and Congress should condition any future funding on the observance of the law. It must be prepared to turn off the money spigot no matter how loudly the Pentagon screams; something resembling the Vietnam-era Case-Church Amendment (which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1973\/06\/15\/archives\/sweeping-cutoff-of-funds-for-war-is-voted-in-senate-casechurch.html\">prevented<\/a> <em>any<\/em> money given to the Pentagon from being used to fight in Indochina) should absolutely be a part of this year\u2019s defense appropriations act.<\/p>\n<section class=\"c-subscribe-email\" >\n<div class=\"l-container\">\n<div class=\"c-subscribe-email__wrap\">\n<div class=\"c-subscribe-email__head\">\n<h4 class=\"c-subscribe-email__heading\">Subscribe Today<\/h4>\n<h5 class=\"c-subscribe-email__subheading\">Get daily emails in your inbox<\/h5>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"c-subscribe-email__form-wrap\">      <!-- Begin Mailchimp Signup Form -->      <\/p>\n<div id=\"mc_embed_signup\">\n<form id=\"mc-embedded-subscribe-form\" class=\"validate\" action=\"https:\/\/theamericanconservative.us4.list-manage.com\/subscribe\/post?u=442e644c01f8e54e26e4ff3f8&#038;id=f7b67cac40\" method=\"post\" name=\"mc-embedded-subscribe-form\" novalidate target=\"_blank\">\n<div id=\"mc_embed_signup_scroll\">\n<div class=\"c-subscribe-email__fields\">              <label for=\"mce-EMAIL\" class=\"u-screenreader-text\">Email Address:<\/label>              <input id=\"mce-EMAIL\" class=\"c-subscribe-email__field\" name=\"EMAIL\" type=\"email\" value=\"\" placeholder=\"Your Email\" \/>              <input id=\"mc-embedded-subscribe\" class=\"c-subscribe-email__submit o-button o-button--red-500 o-button--solid\" name=\"subscribe\" type=\"submit\" value=\"Subscribe\" \/>            <\/div>\n<div id=\"mce-responses\" class=\"clear\">\n<div id=\"mce-error-response\" class=\"response\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"mce-success-response\" class=\"response\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>              <!-- real people should not fill this in and expect good things - do not remove this or risk form bot signups-->            <\/p>\n<div class=\"u-screenreader-text\" aria-hidden=\"true\">              <input tabindex=\"-1\" name=\"b_442e644c01f8e54e26e4ff3f8_f7b67cac40\" type=\"text\" value=\"\" \/>            <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/form>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>      <!--End mc_embed_signup-->          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On that note, appropriations <em>qua<\/em> appropriations present another theater in which congressional action is essential. The past two years have seen the executive branch essentially write its own budget. It has made a point of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/07\/01\/iran-pentagon-defense-funding-00984007\">refusing<\/a> to provide congressional appropriators with the information they need to make informed decisions. It has abandoned the negotiation appropriate to coequal branches of government, preferring instead to dictate terms from a position of superiority. And when it comes to particularly sensitive matters, the White House has even gotten Congress to abandon its regular appropriations process in favor of reconciliation, a procedure meant to help balance the federal account books but which is instead being used to ram through partisan priorities with budget-busting implications. Fiscal hawks on the right, who might be expected to serve as a check on such recklessness, have wilted in the face of executive pressure, swallowing their pride and principles to vote as the president orders\u2014even when that means supporting a bill that will <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crfb.org\/blogs\/obbba-dynamic-score-comes-47-trillion\">add<\/a> $4.7 trillion (with a \u201ct\u201d) to the national debt by 2035. This state of affairs has to end; the next Congress should resolve to return to the regular appropriations process and formulate its budget as though it were an independent locus of political power rather than a craven instrument of another branch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most difficult of all, those who will make the trek to Capitol Hill for their swearing-in come January should try to make their institution less patently ridiculous. This means ending the goofy hearings staged purely for the purpose of creating viral clips; it means conducting themselves with a modicum of decency and self-respect; it means actually working to pass legislation and ending the practice of taking off half the year (and a hundred similar evasions of actual work besides).<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yes, I can hear the laughter. As I said at the outset, there is little chance we see appreciable movement anytime soon. But until we all start expecting\u2014and demanding\u2014as much from our representatives, we will continue to suffer the consequences of a clownish and castrated Congress.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s a paraphrase of the passage you provided:<\/p>\n<p>Election Day in Virginia opened with weather as favorable as early November allows, a scene that fits Keats\u2019s idea of autumn\u2019s \u201cmellow fruitfulness.\u201d I just came from my polling place, where pleasant weather and visible civic participation-a PTA bake sale and courteous volunteers from both parties at their tables-made for a quintessentially American tableau. Yet our republic isn\u2019t in good shape. By the time you read this, control of Congress should be decided, and if polls aren\u2019t wildly wrong, the House may swing to insurgent Democrats riding anger over living costs and the Iran situation (my own uncertain guess for the Senate: a 50-50 split). An editor\u2019s note adds that Republicans actually faced a widespread defeat. Regardless of the exact balance, the new lawmakers face a daunting mission: to revive Congress from its current impotence and restore its dignity.<\/p>\n<p>I should say that I don\u2019t expect the 120th Congress to achieve that, but I\u2019d be remiss as a columnist not to urge the newcomers to take the civic duty seriously. The place to begin is war. We\u2019ve entered the ninth month of a foolish, unwinnable conflict pushed by the White House in open defiance of the Constitution, which reserves the power to declare war to Congress. No matter the lawyers\u2019 arguments, and despite officials\u2019 and leaders\u2019 attempts to downplay or redefine the war, the fact remains: it is a war. Its start was unlawful without congressional authorization, and ending it through congressional action is essential if Congress is to reclaim its constitutional role and its self-respect. The 120th Congress must answer Henry Clay\u2019s question about who holds war power-whether it belongs to the nation as a whole, as expressed by Congress, or to a single government official. A meaningful answer will require an \u201call of the above\u201d approach. War Powers resolutions, even if symbolic, should play a role; so should NDAA provisions that halt combat and withdraw U.S. troops. But the most important tool will be the power of the purse-funding the war machine only if the law is followed. Congress should be prepared to cut off money even if the Pentagon resists, and something like the Vietnam-era Case-Church Amendment should be considered in this year\u2019s defense appropriations.<\/p>\n<p>Appropriations, too, demand congressional action. In recent years the executive branch has effectively written its own budget, withholding information from appropriators and bypassing proper negotiation by courting unilateral power. When it comes to sensitive matters, the White House has even pushed Congress to abandon its regular appropriations process in favor of reconciliation, a budget maneuver that has been used to push through partisan priorities with massive funding implications. Fiscal hawks on the right have wilted under executive pressure, voting for bills that would add trillions to the national debt by 2035. This state of affairs must end; the next Congress should return to the regular appropriations process and budget as an independent center of political power, not as a tool of another branch. Perhaps the hardest part will be making Capitol Hill appear less ridiculous. That means ending hearings staged merely to create viral clips, behaving with basic decency and self-respect, actually passing legislation, and abandoning the practice of taking half the year off. I can hear the laughter, but as I said at the outset, there\u2019s little chance of noticeable progress soon. Still, unless we demand more from our representatives, we\u2019ll continue to suffer the consequences of a clownish, diminished Congress<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4475,"featured_media":2697502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/tac.imgix.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/jpeg.jpeg?auto=compress&#038;crop=faces%2Centropy&#038;fit=crop&#038;fm=jpg&#038;h=630&#038;ixlib=php-3.3.1&#038;q=80&#038;w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[548],"tags":[6017,4402,5894],"class_list":["post-2697501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conservative-news-daily","tag-advocacy","tag-congress","tag-politics"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/tac.imgix.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/jpeg.jpeg?auto=compress&#038;crop=faces%2Centropy&#038;fit=crop&#038;fm=jpg&#038;h=630&#038;ixlib=php-3.3.1&#038;q=80&#038;w=1200","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2697501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4475"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2697501"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2697501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2697505,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2697501\/revisions\/2697505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2697502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2697501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2697501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2697501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}