This piece originally appeared at Prototyping Politics.
This is the first post of my new substack, Prototyping Politics. You can read more about it here.
For the last five years, I’ve been working on reforming the national emergency powers system in the United States. I’ve testified before Congress. I’ve lobbied on behalf of reform legislation. I’ve worked with advocates, staffers, think tanks, and occasionally even the executive branch. This isn’t some obscure corner of the separation-of-powers debate. National emergencies have become a frontline issue—invoked to build a border wall, to manage a pandemic, to impose sanctions, to reroute federal funds. The last three presidential terms—Trump, Biden, and Trump again—have all relied on emergency declarations in ways that test the limits of executive power. These tools are no longer exceptional. They are routine.
And for most of that time, I’ve told the same story.
It goes like this: In the aftermath of Watergate and Vietnam, Congress passed a series of laws to restrain the executive. One of them, the National Emergencies Act of 1976 (NEA), created a clear process: presidents could declare emergencies and unlock extraordinary powers, but Congress retained the right to review and terminate those emergencies through a legislative veto. Then in 1983, the Supreme Court’s decision in INS v. Chadha struck down the legislative veto. The core mechanism of congressional control disappeared. And since then, emergency powers have metastasized. Trump’s border wall emergency. Biden’s COVID emergency. A cycle of abuse enabled by an unbalanced system. The solution? Restore congressional oversight. Rebuild the legal architecture. Return to the principles of 1976, updated for the realities of 2025.
