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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Home News Latest Stories Suspects in Highway 66 pursuit now facing drug charges State police disable pipe bomb on Table Rock Road Friends and family of missing teen organize search Train slams into truck at Central Point crossing Family feels game warden's death 100 years later Crime, Courts and Emergency Services Suspects in Highway 66 pursuit now facing drug charges State police disable pipe bomb on Table Rock Road Friends and family of missing teen organize search Two arrested after high speed chase with stolen car Medford man who allegedly abandoned pit bull and her pup arrested Politics and Elections State certifies recount showing failure of GMO-labeling measure Time running out for O&C funds GMO vote recount still shows little change GMO labeling votes recounted under careful watch in Jackson County Kent Bush: First Amendment doesn’t mean what you think it means Education Ruch school class focuses on the natural environment Bethel Church helps families at McLoughlin Middle School Logos may offer students 'fifth year' at RCC or SOU St. Mary's plays host to youth robotics tournament A lesson in giving Environment Biologist resigns over LNG reporting failure Bird flu discovered in Winston backyard flock Jackson County holds back on enforcing GMO ban for now No fish, no funding for problem dams Most residents speak against gas pipeline State News Police officer shoots armed driver near Reedsport Oregon to step up water quality checks on farms Questions remain in death of Oklahoma teen Impostor makes off with Salvation Army donations in Corvallis, Albany Faith-healing couple sentenced to 10 years for death of diabetic daughter Nation - World Obama makes Maduro’s ‘insolent Yankees’ line harder to sell Grand jury won't indict Ferguson cop in shooting Obituaries Emile Victor Caloz Donna J. 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Suspects in Highway 66 pursuit now facing drug charges ... State police disable pipe bomb on Table Rock Road ... Police officer shoots armed driver near Reedsport ... Suspects in Highway 66 pursuit now facing drug charges ... State police disable pipe bomb on Table Rock Road ... ANOTHER VIEW George Will: A case for presidential self-restraint Comment MailTribune.com Writer Posted Nov. 30, 2014 @ 12:01 am Posted Nov. 30, 2014 @ 12:01 am » Social News For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. — Newton's Third Law of Motion America's Newtonian Constitution might again function according to Madisonian expectations if a provoked Congress regains its spine and self-respect, thereby returning our constitutional architecture to equipoise. But this is more to be hoped for than expected. Even without this, however, the institutional vandalism of Barack Obama's executive unilateralism still might be a net national benefit. It will be if the Republicans' 2016 presidential nominee responds to Obama's serial provocations by promising a return to democratic etiquette grounded in presidential self-restraint. Not since the off-year elections of 1938, when voters rebuked Franklin Roosevelt for his attempt to pack the Supreme Court by enlarging it, has the electorate made constitutional equilibrium a central concern. James Madison, however, hoped institutional balance could be self-maintaining: "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place." He expected that the rivalries between self-interested branches would produce an equal and opposite reaction to a rival's overreaching. This would hold the branches in a planetary balance akin to that of the solar system, preventing the concentration of legislative and executive power in the same hands, which he defined as tyranny. Before conservatives had the disorienting delight of Ronald Reagan's presidency, they had a healthy suspicion of executive power, and an inclination to favor congressional supremacy. (See "Congress and the American Tradition" by James Burnham, one of William F. Buckley's collaborators in founding National Review.) Congress, however, has long since ceased to be a reliable custodian of its own powers. And now it has permanent and deepening attention deficit disorder: It can neither control nor even maintain meaningful oversight over the sprawling government it has created. According to historian Morton Keller in "America's Three Regimes," members of early Congresses were more numerous than federal bureaucrats. Today there are many more than 535 executive departments, agencies and other entities that Congress funds without effective supervision and to which a harried, distracted Congress delegates discretion tantamount to legislative power. James Buckley, in his forthcoming book "Saving Congress from Itself," reports: "Shortly after my election to the Senate in 1970, I was handed a recently completed study of Congress that had concluded that the workload of the average congressional office had doubled every five years since 1935. ... I can certify that during my own six years in office, I witnessed a sharp increase in the already frenetic pace of the Senate and an equally sharp decline in its ability to get very much done that could honestly be labeled 'thoughtful.' " There have been 1,950 senators since the Constitution was ratified, and none has done as much damage to the institution's deliberative capacity as Harry Reid has done as majority leader. He has broken its rules in order to rewrite its rules, and has bent its procedures, all in the service of presidential preferences. He and his caucus exemplify how progressives, confident that they know history's proper destination, are too results-oriented to be interested in institutional conservation. America's two vainest presidents, Woodrow Wilson and Obama, have been the most dismissive of the federal government's Madisonian architecture. Wilson, the first president to criticize America's Founding, was especially impatient with the separation of powers, which he considered, as Obama does, an affront to his dual grandeur: The president is a plebiscitary tribune of the entire people, monopolizing true democratic dignity that is denied to mere legislators. And progressive presidents have unexcelled insight into history's progressive trajectory, and hence should have untrammeled freedom to act. Courts will not try to put a bridle and snaffle on a rampaging president, and perhaps Congress cannot, even if it summons the will to try. So we are reduced to hoping for something Madison was reluctant to rely on — executive self-restraint in response to a popular demand for it. Fortunately, Obama's ongoing and intensifying assault on constitutional equilibrium is so gross it has produced something commensurately remarkable — growing public interest in matters of governmental processes. Obama, who aspired to a place in the presidential pantheon, will leave office with a status more like Chester Arthur's than Franklin Roosevelt's, but without an achievement as large and popular as Arthur's civil service reform. Obama will, however, merit the nation's backhanded gratitude if the 2016 Republican presidential nominee makes central to a successful campaign a promise to retreat voluntarily from his predecessor's Caesarism. George Will's email address is [email protected]. MailTribune.com Writer Posted Nov. 30, 2014 @ 12:01 am » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. calendar Connect with MailTribune.com Facebook Twitter RSS Back to top Reader Services Reader Services Home Subscriptions Subscriber controls Contact us Submissions Photos Events Letters to the editor Corrections Announcements Obituaries Story ideas Since you asked Alerts Email Alerts RSS Feeds Text Alerts Advertise Media Kit Home Products and services Ad rates Advertising contacts Mail Tribune Daily Tidings The Nickel Shop Our Valley Blogs Stay Informed Email newsletter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Your privacy is important, read our privacy policy. © Copyright 2014 Local Media Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 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