The predominant self-interest of members of Congress is reelection. It is the necessary condition for a career in politics. When you get into office, your primary goal is to stay in office. It follows, then, that congressional leadership did not want this power returned to it because it would do nothing to advance its members’ reelection goals — which is another way of saying that their voters do not care about the proper scope of congressional authority, or about congressional defense of incursions by the other branches.

Viewed from this angle, congressional hesitation to unwind DACA becomes part of a larger pattern that has persisted for the last 80 years: The legislature has consistently delegated authority to the executive branch. The only main difference is that Obama seized power that Congress initially did not want to give and that it later griped about having returned to it.

Congressional self-abnegation fits hand-in-glove with the rise of presidential governance, or the misapprehension by the public that the president, rather than the Congress, is the centerpiece of republican government.