James Madison designed a constitutional system with a frank understanding of the factional and petty impulses of politicians. Yet he believed that he had created a system of checks and balances that could rely on the institutional self-interest of members to jealously protect their powers under Article I. Madison believed that, despite party or ideological affiliations, “ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

In all of his study of the ancient Greek and Roman states and contemporary politics, Madison never encountered the likes of Schumer and his colleagues. Their ambition runs elsewhere, and they view the support of their authority to be an act of constitutional “cruelty.” They are calling on a president to turn them into institutional nonentities — legislators who engage in a type of empty performance art as the president governs alone.

[Pelosi and Schumer have been horrid stewards of institutional integrity. I recall when Republicans shredded Denny Hastert for suing the FBI to retrieve materials from then-Dem Rep. William “Cold Cash” Jefferson’s Capitol office in a corruption probe. (I wasn’t too pleased at the time either, to be fair.) Republicans wanted Jefferson tried and convicted, but Hastert correctly asserted that the executive branch had no business conducting searches in the legislative branch’s office without approval from Congress. We’ve come a long way, baby … in the wrong direction. — Ed]