By Jean Franck, M.A., Doctoral Student in Public Administration
In the landscape of American democracy, power does not reside in a single person, branch, or institution. It is checked, balanced, and most importantly—shared. Nowhere is this more evident than in the oversight of administrative agencies, where both the executive and legislative branches exercise authority. This shared control is not a tug-of-war. It is a dynamic process—a choreography of law, leadership, and legitimacy.
Many people imagine that the President alone controls the agencies of government. After all, the President appoints agency heads, signs executive orders, and shapes the national agenda. But in truth, Congress is the architect. It creates these agencies, defines their scope, and holds the purse strings. One branch steers the ship, the other builds and funds it. Together, they guide the course of governance (Rosenbloom, 2018; Cook, 2019).
Consider the President’s tools: executive orders, budget proposals, memoranda, and the authority to nominate (and in some cases, remove) key officials. These powers are formidable. They allow the President to implement change without waiting for legislation. Through the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), the President can even delay or revise agency regulations that don’t align with White House priorities (Haeder & Yackee, 2020).
Yet this power, though wide, is not absolute. It is rooted in constitutional and statutory law. Article II of the Constitution vests executive power in the President and charges him with the faithful execution of the law. That duty sets boundaries. The President cannot legislate, only implement. And while the courts can challenge executive overreach, it is Congress that provides the long-term counterbalance (Rosenbloom, 2018).
Congress shapes the administrative state through structural design, delegation, funding, and oversight. It decides which agencies exist, what they do, and how their decisions must be made. The Administrative Procedure Act (APA), a cornerstone of modern governance, is a legislative act that mandates transparency, fairness, and public participation in agency rulemaking (Huang et al., 2020; Rosenbloom, 2018). Congress doesn’t merely create law—it ensures the law is applied as intended.
The difference in how these two branches exercise power is profound. The executive acts swiftly. The legislative acts deliberately. The President commands from the center. Congress deliberates through committees and coalitions. One responds to crises with urgency; the other reflects the consensus of a nation (Kerwin & Furlong, 2018).
This tension is not dysfunction—it’s design.
We’ve seen this interplay throughout history. Presidents have issued bold executive orders to drive environmental policy, economic reform, and public health action. Meanwhile, Congress has investigated those same agencies, reined in budgets, and rewritten authorizing statutes. Sometimes they clash. Sometimes they collaborate. But the system endures, because the balance itself is a form of accountability (Cook, 2019).
As a student of public administration, I see this dual oversight as more than a procedural function. It is a reminder that no one governs alone. Our institutions are complex by intention, not by accident. They are layered, not to confuse, but to protect. Governance in a democracy must be resilient—not only against inefficiency, but against unchecked power.
So the next time we read about a regulatory agency drafting a rule, pausing a program, or changing a standard, we should remember: that action is not the product of one decision, but of many. It is the result of oversight, vision, and law—shaped by both executive leadership and legislative design.
In that duality, we find the essence of American public administration: governance that is powerful, but never singular. Accountable, but never isolated. Structured, but never static.
Jean Franck, M.A. Doctoral Student in Public Administration Writer | Policy Analyst | Advocate for Ethical and Accountable Government
References
Cook, B. J. (2019). Restraining the Unitary Executive: A Regime Ethics Basis for Administrator Defiance of Presidential Directives. Public Integrity, 22(4), 305–315. https://doi.org/10.1080/10999922.2019.1619441
Haeder, S. F., & Yackee, S. W. (2020). Policies That Bind? The Use of Guidance Documents by Federal Agencies. Journal of Health and Human Services Administration, 43(2), 87–100. https://doi.org/10.37808/jhhsa.43.2.1
Huang, H., Davis, E., Lutz, H., & Brown, A. (2020). The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Response to COVID-19 and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (“CARES”) Act. Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law, 29(2), 125–138. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=2d8e411a-25b9-3817-ab8f-351d4b7998e7
Kerwin, C. M., & Furlong, S. R. (2018). Rulemaking: How Government Agencies Write Law and Make Policy (5th ed.). CQ Press.
Rosenbloom, D. (2018). Administrative Law for Public Managers (3rd ed.). Routledge.
