The Constitution’s separation of powers — essential for a proper check and balance of all three branches of government — is not working at present because Congress is Absent Without Official Leave or AWOL.

The fundamental laws of our nation envision Congress as first among equals in this regard. It is crowned with the war power, the power of the purse and the oversight power fortified by the inherent contempt power to enforce subpoenas for testimony or documents. Believe it or not, the Constitution endows Congress with authority to detain or fine executive branch officials for defying demands for information without the intercession of the judicial branch. Congress enjoys 17 enumerated powers supplemented by the sweeping Necessary and Proper Clause.

But it has mothballed these predominant powers. It has given away the war power to the president. Americans might not have been aware of how the nation was at war with the Houthis in Yemen, for example, if not for the administration’s blunder on Signal. Some in Congress were appalled by the security breach but most seemed unconcerned with President Donald Trump’s theft of the war power.

Does anyone think President Trump will ask Congress for declarations of war before seizing the Panama Canal or Greenland or that Congress will demand the same? This congressional abdication marks a counterrevolution comparable to Napoleon Bonaparte’s bloodless coup d’état. James Madison, father of the Constitution, instructed, “In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department.”

Madison conceived the power of the purse as the trump card over a runaway president. He wrote in Federalist 58: “This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.”

President Donald Trump, however, is freezing funds appropriated by Congress on an industrial scale in violation of the Impoundment Control Act without congressional resistance. Continuing Resolutions substitute for line-item appropriations to endow the president with vast spending discretion.

Congress has surrendered its oversight power to Elon Musk, who has neither been elected nor confirmed by the U.S. Senate as required by the appointments clause. Members characteristically arrive on Tuesday and often depart on Thursday, a truncated work week that would make bankers envious.

They should be voted out of office if they persist in fleeing from their constitutional responsibilities and making President Trump a de facto monarch.