This is an interesting essay about how the separation of powers plays out. Not too lengthy but shows how the power struggle between the two works. And it isn't something new. It's been going on since the very beginning of our republic.
Over the long-run, in a Madisonian world of competition of political power, we would consequently expect a plural legislature gradually to lose out to a unitary executive, because Congress faces a collective action problem that the President does not face. At least that would be a sufficient cause for the graduate shift in relative power between the two institutions.
Sadly, it omits the third branch, the judiciary.
See more at: Free Riding Hobbles Congress’s Ability to Stop Expansion in Presidential Power - Online Library of Law & Liberty
