Republicans were particularly outspoken in their support. “The Constitution is awfully clear, as my friend points out, about where war-making authority resides,” said Tom Cole, the Oklahoma Republican. “It resides in this body.”

“You have been incredibly persistent and perseverant on this issue for a number of years,” Rodney Frelinghuysen, the Republican chairman of the committee, told Lee. “I think we recognize you, and obviously you have allies in the room. We share your concern.”

The committee vote is just the first step, however. Repealing the powers would need to be approved by the full House, and the Senate, and approved by the president. Already, House speaker Paul Ryan has expressed doubts, saying, “There’s a right way to deal with this, and an appropriations bill I don’t think is the right way to deal with this.”

The power to lift sanctions

US presidents are granted the right to sanction foreign companies and individuals through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, which itself narrows the powers of a 1917 law. Trump can lift many economic sanctions Obama imposed against foreign countries by a simple executive order.

But in mid-June, the US Senate passed a bill that would impose stiffer sanctions on Russia, and require the president to get Congress’s approval before lifting them.

Sure, as Trump faces multiple investigations into whether he or his campaign colluded with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, lifting sanctions against Russia wouldn’t be a politically astute move. That’s not to say that Trump wouldn’t do it, however, judging from past events.

The bill passed by 98-2 in the Senate, but its passage through the House has been delayed by technicalities. Some Democrats believe it is being stalled so that it doesn’t pass there before Trump’s meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the G-20 this week, because it could undercut Trump’s negotiating power. The White House is lobbying (paywall) for the provision requiring Congressional approval to be removed.

The power to collect voting data

Nearly 30 of the US’s 50 states have rejected a request from Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Electoral Integrity to provide names, addresses, voting records, birthdates, social security numbers, and party affiliations of registered voters. The commission was established to investigate voter fraud, which the Trump administration says was widespread in the last election but which local election authorities and elected officials from Republican and Democratic parties both deny.

The rejections were often angry, with one Republican secretary of state telling the commission it could “go jump in the Gulf of Mexico.”

What Congress and the states can’t limit

As Congress inches toward possible permanent legislative limits on presidential power, and state officials spar with the Trump White House, Trump has managed to wield plenty of authority.

Most significantly, Trump has overseen the most significant destruction and rollback of rules and regulations possibly ever conducted by a US president. After Congress voted in almost all of his cabinet heads, many have begun upending the departments they run, slashing employees and changing the agency’s purpose completely. Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt, for example, is enlisting advisors from the fossil fuel and manufacturing industries to help make policies on pollution and dangerous chemicals. The EPA is already offering staff buyouts that are expected to cut thousands of jobs there, and Pruitt plans to set up a unit to challenge climate science.

Under attorney general Jeff Sessions, the Department of Justice has already had a sweeping impact, re-instituting the “war on drugs,” backing hardline anti-immigrant policy, and weakening police reform.

Constitutional experts who railed against Obama’s liberal use of executive orders during his presidency, and Bush’s before that, say the concern over Trump’s powers illustrates that the presidency has been too strong for some time now. “To all my newly-fervent defenders of the Constitution from the left: Welcome back,” Michael Munger, a professor of political science at Duke University wrote at Quartz. “Perhaps it’s time to accept that limiting executive power is a cause we should all fight for—no matter what side we’re on.”

📬 Sign up for the Daily Brief

Our free, fast, and fun briefing on the global economy, delivered every weekday morning.