Lori Falce: Congress should take 2 aspirin and defend its trademark authority in the morning

In 1900, German drug company Bayer filed a patent in the U.S. for a tiny white pill that would be the foundation of future success: Aspirin. The company also filed a trademark for the name. It held, for a while.

There were complications. As a German company, Bayer faced challenges during World War I and in the following peace. But there was a broader lesson many businesses took to heart when the trademark was lost in court. Aspirin with a capital A had become aspirin with a lowercase because so many other competitors were making the drug and using the name. The trademark lost its power.

Today, companies will often cite aspirin as they zealously defend their intellectual property. Whether a copyright like Disney’s on Mickey Mouse — the earliest version passed into public domain last month — or a trademarked brand name like Xerox, improper use can summon a flock of lawyers.

The lesson? A right must be exercised to stay active. Like a muscle, it will atrophy if neglected.

This is a lesson that needs to be learned in Washington.

For too long, independent entities of federal government have become a Venn diagram of overlapping party power. This can be seen as a critique of Republicans as President Donald Trump presses his authority through a long list of policy goals one month into his second term. It is not. Democrats are just as guilty.

The Constitution was not written with political parties in mind. That was never the intention, and much of the problem with how Washington functions today is because of the insidious way parties have convinced us they were always part of the vision. They weren’t.

If they were, the checks and balances of the three branches would never have worked. Partisanship is what has driven grievances and placed roadblocks. If the Legislature is meant to curtail presidential power, how can that work when the president is seen as the leader of the party by half the lawmakers?

For more than 200 years, it did work because Congress defended its trademark. It didn’t allow its power to be usurped by the judicial or executive branch. The courts didn’t give away their authority. The three circles were jealous of their own responsibilities and reluctant to cede them, even to a fellow party member.

That has stopped. Increasingly over the administrations of recent decades, the House and Senate have become tools of the presidency, whether as collaborators when in the majority or obstructionists in the minority. The party platforms have usurped all.

And, one day, Congress will want its power back. It will reach for it — and find that trademark authority has been erased.

I don’t know if that will be the current Congress. I don’t know if it will be a future Democratic or Republican House or Senate leader who finds what has been threatened for years has come to pass.

But, unless lawmakers start exercising that muscle, when they go to use it, it will be too weak to move.