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To: Rockingham

Refer to post 70. Ad infinitum.


74 posted on 12/20/2013 1:43:02 PM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: SoFloFreeper
Here is how a standard, authoritative text on the Constitution describes the nondelegation doctrine:

" . . . The Supreme Court has sometimes declared categorically that “the legislative power of Congress cannot be delegated.” On other occasions, however, it has recognized more forthrightly, as Chief Justice Marshall did in 1825, that, although Congress may not delegate powers that “are strictly and exclusively legislative,” it may delegate “powers which [it] may rightfully exercise itself.” The former statement has never been literally true, the Court having upheld the delegation at issue in the very case in which the statement was made. The Court has long recognized that administration of the law requires exercise of discretion, and that, “in our increasingly complex society, replete with ever changing and more technical problems, Congress simply cannot do its job absent an ability to delegate power under broad general directives.” The real issue is where to draw the line.

Chief Justice Marshall recognized “that there is some difficulty in discerning the exact limits,” and that “the precise boundary of this power is a subject of delicate and difficult inquiry, into which a court will not enter unnecessarily.” Accordingly, the Court’s solution has been to reject delegation challenges in all but the most extreme cases, and to accept delegations of vast powers to the President or to administrative agencies. With the exception of a brief period in the 1930s when the Court was striking down New Deal legislation on a variety of grounds, the Court has consistently upheld grants of authority that have been challenged as invalid delegations of legislative power." Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis, and Interpretation - Centennial Edition, p. 76, GPO, June 26, 2013

Call me ignorant, but I think that Chief Justice Marshall and more than two centuries of Supreme Court decisions are right about what the Constitution provides as to the delegation of legislative power by Congress. If you have credible evidence to the contrary, I would like to see it.

75 posted on 12/20/2013 3:25:58 PM PST by Rockingham
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