Reclaiming Legislative Power

americanthinker.com ^ | 3/16/15 | Bruce Walker

[cotton1706]

The power to make laws rests wholly in Congress – at least that is what the Constitution says. Yet who makes the “laws” in our federal system today? Vast amounts of legislative power have been “delegated” to independent federal regulatory agencies like the Federal Communications Commission or to the president or his cabinet secretaries.

The sheer volume of these rules is mind-numbing. Consider that in 2014, the year that just ended, 75,000 pages of new regulations were adopted by the Executive Branch, either by the Obama administration directly or through independent regulatory agencies. This is in addition to the myriad executive orders the president gives to his various departments regarding how to administrate federal laws.

The imagined need for these rules is that congressional legislation cannot anticipate every situation or change that requires new regulations. That is true, of course, only if we accept the underlying premise that the federal government ought to be directly involved in almost everything we do. Not only is that notion itself unconstitutional, violating the limited powers in Article I and the strict limits of those powers in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, but it is even more noxious because whatever rules the federal government does impose are required to be enacted only by Congress.

The consequence of this constant growth and expansion of rules is that what is lawful and what is not morphs all the time as proposed rules pass through the regulatory process and acquire the force of law. These rules often seem to conflict with other rules or with federal statutes or with judicial decisions interpreting federal law, so that the confusion is compounded dramatically. The only folks who seem able to navigate through this morass are Washington lawyers and lobbyists, whose interest is wholly mercenary.

[jsanders2001]

The use of executive order needs to be reviewed and reigned in. It was used to skirt the Constitution and extremely abused during this administration. For starters.

[Macoozie]

To paraphrase- “from your lips to G_d’s ears”
Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually followed the Constitution?
I bet 90% of our problems would be solved by simply following the law.

[Iron Munro]

The rise of the executive order was made possible by the eagerness of congress over the years to avoid the hard work of passing solid, detailed, well defined laws.

They pass laws that are bare bones, sweeping generalizations and leave it to the executive to flesh them out.

They left loopholes a mile wide just waiting for a crook like Obama to abuse.

Obama took advantage of their shoddy work and stretched the limits of his executive powers far beyond the norm or what congress expected.

But ultimately it is congress’s dereliction of their constitutional responsibilities that made the tyranny of Obama possible.

[jsanders2001]

Need checks and balances in that process. One man’s vote should not be able to override 535 votes, especially if he is a Manchurian Candidate planted by a foreign government or billionaire with visions of grandeur.

[Myrddin]

The Executive Branch and related agencies should be restricted to administering law passed by the legislative branch, vetted by the judicial branch and approved by the Executive (President). The concept of making law (or rules and regulations) needs to be stripped from the Executive, related agencies and the judicial branch. When separation is violated, there is room for unbounded tyranny.