The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case testing the limits of the nondelegation doctrine, an issue that may sound lawyerly, but which is of the utmost importance in ensuring separation among the federal branches and accountability for the important decisions that affect us all.
Nondelegation is the principle that one branch of government may not give away its power to another. Thus, Congress, vested by the Constitution with the “legislative powers,” cannot give those powers to the executive branch. And yet it appears to do so routinely with broadly-written laws that invite bureaucrats to make the decisions and set the rules that will bind the public.
Not since 1935 has the Supreme Court used the nondelegation doctrine to strike down a federal statute. More than judicial deference, that failure has enabled the growth of the federal administrative…
