The essence of the separation of powers is that Congress may not give another branch the power to do what it alone may do. In Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Department of Homeland Security, several California-based environmental groups are challenging a law allowing the department secretary to waive any and all laws to speed building of the southern border-wall. Denied in the lower courts, the groups filed a petition with the Supreme Court. Cato has filed an amicus brief supporting that petition and arguing that such unlimited discretion violates the separation of powers.
The Constitution vests “all legislative power” in Congress, while the executive branch enforces those laws (rather than making or un-making them). Courts from the early days of the republic have maintained this division by preventing the delegation of the legislative power to the executive. To enforce this non-delegation doctrine the Court established the “intelligible principle” test. For a law to pass, Congress must (1) designate an agent or actor, (2) clearly direct the purpose or goal of the law, and (3) set boundaries to the agent’s powers. But the modern Court has stopped applying this doctrine; the last time it struck down a law on non-delegation grounds was in 1935. Since then it has deferred to larger and larger grants of legislative power to executive agencies.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/build-wall-between-branches-government
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