LogFAQs > #965138128

LordoftheMorons posted...

Well, the general idea there is that Congress does neither has the subject matter expertise to precisely craft all regulations, nor can it anticipate every scenario that might occur for a given task (e.g. maintaining clean air and water). As long as Congress understands that its delegating this authority I dont see the issue; all regulations having to be exactly spelled out when we address a given issue maybe once every few decades would be very unwieldy.

It's a matter of degree, right?

Also, Congress should have subject matter expertise, or can obtain it. If they need to employ more people for that, they can vote themselves a higher budget. But the important thing is that Congress has democratic legitimacy in that they are elected by the people. It is really antidemocratic for elected representatives to delegate their decisionmaking authority to unelected people (and to the extent that the executive branch agencies are filling with non-political career people, they are unelected).

This process is self-perpetuating and likely to continue to be unless the courts get involved. If Congress believes they can pass one substantive bill a year through reconciliation at 2 a.m. after the final text of the bill was not even unveiled until 11 p.m. and none of the members have read the whole thing, because the bill is full of delegations to the executive branch so that Congress does not need to worry about the details, well, they won't worry about the details. And they'll think this is an appropriate way of governing.