DownsizeDC.org's "Write the Laws Act" (WTLA)

Background Information

Draft Legislation of the "Write the Laws Act"

Examples:

None of the examples, below, should be considered an endorsement of the agency mentioned. In addition, these examples are hypothetical. WTLA does not effect existing administrative agencies. It only governs the powers given to new agencies, though it does require that Congress take steps to revoke the legislative and judicial powers granted to old agencies. If OSHA, the FCC, and the FDA, were being created today, the following examples describe how WTLA would limit their powers:

• The "Occupational Safety and Health Administration" (OSHA) now makes rules governing workplace safety. It then enforces those rules through investigations followed by judgments and fines. Under the WTLA Congress would actually write the job safety rules and our federal courts would determine guilt or innocence, as well as punishments. OSHA would only fulfill the executive function of investigating and prosecuting suspected violators. The days of OSHA bureaucrats serving the combined roles of legislators, police, prosecutors, judges, jurors, and executioners, will be finished.
• Likewise, Congress would have to be specific in its definition of "obscene" broadcasting, and alleged violators would have their day in court as prescribed by the Bill of Rights. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could neither write rules defining obscenity, nor issue fines. It would only have the executive function of policing and prosecuting suspected violations.
• The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would have no power to ban food and drugs from the market. It could only investigate and prosecute alleged cases of unsafe products.

Additional information:

Lew Rockwell has a classic piece from September 1990 on the Regulatory-Industrial Complex that shows how these regulatory agencies cater to big business and punish smaller firms.

This article is a brief history of the Federal Register, the daily record of what the President and administrative agencies are doing "for" and to you. The first issue, published in 1936, was sixteen pages; today an issue averages over 250 pages -- and it is published every day.

A good overview of federal regulatory agencies can be found here.

For the effect that laws and regulations have on business, click here.

To end the unconstitutional delegation of legislative power by requiring that legislative power exclusively vested by Article I, Section 1 of the United States Constitution in the Senate and House of Representatives, be exercised exclusively by Congress, and to direct the Comptroller General of the United States to conduct a study of administrative agencies and issue a report to Congress detailing the extent of the problem of unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the end that such agencies be phased out, thereby restoring the constitutional principle of separation of powers set forth in the first sections of the first three articles of the United States Constitution whereby the Congress exercises the legislative power, the President exercises the executive power, and the Supreme Court and the duly constituted federal courts exercise the judicial power of the United States.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Mr__. _______________ introduced the following bill; which was referred
to the Committee on __________________

A BILL

To end the unconstitutional delegation of legislative power by requiring that legislative power exclusively vested by Article I, Section 1 of the United States Constitution in the Senate and House of Representatives, be exercised exclusively by Congress, and to direct the Comptroller General of the United States to conduct a study of administrative agencies and issue a report to Congress detailing the extent of the problem of unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the end that such agencies be phased out, thereby restoring the constitutional principle of separation of powers set forth in the first sections of the first three articles of the United States Constitution whereby the Congress exercises the legislative power, the President exercises the executive power, and the Supreme Court and the duly constituted federal courts exercise the judicial power of the United States.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States
Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE

    This Act may be cited as the “Write the Laws Act of 2006.”

SECTION 2. FINDINGS

    (a) “[O]ne of the chief merits of the American system of written constitutional law, that all the powers entrusted to governments, whether state or national, are divided into the three grand departments of the executive, legislative and the judicial. That the functions appropriate to each of these branches of government shall be vested in a separate body of public servants, and that the perfection of the system requires that the lines which separate and divide these departments shall be broadly and clearly defined.” Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168, 190-191 (1881).

    (b) Article I, Section 1 of the United States Constitution vests the legislative powers enumerated therein in the United States Congress, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives, subject only to the veto power of the President as provided in Article I, Section 7, Clause 2.

    (c) Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in a President of the United States, except as enumerated in Article II, Section 2.

    (d) Article III, Section 1 of the United States Constitution vests the judicial power of the United States in “one supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish,” subject only to the jurisdictional limitations set forth in Article III, Section 2.

    (e) Thus, the United States Constitution “has blocked out with singular precision, and in bold lines, in its three primary Articles, the allotment of power to the executive, the legislative, and judicial departments of the government ... [and] the powers confided by the Constitution to one of these departments cannot be exercised by another.” Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168, 191 (1881).

    (f) “The increase in the number of States, in their population and wealth, and in the amount of power ... [has] present[ed] powerful and growing temptations to those to whom that exercise is intrusted, to overstep the just boundaries of their own department, and enter upon the domain of one of the others, or to assume powers not intrusted to either of them.” Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168, 191-192 (1881).

    (g) Succumbing to these “powerful and growing” temptations, and beginning in the late nineteenth century with the Interstate Commerce Commission and continuing to the present time, Congress has ignored the separation of powers standard embodied in the United States Constitution by creating numerous administrative agencies with “blended powers,” exercising legislative power vested by the Constitution in Congress, executive power vested by the Constitution in the President and judicial power vested by the Constitution in the federal judiciary.

    (h) By delegating legislative, executive and judicial power to the various administrative agencies, Congress has departed from the separation of powers structure of the United States Constitution, and ignored the warning of the framers of that instrument that “[T]he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” James Madison, The Federalist No. 47.

    (i) By the very nature of legislative power, and by the express terms of Article I, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, the Congress may not delegate any legislative power to any other branch of government or other entity, including any administrative agency.

    (j) By the very nature of executive power, and by the express terms of Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution vesting that power in the President of the United States, the Congress may not delegate executive power to any other branch of government or other entity — including any administrative agency.

    (k) By the very nature of judicial power, and by the express terms of Article III, Section 1 of the United States Constitution vesting that power in one Supreme Court and in such federal courts as the Congress ordains and establishes, the Congress may not delegate judicial power to any other branch of government or other entity — including any administrative agency.

    (l) By vesting legislative power in the Congress, the Constitution requires the Senate and the House of Representatives to enact statutes containing general rules to be executed by the President, as provided in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States, and to be adjudicated in a case or controversy by such inferior courts as Congress may from time to time establish, or in the Supreme Court, as provided in Article III, Sections 1 and 2.

    (m) Congress has abdicated its constitutional legislative responsibility to make the general rules, governing both ends and means, whereby the people are governed, having unconstitutionally delegated to unelected administrative agencies:  (1) essential legislative functions of rule making and choice of means; (2) executive functions; and (3) judicial functions, thereby undermining the constitutional protections of (A) the checks and balances of a bicameral legislative body and of a presidential veto, and (B) the separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers.

    (n) As a direct consequence of Congress having abdicated its responsibility to properly exercise the legislative power vested by the Constitution, Congress has:  (1) imposed onerous and unreasonable burdens upon the American people; and (2) violated the constitutional principle of the separation of the legislative, executive and judicial processes and functions.

SECTION 3. RESTORING THE SEPARATION OF POWERS

    (a) Title 1, United States Code, shall be amended by inserting at the end of Chapter 2 a new Chapter, 2B entitled “Restoring the Separation of Powers,” as follows:

    “Section 101. After the effective date of this Act all Bills, other than general appropriation bills, passed by Congress shall contain general rules:  (a) defining the specific conduct to be prohibited or permitted thereby; and (b) if authorized, (1) limiting the exercise of the executive power vested in the President to the enforcement or nonenforcement of the specific rules defined therein, (2) prohibiting the exercise of executive discretion to prescribe — by executive order, proclamation, or other presidential directive — any rule that exceeds the executive authority specified in said Bill, and (3) providing for adjudication of cases and controversies arising from the execution of such rules only in such courts of law as are established by Article III, Section 1, and governed by Article III, Section 2, or as established by the several states.”

    “Section 102. After the effective date of this Act, Congress shall not create any administrative agency or other like entity delegating thereto any general rule-making authority or adjudicatory powers.

    “Section 103. After the effective date of this Act, the Comptroller General of the United States shall examine all existing statutes creating any administrative agency or other like entity to which Congress has delegated general rule-making authority and adjudicatory powers and compile a report for Congress detailing the history, current structure and operations, and the extent of such agency’s exercise of legislative, executive and judicial powers to the end that Congress may take action to repeal any statute(s) creating any administrative agency to which it has delegated legislative, executive, and judicial powers contrary to the terms of Sections 101 and 102 of this Act.

    “Section 104. (a) Any person aggrieved by the enforcement of, or attempt or threat of enforcement of, any existing law, or any law enacted after the effective date of this Act, that does not comply with the provisions of this Act may invoke such noncompliance as a complete defense to any action, criminal or civil, brought against him.

    (b) Any person aggrieved by any action of any executive officer or administration agency that does not comply with the provisions of this Act shall have a cause of action under Sections 2201 and 2202, Title 28, United States Code, and Rules 57 and 65, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, against the United States to seek appropriate relief, including an injunction against enforcement of any law, the passage of which did not conform to the requirements of this Act.”

SECTION 4. SEVERABILITY CLAUSE

    If any provision of this Act, or the application thereof, to any person or circumstance is held invalid for any reason in any court of competent jurisdiction, such invalidity does not affect other provisions or other applications of this Act which can be given effect without the invalid provision or application, and for this purpose the provisions of this Act are declared severable.