Is The Supreme Court About To Give Haters Of The 'Deep State' What They Want?
Source: NPR
Is The Supreme Court About To Give Haters Of The 'Deep State' What They Want?
June 21, 2019 5:00 AM ET
NINA TOTENBERG
Lost in the shuffle Thursday at the Supreme Court with the major decision released in a separation of church and state case dominating was another ruling that could, at some point, have wide ramifications for how American government functions.
The court ruled that Congress did not overstep its authority in handing off important power to the attorney general under the federal Sex Offender Registration Act, or SORNA.
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At issue in the case is the practice that allows federal agencies to write rules and make decisions about enforcing legislation enacted by Congress. This affects any law Congress passes, from the sex-offender statute in this case to, for example, the Affordable Care Act and on.
Those who warn about the power of the so-called administrative state, or the "deep state," often contend that Congress frequently violates the Constitution by delegating legislative power to other government agencies.
That theory is called the "non-delegation doctrine," but, in fact, the Supreme Court has only twice in its history struck down a federal law on such grounds, and those two cases were in 1935 when a conservative Supreme Court used the theory to invalidate two significant administration reforms aimed at pulling the country out of the Great Depression.
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Read more: https://www.npr.org/2019/06/21/732178487/is-the-supreme-court-going-to-soon-give-haters-of-the-deep-state-what-they-want