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Basic Constitutional Concepts
powers to independent regulatory commissions (and executive agencies as well)? In addressing this issue, the courts have adopted the view
that Congress may empower such commissions to issue rules and regulations as long as the authorizing statute provides guidelines for the
regulators. The guidelines must be sufficiently explicit, however, so as
to prevent the use of arbitrary discretion in the rule-making process. In
general, the courts are satisfied that there has been no improper delegation
if the regulation in question seems to reflect the will of Congress and the
commission has merely ‘‘filled in the administrative details’’ for Congress.
In practice, the courts have tended to interpret these restrictions somewhat loosely by giving substantial leeway to the commissions to ‘‘fill in
the details’’ of broadly stated congressional policies. Thus the commissions are, in effect, often making the law, even though the commissioners
themselves are not elected to office and are not accountable for their actions to the electorate—or in many respects even to Congress.
The effect of all this on the American constitutional system is farreaching. In the first place, it contributes to the decline of federalism, and
has resulted in the transfer of vast amounts of State power to the Federal
bureaucracy. The subject of labor relations is just one of many areas of
public policy that could be cited to illustrate the problem. Among the
delegated powers of Congress in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution,
there is no mention of labor, and throughout most of American history
the power to deal with such issues as labor strikes, the right to organize
unions, working conditions, wages and hours, and the problem of child
labor was left to the States. Early in the twentieth century, however, Congress began claiming the right Ѽ