> And whenever Congress delegates authority to the executive branch, it faces a basic principal-agent problem: how do you ensure that the authority will be used by the executive branch in ways that conform to congressional intent? […]
> Beginning in the 1930s, Congress increasingly dealt with the delegation problem via another strategy: the legislative veto. Congress would provide authority to the president or other executive-branch officials, but reserve the right to overturn any individual use of the authority, via passage of a concurrent resolution in the House and Senate. […]
> This essentially retained majoritarian congressional control over presidential uses of IEEPA. If Congress didn’t like an action the president took using his IEEPA authority — be it a sanction, asset freeze, or (gasp!) tariff — they would have the authority to overturn it, by majority vote, without the cooperation of the president.
> But wait, you say, didn’t the House and Senate already both vote to overturn some of the the IEEPA tariffs put in place by Trump by declaring an end to the NEA emergency that triggered the authority? Yes, they did. […] But those were largely symbolic political votes, because the Supreme Court destroyed the legislative veto 40 years ago. […]
> But even worse than that, the Court chose to sever the legislative vetoes from the laws in which they were placed. That is, the Court removed the legislative vetoes but left in place the delegations of authority! […]
> Of course, Congress could just rewrite the laws with tighter restrictions on the delegated authority, or withdraw it all together. […] If Congress wants to change that […] they would need either the consent of the president (good luck), or a supermajority vote in Congress to override his veto.
> And whenever Congress delegates authority to the executive branch, it faces a basic principal-agent problem: how do you ensure that the authority will be used by the executive branch in ways that conform to congressional intent? […]
> Beginning in the 1930s, Congress increasingly dealt with the delegation problem via another strategy: the legislative veto. Congress would provide authority to the president or other executive-branch officials, but reserve the right to overturn any individual use of the authority, via passage of a concurrent resolution in the House and Senate. […]
> This essentially retained majoritarian congressional control over presidential uses of IEEPA. If Congress didn’t like an action the president took using his IEEPA authority — be it a sanction, asset freeze, or (gasp!) tariff — they would have the authority to overturn it, by majority vote, without the cooperation of the president.
> But wait, you say, didn’t the House and Senate already both vote to overturn some of the the IEEPA tariffs put in place by Trump by declaring an end to the NEA emergency that triggered the authority? Yes, they did. […] But those were largely symbolic political votes, because the Supreme Court destroyed the legislative veto 40 years ago. […]
> But even worse than that, the Court chose to sever the legislative vetoes from the laws in which they were placed. That is, the Court removed the legislative vetoes but left in place the delegations of authority! […]
> Of course, Congress could just rewrite the laws with tighter restrictions on the delegated authority, or withdraw it all together. […] If Congress wants to change that […] they would need either the consent of the president (good luck), or a supermajority vote in Congress to override his veto.