Posted on 06/27/2003 6:35:10 AM PDT by bedolido
WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Rep. J. D. Hayworth (R-AZ), along with ten co-sponsors, is actively promoting a bill that would enforce Article I, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution, giving sole legislative responsibility to Congress.
The Congressional Responsibility Act of 2003, or H.R. 110, was created to prevent bureaucratic regulations from being added to laws without the approval of Congress. This bill would require them to be approved by Congress before going into effect.
The bill is currently being considered in the House Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law.
Supporters of this bill say it is needed for three reasons.
First, they say it will restore democracy in the United States by returning the power to enact legislation to elected lawmakers. Bureaucrats have regularly affected legislation that has been passed into law by Congress for much of the past century.
Second, they say it corrects a violation of the U.S. Constitution provision that gives Congress the power to make and regulate laws.
Third, they say it will prevent lawmakers from shifting the blame of bad regulation to bureaucrats. This bill would force Congress to become more responsible for the legislation that is passed into law.
The ten co-sponsors of this bill are Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-MD), Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-CA), Rep. Virgil H. Goode, Jr. (R-VA), Rep. Steve King (R-IA), Rep. Ron Lewis (R-KY), Rep. C. L. "Butch" Otter (R-ID), Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), and Rep. Michael K. Simpson (R-ID).
Copyright © 2003 Talon News -- All rights reserved.
That, my friends, is a profoundly sad reflection on what has happened in this country. A respected member of Congress actually feels the need to pass a law to enforce the law.
It is also very telling that all ten of the co-sponsers are Republicans.
Declaration of war is one."
House International Relations Committee
Committee Chairman Henry Hyde:
Selective enforcement of the constitution?
Essentially, HR 110 nullifies - without actually saying so - the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) of 1946. That law, still on the books with some amendments in Title 5 of the US Code, provides that, in order to adopt or amend substantive regulations, executive departments must publish in the daily Federal Register (now published by the National Archives) first the proposed regulation - usually with the department's explanation and justification, and then allow time for public comment about the proposal, at the end of that comment period - if there were no significant comments, the regulation (possibly with tiny coorections or adjustments) is published again as a Final Regulation, or if there were significant public comments or other developments, the department provides a commentary that addresses these comments, possibly offering an amended proposal and allowing yet another cycle for public comment, or leading to final adoption.
It is already the law that the regulations must conform to Acts of Congress. It has happened that, Congress has amended a statute in order to cancel out an undesired department reg.
HR 110 cuts out this opportunity for public comment. It entrusts all this to Congressmen and makes them treat proposed regs and their amendments like the usual run of Congressional bills. But Congress manages to pass less than 400 bills per year, and I don't think anyone is naive enough to think that all of them were thoroughly studied and worked out by all the Congressmen. Currently the executive department issues a few thousand final regulations and revisions of regulations every year. HR 110 would gum all this up, make it very difficult for departments to react to new developments or correct their mistakes, etc. HR 110 would have the legislative branch micromanaging the executive branch. More to the point, most of the new regulations are issued by departments pursuant to new Acts of Congress; HR 110 gives us the possibility of Congress passing important legislation - and then preventing the executive branch from putting it into effect by jamming up the proposed regulations. It would also scramble the distinction between administrative regulations and statutes; regulations - which are supposed to have less authority than Acts of Congress - will henceforth be themselves Acts of Congress, will be published in Statutes at Large instead of the Federal Register, and arranged in the United States Code instead of the Code of Federal Regulations. If you don't think all that would be counter-productive perhaps you don't know how government is supposed to work.
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