Summary: In a timely book, Peter J. Wallison challenges the legitimacy of the modern administrative state. Rather than take up the burden of legislating, Congress has delegated lawmaking responsibility to regulatory agencies in direct violation of the Framers’ intent that the only government officials who should make law are the ones directly accountable to the electorate. The Supreme Court has aided and abetted this knowing violation of the Constitution by upholding a broad range of rulemaking delegations to political appointees and bureaucrats. The Court has aggravated the problem with the Chevron doctrine, which allows agencies to define the meaning of acts of Congress even though the Framers intended the federal courts to have that authority. This book argues that there is time to re-establish the constitutional system that the Framers created, but that we must act now or risk losing this opportunity forever.
