What doctrine governs the delegation of legislative power to the executive or administrative agencies, requiring an intelligible principle?

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Multiple Choice

What doctrine governs the delegation of legislative power to the executive or administrative agencies, requiring an intelligible principle?

The nondelegation doctrine governs how Congress can delegate its legislative power to executive or administrative agencies, and it requires an intelligible principle to guide that delegated authority. The idea is that Congress cannot hand over its legisla­tive role in a blank, unbounded way; there must be some standards or guidelines that steer how the agency uses the power. If a statute provides only broad language with no workable standard, courts will strike it down as unconstitutional delegation. Over time, the intelligible principle standard has been interpreted broadly enough to allow many delegations, as long as there is some basic guideline to prevent whim or arbitrariness, a principle articulated in cases like J. W. Hampton Jr. & Co. and later reinforced in later decisions. Choosing the option that focuses on delegation captures this concept, since the heart of the doctrine is the mechanism by which Congress delegates power and the need for that delegation to be restrained by an intelligible principle. The Enabling Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause concern congressional authority and the tools to enact laws, but they do not themselves establish the guardrails about delegating legislative power to agencies. War is irrelevant to this doctrine.

The nondelegation doctrine governs how Congress can delegate its legislative power to executive or administrative agencies, and it requires an intelligible principle to guide that delegated authority. The idea is that Congress cannot hand over its legisla­tive role in a blank, unbounded way; there must be some standards or guidelines that steer how the agency uses the power. If a statute provides only broad language with no workable standard, courts will strike it down as unconstitutional delegation. Over time, the intelligible principle standard has been interpreted broadly enough to allow many delegations, as long as there is some basic guideline to prevent whim or arbitrariness, a principle articulated in cases like J. W. Hampton Jr. & Co. and later reinforced in later decisions.

Choosing the option that focuses on delegation captures this concept, since the heart of the doctrine is the mechanism by which Congress delegates power and the need for that delegation to be restrained by an intelligible principle. The Enabling Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause concern congressional authority and the tools to enact laws, but they do not themselves establish the guardrails about delegating legislative power to agencies. War is irrelevant to this doctrine.

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