Watch: Do Administrative Agencies Usurp Legislative Power?

The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies is a group of conservatives and libertarians that work to influence the legal profession and courts back towards limited government and the natural rights tradition.

Administrative agencies pass rules and regulations that carry the force of law. Does this mean that they exercise the legislative power that rightfully belongs to Congress? Professor Ilan Wurman explains that Congress is allowed to pass specific statutes that direct the agencies although Congress is not technically allowed to delegate legislative authority. Trying to distinguish between proper rulemaking power and legislative authority has proven to be difficult. Ilan Wurman is an associate professor at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, where he teaches administrative law and constitutional law. He is the author of A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism (Cambridge 2017). As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker.

Chris Spangle is the publisher and editor of We Are Libertarians, a news site and podcast that covers national and Indiana politics from the libertarian perspective. Spangle previously worked in marketing for the Englehart Group on behalf of the Advocates for Self-Government. He also served as the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of Indiana and producer of the Abdul in the Morning Show. He now works as the web director of a nationally syndicated morning show.

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