Is the Supreme Court about to curtail the administrative state (and perhaps circumscribe judicial activism) by holding that Art. 1, Sec. 1 of the Constitution actually means what it says?
(c) 2006 Bonnie Jacobs
For the past near century — since FDR’s infamous court packing scheme — the administrative state (or bureaucratic state, call it what you will) has ever increasingly come to rule this country, working extra-Constitutional and fundamental changes to the fabric of society by promulgating regulations with the force of law that could never pass through Congress. (For but three of countless possible examples, the HHS Obamacare birth-control mandate that was a direct attack on religion in America, the EPA’s regulation of carbon dioxide as a pollutant despite rejection by Congress, and the regulation of the internet under the rubric of net neutrality.) It is the single greatest threat to America as a constitutional republic.
In a decision issued 20 June 2019, Gundy v. U.S., Justices Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito explicitly stated that they are prepared to enforce the plain words of the Constitution and limit as unconstitutional Congress’s delegation of legislative authority to administrative bodies as currently practiced. Justice Kavanaugh, who did not take part in the Gundy decision but whose criticism of the administrative state is well documented, could well be the fifth vote. Such a decision would fundamentally remake this nation and take us back to our constitutional roots. It would be, in essence, a bloodless revolution.
