The 112th Congress should

• require all "lawmaking" regulations to be affirmatively approved by Congress and signed into law by the president, as the Constitution requires for all laws; and
• establish a mechanism to force the legislative consideration of existing regulations during the reauthorization process.

One of the central ideas of the American system of government is completely ignored by most politicians today. This idea is central; this idea is ignored.

The idea is this: government only has the powers which are given to it by The People. The People give powers to the government in the Constitution. If The People haven't given any powers to the government in the Constitution, then the government doesn't have those powers. Government only has those powers which have been delegated to it by The People through the Constitution.

Once Congress has been delegated a power by The People, Congress cannot delegate that power to another branch of government.

Congress has not only assumed powers which were not delegated to it in the Constitution, it has delegated those unconstitutional powers to bureaucracies, and this delegation of powers undermines the Constitutional structure of our government.

In fact, America's Founding Fathers would passionately agree with this claim: We no longer live under the Constitution, with its three branches of government. Political scientists would agree: We live under an "Administrative State." 

• Delegation and the Constitution
• The Delegation of Legislative Powers - 111th Congress
• The Delegation of Legislative Powers - 108th Congress
• Powers Congress Cannot Delegate
• The Role Of Congress In Monitoring Administrative Rulemaking,
  Testimony Before The Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, Committee on the Judiciary, on September 12, 1996
• Federalism
• Nondelegation and the Administrative State
• The Fiction and Tyranny of "Administrative Law"
• Constitution Day Walter E. Williams