-
Washington’s Ten Thousand Commandments
June 5, 2012 | 12 comments
-
The Chips Are Down at Intel
December 9, 2009 | 20 comments
-
Yes, Virginia Foxx
November 5, 2009 | 39 comments
-
Price Fixing
October 7, 2009 | 17 comments
-
Less Is More
March 19, 2008 | 0 comments
The Public Policy
The Anti-Democracy Index
Executive branch agencies make law via regulation with brazen disregard of the Constitution. Can Congress regain its proper role?
The United States Constitution gives “all legislative powers herein granted” to Congress. Neither the judicial nor the executive branch has the power to make laws, only interpret and execute them, respectively — at least in theory. In practice, things are quite different. Not only do executive branch agencies makes laws every day by issuing regulations that have the force of law, they do more lawmaking than Congress — a lot more.
In a typical year, Congress will pass between 100 and 200 laws, while regulatory agencies will pass more than 3,500 regulations. In 2011, Congress passed 81 laws while agencies published 3,573 final rules — a difference of a factor of 47. In no year since 2003 has the imbalance been less than a factor of 12. The polite term for this is regulation without representation, and it is clearly anti-democratic. The chart below is what we like to call America’s “Anti-Democracy Index”:
|
Year |
Bills |
Final Rules |
Multiple |
|
2003 |
198 |
4,148 |
21 |
|
2004 |
299 |
4,101 |
14 |
|
2005 |
161 |
3,943 |
24 |
|
2006 |
321 |
3,718 |
12 |
|
2007 |
188 |
3,595 |
19 |
|
2008 |
285 |
3,830 |
13 |
|
2009 |
125 |
3,503 |
28 |
|
2010 |
217 |
3,573 |
16 |
|
2011 |
81 |
3,573 |
47 |
Congress has its reasons for delegating away so much of its legislative responsibility, none of them good. One is to shift blame away from itself. If a regulation turns out to be more expensive or less effective than planned, or even just plain unpopular, politicians can point their fingers at, say, the Environmental Protection Agency, whose employees never need to face voters, even as Congress gives them wider latitude and more power.
There is a straightforward solution to this: require Congress to vote up-or-down on high-impact regulations. If members aren’t going to take the time to write legislation, at least make them take a public stance on it so voters can reward and punish them accordingly.
Rep. Todd Young (R-Ind.) has just introduced the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny REINS Act (H.R. 367), which would only require Congress to vote on rules expected to cost $100 million or more per year (perhaps recognizing that it might be a bit much to ask Congress for individual votes on 3,500-plus rules every year). It would still increase Congress’ workload — there are 224 such rules at various stages of the rulemaking process right now — but it would also increase congressional accountability. As tradeoffs go, this is a good deal.
The REINS Act passed the House with bipartisan support last session, when former Rep. Geoff Davis (R-Ky.) introduced the bill, but it languished in the Senate, where so much legislation goes to die (this is usually a good thing). REINS may well meet the same neglectful fate this time around, but the bill does have 121 cosponsors who will try to see that it doesn’t.
The order-of-magnitude difference between how many bills Congress passes and how many regulations agencies finalize isn’t just a major policy problem. It is anti-democratic. We are often right to be wary of the people getting what they want – most elections are proof – but voters still know a rat when they see one, and the REINS Act would improve voters’ visibility.
Congress should take back its lawmaking authority. At the very least, members should take public stances that voters can judge. The REINS Act is a pretty modest reform, as these things go. More than 90 percent of rules would still escape congressional review. But it is still an important step in reining in regulation without representation. At the very least, it would improve the Anti-Democracy Index in future years.
About the Author
Ryan Young is Fellow in Regulatory Studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (32) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Wayne Crews
More Articles by Ryan Young
More Articles From The Public Policy
http://spectator.org/archives/2013/02/08/the-anti-democracy-index
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
Current Issue
- Eugenic Abortion 2.0
- A President Loses His Power
- The Continuing Crisis
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
H/T to National Review Online
ADVERTISEMENT
Aristocat| 2.8.13 @ 7:18AM
If we had some courageous Republicans in the House, they could restore the Constitution, but we don't.
Alan| 2.8.13 @ 8:04AM
Exactly, when you get leadership which right now is nothing. When compassionate retreat is the battle cry, congress is nothing more than whores for the pimp in the WH.
Mike G| 2.8.13 @ 8:36AM
"Congress should take back its lawmaking authority."
This won't happen, and you gave the reason yourself. They don't want to be responsible for fallout from all the regulations, but want to point the finger at someone else.
TLP| 2.8.13 @ 3:36PM
You know you live in a Country run by idiots if... You can get arrested for expired tags on your car but not for being in the country illegally. You know you live in a Country run by idiots if You have to have your parents signature to go on a school field trip but not to get an abortion. You know you live in a Country run by idiots if An 80 year old woman can be stripped searched by the TSA but a Muslim woman in a burka is only subject to having her neck and head searched.
You know you live in a Country run by idiots if Your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more of our money. You know you live in a Country run by idiots if A seven year old boy can be thrown out of school for calling his teacher "cute" but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable. You know you live in a Country run by idiots if The Supreme Court of the United States can rule that lower courts cannot display the 10 Commandments in their courtroom, while sitting in front of a display of the 10 Commandments.
TLP| 2.8.13 @ 3:41PM
You know you live in a Country run by idiots if Children are forcibly removed from parents who appropriately discipline them while children of "underprivileged" drug addicts are left to rot in filth infested cesspools of a “home”. You know you live in a Country run by idiots if Hard work and success are rewarded with higher taxes and government intrusion, while some slothful, lazy behavior is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid, subsidized housing, and free cell phones. You know you live in a Country run by idiots if The government's plan for getting people back to work is to provide 99 weeks of unemployment checks (to not work). You know you live in a Country run by idiots if Being self-sufficient is considered a threat to the government. You know you live in a Country run by idiots if Politicians think that stripping away the amendments to the constitution is really protecting the rights of the people. You know you live in a Country run by idiots if The rights of the Government come before the rights of the individual. You know you live in a Country run by idiots if You pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big screen TV while your neighbor defaults on his mortgage (while buying iPhones, TV's and new cars) and the government forgives his debt and reduces his mortgage (with your tax dollars). You know you live in a Country run by idiots if Being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you "safe".
Job| 2.8.13 @ 6:42PM
masterpiece TLP.
Pecos Pete| 2.9.13 @ 6:57AM
Mr. Tim, Thank You! We could all add more insanity to your comment.
You know you live in a Country run by idiots when your government requires that you fuel your vehicles with food.
PS: This could be a new Contest.
Occam's Tool| 2.10.13 @ 3:04AM
Magnifique, my friend.
Tina B| 2.10.13 @ 2:42PM
Profound in it's simplicity.
Murl| 2.11.13 @ 12:31PM
WE have the government WE deserve.
John Navratil| 2.8.13 @ 8:52AM
This argument is easily made without the numbers. It's irritating to have someone argue some made up index when the numbers are completely uncorrelated. Look at how noisy the bills per year are and the comparative stability in the regulations. Correlation? You'd find a better match in ice cream sales and murder rates.
I could look at this table and say "Look, regulations were higher in the Bush Administration. Obama is the anti-regulator". This index is an artifact of the outlier of starkly reduced number of bills in 2011.
This is the worst example of innumeracy I've seen as TAS.
N8tivTxn| 2.8.13 @ 9:43AM
... a bit much to ask Congress for individual votes on 35oo-plus rules every year.
Gee, I don'know. How about we ask Congress to GTH out'ta our biz?
Too few of John Q understand the methods currently being used by Greenies, et al and their cohorts, who have moved from leadership roles in their own ranks, up to a better life in the bureaucracy of EPA and other government regulatory agencies.
The system is as polluted as any superfund site.
The procedure now is for the environmentalist organizations to issue a press release alerting EPA to some new "concern", followed up with a pathetically documented "study" or expert testimony, which EPA accepts for review, thereby giving them the opportunity to slap new regulations on an industry.
The next step: individual producers in that industry run afoul of the new reg, which everyone in the industry understands is ridiculous, but nevertheless find themselves knee deep in fines, are forced to lawyer up to the hilt, and fight for years, or until bankruptcy overtakes them.
The fox is in charge of the hen house. This is no way to run a country.
Dr Gary Baize writes and blogs about the unbelievable partnership that has evolved between governmental regulatory agencies and these so-called environmental organizations, who assault the agricultural industry, relentlessly.
Anthony| 2.8.13 @ 9:57AM
Congress can start regaining its control by issuing Articles of Impeachment against AWOL Obozo, who let 4 Americans die in Benghazi, while Obozo was missing the entire time the incident was going down.
And speaking of going down, since America is in steady decline, our worthless representatives in Washington can at least pretend to save the Republic by attempting to hold Obozo responsible for this horrible dereliction of duty.
Think that fat POS Michael Moore will make another 9/11 film about Obozo missing in action?
cicero| 2.8.13 @ 10:30AM
We are now, and have been for some time, governed by agency fiat. The aristocracy of the beaurocracy has destroyed whatever vestiges of popular democracy we once had. I warned about this back in 1972, when all of these agencies were being created by congress. They were so proud of their efforts to protect against every possible major or minor defect in human nature. Well folks, here we are. Completely immune from all harmful conditions. Isn't llife great?
markenoff| 2.8.13 @ 11:22AM
Government bureacrats are the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human beings I've ever known in my life.
spike59| 2.8.13 @ 4:01PM
i feel sorry for the sad, pathetic life you've led...or is your sarcasm font out of order?
markenoff| 2.9.13 @ 3:04PM
The Manchurian Candidate, Frank Sinatra version.
spike59| 2.11.13 @ 5:47AM
gotcha!
Petronius| 2.8.13 @ 11:50AM
Thus sayeth the EPA to the HVAC industry: " The Law doesn't matter. The Only thing that does IS what I decide to charge You with."
JD| 2.8.13 @ 12:18PM
This problem cannot be overstated. Regulators do run this country, and they do so with a frightening lack of oversight.
Moreover, when they massively screw up, as they did in creating the housing bubble, the Democrats who gave them their power all deny responsibility, demanding that we "show them the legislation" in which they did what we accuse them of doing, when of course it didn't happen in legislation.
JD| 2.8.13 @ 12:19PM
A good article today, and here's another:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/08/.....index.html
Shockingly, a CNN writer called out one of the greatest evils of the Democratic Party - the perverse incentives of the social welfare state. Granted, he did it in a way that suggested that the key was to expand social welfare so that higher earners also get it, but still...
JD| 2.8.13 @ 12:49PM
Here's a fun article written by a Leftist who claims to be debunking the conservative claim that hammers kill more people than assault rifles:
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/0.....r_control/
It's ludicrous. The author starts by admitting that hammers kill more people than assault rifles. So... they call us liars for saying this but admits that it's true right off the bat.
But he goes on to say that it's not a fair comparison because:
1. Hammers are tools that have other legitimate uses and guns don't.
2. If you combine all type of guns, you get more deaths than from all tool types combined.
3. The assault ban is about preventing large massacres, which uniquely involve assault rifles.
What foolish counter-points!
If the proposed ban is uniquely focused on assault rifles, then you can't use "all gun death" statistics to support it without at least attempting to argue that an assault rifle ban will prevent more deaths than just assault weapon deaths (actually, it's probably less, because some mass killers will still get assault rifles and others will find alternative weapons).
And people who die really don't care that much what type of weapon kills them or whether they die individually or in a group. It's the "dying" that matters. The Leftist does not get to argue that a particular method of dying is uniquely worth preventing (at great cost) while other methods of dying cannot be used as comparative references!
Who Knows?| 2.8.13 @ 1:04PM
Details, details.
You know how magicians use sleight of hand to fool you?
Well, I’m afraid the magicians in DC—and they are spreading their “wealth” to state capitols, with alacrity---continue to fool even the most alert people.
Who cares what analysis, deep or superficial, is brought to this branch of government or that one? While we are distracted by articles like this one, we are continuing to be screwed. It’s called opportunity cost.
Despite computers, one STILL can’t do two things at once.
Unless, and until, the people wake up, and are able to truly eliminate voter fraud, to 99.9%, say---well, the criminals will continue to thrust their own mouth pieces into all the controlling government offices.
Thomas Fleming, in the WSJ a couple of days ago, told how it works in New Jersey. John Fund, at NRO today, relays the story of a poll worker who voted twice, and is proud of it.
Me? I FINALLY get it. I guess I’m a slow learner.
I’ll wait for a secure voting system, with a one-to-one correspondence between each vote and a living, certified citizen, and until then---why bother voting? Waste of time.
Who Knows?| 2.8.13 @ 1:05PM
The thing to realize is that there is always a power elite, and right now, the “illegal immigrants”, known as the 2013 Democratic Party led by Obama-Reid-Pelosi, are the status quo, and so far have been able to secure their “Chicago-land-type” votes.
Just as the franchise known as McDonalds has their “cooking junk food” down to a science, the franchise known as the modern day Democratic Party has their “cooking the vote” cold cocked—locked solid. And, you can count on their “products”---election outcomes---being pretty uniform, from outlet = state to outlet = state.
Yum yum!
Just as cream rises to the top, when it comes to politics, is there any doubt that corrupt and amoral people rise to the top? Yes, America was blessed with a Constitution, and a system of government with competing branches.
However, it was always possible, given history, and the tendency of human nature, for the USA, even, to fall prey to the maxim: “One man, one vote, one time”---eventually.
Hey---even the GOP leaders, slow learners all, have realized Obama means to annihilate their party.
Will they EVER be sacred straight, though? Enough to realize that it’s a fool’s game to ONLY “negotiate” with the vote-terrorists? Their daily “show” should mimic Reagan, and his calling the USSR an evil empire.
Who Knows?| 2.8.13 @ 1:06PM
They should make voter fraud THE issue, and pound into the public’s awareness what a killer it is! Say it from the rooftops---voter fraud is un-American, and those who are against using drivers licenses to validate EACH vote, are un-American, in spades!
“Eventually” has arrived.
Joe D.| 2.8.13 @ 1:29PM
I agree. I would take it a couple of steps further. All new regs should have to be voted on before any new congressional or senate bills. Second, they should have to read all previous regs or reign in the agency to what was approved.
We are tired of out of control agrencies like EPA, Food and Drug, NEA and Dept. of Environment. Either they have to read all past regs they just did not care about or reign them in or better yet close the agency. Most of them are not needed, waistful and do a poor job compared to the private sector.
cicero| 2.8.13 @ 1:56PM
We may already have gone too far along the path. Once the majority finds out it has the ability to vote itself the treasury, there is no mechanism to stop them.
Perhaps a piece of legislation calling for sunset provisions of all existing and future rules, regs, and legislation - say 10 years or so. After that, they have to be repassed. It will at least give the citizens the ability of a second look. The will to look is something else.
As far as the regulatory state, that can only be cured by the dissolution of the regulatory agencies. Reagan tried with the Dept of Ed, with William Bennett at the helm. That was his stated mandate going in, and he couldn't do it. What chance does the country have? So sad.
Moe Blotz| 2.8.13 @ 6:06PM
In his diary, Ronald Reagan said that William Bennett was the only bloke he had seen who actually made him think that he should not seek dissolution of the Department of Education. That was more a pat on Mr.Bennett's back than a change in President Reagan's philosophy.
Michele San Pietro| 2.9.13 @ 12:57PM
I think the American people should fight a holy war against anti-democracy of every kind!
Bill8472| 2.9.13 @ 7:54PM
John Locke said, in his Second Treatise of Governement that, since republican government is based upon the peoples' ELECTED representatives making the laws that govern us, to the extent that our elected representatives delegate the law-making power to unelected people, that's the extent to which we the people are not by the very nature of our government required to obey those laws.
Bob K| 2.9.13 @ 9:01PM
Mr. Crews and Mr. Young,
You are off to a bad start here. Could you explain what your "Anti-Democracy List" has to do with democracy? You will have to define Democracy.
John Lukacs queried in his recent book "Democracy and Populism--Fear and Hatred" at page 5: "Is democracy the rule of the people, or, more precisely: rule by the people? No: because it is, really and actually, rule in the name of the people. That is not simpler but more complicated than anything before. Yes: in it's predominant sense democracy is the rule of the majority. (And how is this majority composed, formed, what does it consist of?) Here liberalism enters."...........
Why don't you buy the book and read the 1st chapter and continue your educations? Paperback-$19.99.
Yale University Press. Published in 2005 (Before anyone ever heard of Obama.)
Occam's Tool| 2.10.13 @ 3:08AM
It would be nice if Congress' ability to legislate on things other than Defense appropriations had as many limitations as my ability to prescribe involuntary medications to the violenly mentally ill.
The fact that the violently mentally ill have their right to be free of medications more strongly protected than our right to bear arms is disturbing.