Here is something I’ve been curious about. Congress has undisputed constitutional control of tariffs. A previous Congress enacted a law to delegate some of that authority to the President.
So now… how can the President (or anyone) just say, “fuck you, you can’t have your constitutional power back?” Why can’t Congress just fall back to their constitutional authority and render their predecessors’ delegation invalid?
Congress does not have the constitutional authority to declare a prior Congresses laws invalid. For a bunch of internal stuff like the fillubuster rules, or remote voting, the current Congress can do whatever it wants without presidential review. However once a law is passed through the constitutional process, the constitution does not have a separate process for repealing it. This means that Congress would need to go through the same constitutional process to repeal it, which includes the possibility of a presidential veto.
Having said that, the Supreme Court does have the constitutional authority to declare a law invalid[0], and the President has no veto authority over that. Further, the current Supreme Court has invented out of nothingness two bedrock pillars of constitutional analysis:
The Major Questions Doctrine, which states that questions of major political or economic significance may not be delegated by Congress to the executive branch.
The Non-Delegation Doctrine, which states that Congress may not delegate it’s lawmaking authority to other entities.
Since the Supreme Court is an unbiased arbiter of the law, I’m confident that they will apply these principles consistently and determine that Congress’s initial delegation if tarrif authority was unconditional. /s
[0] This is not actually explicit in the Constitution. But has been how it is interpreted since Marbury v Madison in 1803.
Here is something I’ve been curious about. Congress has undisputed constitutional control of tariffs. A previous Congress enacted a law to delegate some of that authority to the President.
So now… how can the President (or anyone) just say, “fuck you, you can’t have your constitutional power back?” Why can’t Congress just fall back to their constitutional authority and render their predecessors’ delegation invalid?
Congress does not have the constitutional authority to declare a prior Congresses laws invalid. For a bunch of internal stuff like the fillubuster rules, or remote voting, the current Congress can do whatever it wants without presidential review. However once a law is passed through the constitutional process, the constitution does not have a separate process for repealing it. This means that Congress would need to go through the same constitutional process to repeal it, which includes the possibility of a presidential veto.
Having said that, the Supreme Court does have the constitutional authority to declare a law invalid[0], and the President has no veto authority over that. Further, the current Supreme Court has invented out of nothingness two bedrock pillars of constitutional analysis:
The Major Questions Doctrine, which states that questions of major political or economic significance may not be delegated by Congress to the executive branch.
The Non-Delegation Doctrine, which states that Congress may not delegate it’s lawmaking authority to other entities.
Since the Supreme Court is an unbiased arbiter of the law, I’m confident that they will apply these principles consistently and determine that Congress’s initial delegation if tarrif authority was unconditional. /s
[0] This is not actually explicit in the Constitution. But has been how it is interpreted since Marbury v Madison in 1803.
President can veto any bill. It will go back to Congress and needs (I think) 2/3 to override the veto
Correct. Requires ⅔ support in both chambers after a veto.