The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic

by Mark R. Levin

More to the justification of the proposed amendment, the vastness of the federal bureaucracy—that is, an administrative state or what has become a fourth branch of government—destroys the very idea of a representative legislature and does severe damage to the separation-of-powers doctrine. Departments and agencies created by Congress are attached to the executive branch and exercise lawmaking power that is both delegated and not delegated by Congress. And their myriad regulations and rules have the force of law, including criminal and civil penalties. Under present conditions, the administrative state’s omnipresence makes congressional oversight, political accountability, and rational reform mostly impracticable if not impossible. And Congress seems more than willing to abandon its core function to the executive branch and accept the status quo, having taken rare and minor steps to rein in the bureaucracy.