Hostname: page-component-857557d7f7-wf4rb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-12-09T08:10:42.868Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How many major US laws delegate to federal agencies? (almost) all of them

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2021

Pamela J. Clouser McCann Open the ORCID record for Pamela J. Clouser McCann [Opens in a new window]  and
Charles R. Shipan Open the ORCID record for Charles R. Shipan [Opens in a new window]
Pamela J. Clouser McCann*
Affiliation:
Sol Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA
Charles R. Shipan
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: pmccann@usc.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Delegation is a well-known feature of policymaking in separation of powers systems. Yet despite the importance of this activity, there is little systematic evidence about how many major laws in the United States actually delegate policymaking authority to administrators in federal agencies. Using a database of agency regulatory activity along with text searches, we examine significant US federal enactments from 1947 to 2016 to see which of these laws delegate to agencies. We find that nearly all major laws—more than 99 percent—contain delegation. We also find that the number of agencies receiving delegation in each law has increased over time.

Keywords

Legislative politicspresidency and executive politicsbureaucracydelegation

Information

Type
Research Note
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , April 2022 , pp. 438 - 444
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Clouser McCann, PJ (2016) The Federal Design Dilemma. New York: Cambridge.10.1017/CBO9781316275085CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, D and O'Halloran, S (1999a) The non-delegation doctrine and separate powers: a political science approach. The Cardozo Law Review 20, 947–987.Google Scholar
Epstein, D and O'Halloran, S (1999b) Delegating Powers. NY: Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farhang, S and Yaver, M (2016) Divided government and the fragmentation of American Law. American Journal of Political Science 60, 401–417.10.1111/ajps.12188CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorina, MP (1986) Legislator uncertainty, legislative control, and the delegation of legislative power. Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization 2, 33–52.Google Scholar
Huber, JD and Shipan, CR (2009) Politics, delegation, and bureaucracy. In Goodin, RE (ed). The Oxford Handbook of Political Science. NY: Oxford, pp. 849–865.Google Scholar
Lemos, MH (2010) The consequences of congress's choice of delegate: judicial and agency interpretations of title VII. Vanderbilt Law Review 63, 363.Google Scholar
Mayhew, DA (2005) Divided We Govern, 2nd Edn. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Mendelson, N (2010) Disclosing “political” oversight of agency decision making. Michigan Law Review 108, 1127–1178.Google Scholar
Stephenson, MC (2005) Legislative allocation of delegated power: uncertainty, risk, and the choice between agencies and courts. Harvard Law Review 119, 1035–1070.Google Scholar
Stiglitz, EH (2018) The limits of judicial control and the nondelegation doctrine. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 34, 27–53.10.1093/jleo/ewy002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiseman, AE (2009) Delegation and positive-sum bureaucracies. The Journal of Politics 71, 998–1014.10.1017/S0022381609090847CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Clouser McCann and Shipan supplementary material

Clouser McCann and Shipan supplementary material

Download Clouser McCann and Shipan supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 257.1 KB
Supplementary material: Link

Clouser McCann and Shipan Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/ZCLCPQ
Link