Title: From Administrative State to Constitutional Government | The Heritage Foundation
Headings: From Administrative State to Constitutional Government
Report Political Process
From Administrative State to Constitutional Government
Joseph Postell
The Constitution vs. the Administrative State
Bureaucrats Gone Wild
Structure of This Report
Part 1: What Is the Administrative State?
What the Administrative State Is Not
Creation and Growth of the Administrative State
The“Professional” Bureaucracy
Part 2: The Problem of the Administrative State
1. The Combination of Powers:“The Very Definition of Tyranny”
2. Delegation Run Riot
3. The Abandonment of Republicanism
4. The Administrative Process
Part 3: The Alternative—Constitutional Government
Regulation During the Founding
Do Regulations Violate Individual Rights?
The Alternative to the Administrative State
Part 4: What Can Be Done?
Conclusion
Suggestions for Further Reading
Authors
Joseph Postell
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Content: It is high time that Americans work together to forge an alternative to the administrative state so that we preserve our constitutional principles for future generations. Over the past 100 years, our government has been transformed from a limited, constitutional, federal republic to a centralized administrative state that for the most part exists outside the structure of the Constitution and wields nearly unlimited power. This administrative state has been constructed as a result of a massive expansion of the national government’s power. When the Founders created our Constitution, they entrusted only limited powers to the national government and specifically enumerated those powers in the Constitution itself. A government that only had to carry out a limited number of functions could do so through the institutions and procedures established by the Constitution. But as the national government expanded and began to focus more and more on every aspect of citizens’ lives, the need for a new kind of government—one focused on regulating the numerous activities of citizens rather than on protecting their individual rights—became apparent. In the United States, this new form of government is the administrative state. In Democracy in America , Alexis de Tocqueville warned that under such a government, citizens would become“nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.” [ 1]
As the modern administrative state has grown and metastasized over the past decades, it has taken many forms, to the point of becoming the primary method of politics and policymaking. The myriad agencies and departments that make up this administrative state operate as a“fourth branch” of government that typically combines the powers of the other three and makes policy with little regard for the rights and views of citizens.