Origin Traces to John Locke's 1690 formulation that the legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands; the modern US intelligible-principle standard dates to J.W. Hampton, Jr. and Co. v. United States (1928).
The nondelegation doctrine is the constitutional principle that a legislature may not delegate its own legislative powers to another branch of government, an administrative agency, or a private entity. In United States constitutional law it derives from Article One, Section One, which vests all legislative powers in Congress; the Supreme Court has nonetheless allowed broad delegations to executive agencies so long as Congress lays down an intelligible principle to guide and constrain the delegated authority, a standard from J.W. Hampton, Jr. and Co. v. United States (1928) that has led the Court to strike down a federal statute on nondelegation grounds only twice, both in 1935. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Origin PeriodTraces to John Locke's 1690 formulation that the legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands; the modern US intelligible-principle standard dates to J.W. Hampton, Jr. and Co. v. United States (1928). 1 Core PrincipleCongress must lay down by legislative act an intelligible principle to which the agency exercising delegated authority is directed to conform, so the agency's discretion is genuinely bounded by a legislative standard rather than open-ended. 1 Origin Period
Origin Period (category)Early Modern (1500-1800) 1 Classification
Doctrine Category Connections
Associated With
The Administrative Procedure Act structures how agencies exercise delegated rulemaking power, which is the terrain the nondelegation doctrine polices.
In Area Of Law
Entity-backed identity for the doctrine category value this doctrine already carries as an enum fact, resolved to a doctrine entity by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The enum fact itself stays on the entity unchanged.
In Legal System
Source Nondelegation Doctrine (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Nondelegation Doctrine (Wikipedia)
WikipediaConstitutional basis and Historical origin sections
The Legislative cannot transfer the Power of Making Laws to any other hands.
- one branch of government must not authorize another entity to exercise the power or function which it is constitutionally authorized to exercise itself
- In Legal System: Law of the United States
View the Source Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.