In June of 2019, the Supreme Court decided Gundy v. United States and upheld as constitutional Congress’s delegation of legislative authority to the United States Attorney General to determine how to apply the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act’s registration requirements to offenders convicted before the statute was enacted. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Gorsuch suggested the Court replace its current “intelligible principle” test for nondelegation issues. Instead, he argued, the Court should only uphold delegations in three instances: when an agency is merely authorized to “fill up the details,” when the application of a statutory rule depends on executive fact-finding, or when the matter is already within the executive’s constitutional purview.

Three months later, in October of 2019, President Donald J. Trump imposed sanctions on individuals associated with the Government of Turkey and its operations in Syria following his declaration of a national emergency to address the national-security threat of Turkey’s military offensive into northeast Syria. These sanctions prohibited United States financial institutions from lending money, transferring credit, and transacting with these individuals; blocked their property in the United States; and prohibited United States persons from investing in and importing goods and services from the sanctioned individuals.

Continue reading Whose Constitutional Authority Is It Anyway? Nondelegation, the National Emergencies Act, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act