The Constitution assigns the legislative power with specificity: Article I, Section 1 provides that “[a]ll legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” This legislative vesting clause is not merely an allocation of institutional competence; it identifies the making of generally applicable rules of private conduct as a power that the elected legislature must exercise if the system of representative accountability is to function and the rule of law is to be maintained.
Congress, the most representative branch of government, is supposed to be the principal institution through which the sovereign people’s consent is translated into laws that secure their rights and provide for their safety and happiness. Laws are then executed and adjudged by separate branches of government, the executive and judicial branches, respectively. In Federalist 47, James Madison called the concentration of legislative, executive, and judicial power “in the same hands” the very definition of tyranny. The auxiliary precautions of bicameralism, presentment, and staggered elections were designed to reinforce, not replace, the primary dependence on the people. That dependence is meaningful only if Congress itself resolves the principal questions of policy.
