Hello, and welcome back to the Civic Flame. As alwys, I am Professor Vayo and am here to give you some context to the US Constitution. Today, weÕll discuss Article 1, Section 1. ItÕs important to know that all of Article 1 deals with the US Congress. It is the Legislative branch and gets to go first because it was meant to be the most important branch. A bulk of the domestic powers are outlined here to the legislative branch which includes the Senate and the House of Representatives. Some people refer to them both as Cogress, and some people refer the the House as Congress and the Sente as the Senate. But theyÕre both covered here in Article 1. Today, weÕll be looking at two key elements. Section 1 which establishes the legislature and the so-called non-delegation doctrine. WeÕll get into the House of Representatives next week. Article 1 is the longest article, so this one will take a few weeks. Get your thinking cap on and letÕs do this! (transition music) Article I, Section 1 says: ÒAll legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.Ó Quick and easy, right? Nope. This sentence has been fought over significantly in the last 100 years. So, what does Article 1, Section 1 do? It vests or gives responsibility for all federal legislative powers to a representative bicameral Congress. Congress is the lawmaking institution that forms (or is intended to form) the foundation of the federal governmentÕs domestic policy making powers. The ways these powers can be exercised will be in Section 8, which weÕll get to later. Article I, Section I establishes a fundamental feature of the Congress that is different from our first Constitution, the Article of Confederation: Bicameralism or two houses. This actually comes as a reaction to the failure of the Articles of Confederation, which only had 1 branch of legislature. Because words matter, these words have been more pulled apart than a stuffed bear near my parents black lab, which resulted in the other major question about Article 1, Section 1: the idea of Ònon-delegation.Ó The phrase Òall legislative powersÉshall be vested in a Congress,Ó means these powers are for Congress and has been taken to mean that Congress canÕt give them away, nor can other branches take them. Understand that there are times Congress may want to hand over itÕs power (and there is ample evidence that since the 1940s, Congress has done a lot of that). This can be for partisan reasons (they share the same party as the president, and itÕs easier to get one president to do something that 535 members of Congress), lack of responsibility (they know something is good, but donÕt want to take responsibility if it fails), or longevity (if you can get power into the Executive Branch offices like the Dept of Interior or EPA, etc, they have more staying power than a simple policy). This can result in delegating some of CongressÕ powers. A key example of this is when the president talks about sending ÒtheirÓ budget to Congress. Presidents do this all the time, btu the reality is that Congress has the power of the purse. ItÕs always CongressÕ budget. But because the president has the mic and can talk to all Americans, itÕs easier if youÕre on the same side to get the president to talk about his budget or if youÕre on opposite sides to complain about the presidentÕs budget. Either way, the president gets the spotlight and gets the credit for the budget when it should be Congress. This gets us into public perception. Most people think the presidency is more powerful in part because Congress continues to give more power to the president. Two important cases here are J.W. Hampton v. United States, 276 U.S. 394 (1928), where the Supreme Court said yes, Congress can delegate some tasks to executive agencies, but there are a lot of contingencies here and they have to be specific. So, this could mean that Congress has power over interstate commerce, but the Commerce Department could set and deal with specific rules about interstat road travel. This often happens if Congress knows there will be evolving policies or experts who needt o weigh in, so until recently Executive agencies like the epa would have jurisdiction over certain policies because the policies were meant to move with the science and thatÕs where the scientists worked. Congress gave specific powers with specific rules. The bigger case is known as the Òsick chicken case.Ó A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935), the Supreme Court held that "Congress is not permitted to abdicate or to transfer to others the essential legislative functions with which it is thus vested." This case had to do with food safety, and basically meant that while regulating the food industry was important, Congress canÕt just hand over its power to do so to the president. Congress has the power, Congress is meant to use it. This is an interestin case because there is a compelling interest in food safety and there are executive agencies that deal with it, like the FDA, but that Congress has to take the lead in making the rules and how they are applied. These cases are from the same time period because Executive (that is presidential) power has been on the rise in the US since 1911. But the 30s and 40s was where it really kicked off in the modern era and where you get a space where itÕs on the rise but still seen as unusual. Remember that in the 30s and 40s, the New Deal was a reaction to the Great Depression. But it required much more federal reach than had been prominent in the US and much more presidential power. Part of Franklin RooseveltÕs (FDR) plan to get the US back on economic track was by wielding the power of the federal government to stop organizations that were taking advantage of Americans, to put Americans to work, and to create a social safety net (this is where the social security act was first fored and you get widows and orphans benefits, social security, unemployment insurance, etc). FDR today would have been considered a social democrat, basically think the Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders platform. And he was so popular that he was elected four times (which is how we got the 22nd Amendment that says we can only have 2 terms for the president). For the first part of his term, he had to fight the Supreme Court which said, that he was taking on too much power both in terms of the scope of his economic plans (e.g., public works projects, the Social Security Act, various bank reforms, etc) and because Congress should be doing the work. Once FDR was able to get a majority of judges on the Court, his legislation basically sailed through Congress without a ton of fuss. But there were those times when the Courts tried to stem the flow of congressional power to the presidency. Ultimately, the presidency is more powerful today than it has ever been and, consequently, more out of line with the Constitution than it has ever. Been. We can blame presidents all we want for this, but itÕs a perfectly normal reaction when you have to power to want to maximize the power. I actually blame Congress for not standing up for themselves, the voters for not kicking out Congress, and the establishment of the DNC and RNC. Lot of our political party problem comes from money and organization, and th DNC and RNC are organitions with a lot of money and power that help drive our partisan political problems. But partisan politics will be a story for another time. (transition) Until next time, keep reading your Constitution, and if you have any questions, hit me up on social media with any questions. WeÕre at @ designated optimist on Instagram and Amber Vayo on LinkedIn. IÕm too old for Tik Tok and too annoyed for Facebook. IÕll keep thinking about developing the YouTube page and maybe getting an email address. Keep the civic flame burring brights, and take care!