Also known as: legislative functions · legislative power · legislative role
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
The constitutional authority vested in the legislative branch to enact laws and establish policy that determines future rights and duties of persons outside the legislative branch.
After the President approved an executive order granting permits to Legacy Motors for a new plant, Congress passed a resolution in the House alone purporting to revoke the permit. Legacy Motors continued construction under the original order. The resolution failed to alter the company's legal rights because it bypassed bicameral approval and presentment.
Congress passed a statute chartering Lattice Systems to produce standardized components for military equipment and to set uniform safety rules for electronics sold nationwide. The company began operations under the charter. The statute implemented enumerated powers rather than creating freestanding legislative authority.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
The New York legislature enacted a statute limiting bakers to ten hours of work per day. A bakery owner challenged the law as exceeding the state's power to set economic policy. The statute represented an exercise of legislative authority to determine future rights and duties of employers and workers.
Congress enacted a statute requiring states to justify substantial burdens on religious exercise with a compelling interest. A city denied a church permit under its zoning ordinance. The statute attempted to redefine the legal relations between states and religious institutions through new legislative policy.
A state legislature passed a statute criminalizing the use of contraceptives by married couples. A physician and patients challenged the law. The statute constituted an exercise of legislative power to establish duties regarding personal conduct.
Congress enacted contribution limits and disclosure requirements for federal elections. A candidate and political committees challenged the restrictions. The statute exercised legislative authority to set future rights and duties of participants in the electoral process.
A legislative function involves determining policy and creating new rights or duties that bind persons outside the legislative branch. Executive functions involve carrying out existing law through enforcement or resource allocation decisions.
Congress may authorize agencies to fill in operational details when it supplies an intelligible principle guiding the agency's discretion. A statute that leaves fundamental policy choices such as exact limits and penalties entirely to the agency exceeds permissible delegation.
The Necessary and Proper Clause supplies auxiliary authority to implement enumerated powers through appropriate means such as chartering corporations. It does not create freestanding substantive legislative power to establish new rights or duties unrelated to those enumerated powers.
A one-house veto alters the legal rights or duties of persons outside Congress without bicameral passage and presentment to the President. Such action bypasses the constitutional requirements for exercising legislative power.
…U. S. 483, 491 (1955). The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment undoubtedly does place a limit, albeit a broad one, on legislative power to enact laws such as this. If the Texas statute were to prohibit an abortion even where the mother's life is in jeopardy, I have little doubt that such a statute would lack a rational…