The Bureaucracy violates the "separation of powers" of the three branches of government

Thank you, Con I will start my rebuttal here: "the judicial branch interprets the laws(a power not expressly established until Marbury v. Madison)" I would also point out that they are charged with the ensuring of justice in the courts (which would include appeals), and judging infractions of laws (when the right to trial by jury is yielded). That will be relevant to my argument. Next "The Bureaucracy consists of the 15 executives departments the heads of which are known collectively as the President's cabinet." I will clarify that it also includes agencies and government corporations (as stated in the above arguments and the comments below). You say: "Legislation often does not provide all the steps necessary to carry out and enforce or implement laws passed by congress. The legislation only provides basic guidance. This is where rulemaking and regulation comes in" This is correct, but agencies tend to ignore the discretionary guidelines given (and sometimes not given) by Congress. In any case, we have non-elected officials making regulations, which is constitutional, but then in the cases of the IRS or the EEOP or other agencies, we have them making the equivalent of laws in their regulations. You say: "In order to carry out the functions of the bureaucracy and enforce law the rulemaking process creates not new law but rather how the law and its intent as passed by congress can be enforced and implemented. This is not a violation of the doctrine of separation of powers" They overstep their boundaries. But call that my opinion, and we can move along. You say: "Courts have never ruled executive rulemaking and regulation unconstitutional and most executive rules and regulations are upheld by courts when challenged" Okay, here is where we have a problem. The ALJ courts have no constitutional authority to issue judgement, they are not part of the Judicial Branch, therefore, they have no authority. Just because SCOTUS hasn't said no to them does not mean they are legal. You say: "We see that studies of judicial review typically find that 70% of agency rules are upheld with the Supreme Court upholding 91% of rules; a 2011 empirical study of judicial review found that 76% were upheld. (1)" But what about those 30%, if it interests anyone, it is common practice for ALJ's to be fired if they rule against their employer. Of course, that is a hard thing to prove, since immunity is 'guaranteed' by agencies, but history says otherwise. But again, hard to prove given the said guarantees, so we can ignore that statement. You say: "Thus, the notion of actions of the executive branch bureaucracy being unconstitutional is only a question of theory and not a practical legal question." Here is the main problem with Con's argument. I said in my first argument "Even if all this was done legally, it would still be a downright infringement of the separation of powers." We are talking about the separation of powers, not whether or not it is constitutional. I am convinced that the Bureaucracy is unconstitutional, but that is not what i established this debate over. This is over violation of the "separation of powers" of the three branches of government. If one branch is practicing all three powers, or even just two, regardless of whether or not it is legal, they are violating the separation of powers. You admitted the ALJs make rulings, thus you agree that the bureaucracy violates the separation of powers. That goes for this statement as well. "The truth is bureaucratic rulemaking and policy is essential to the executive branch carrying out its Constitutionally mandated duties. One can argue that there are too many laws, and too many rules and departments but that is a practical argument about the size and scope of government and is not at question here. Even with a smaller more efficient government the tool of executive department rulemaking would still exist and would still not violate the Constitution." The Bureaucracy violates the "separation of powers" of the three branches of government, regardless of whether or not they do it in implied legality, explicit legality, or completely illegally.