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PEREZ v. MORTGAGE BANKERS ASSN. 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

to delegate the power.  As we have explained in an analo-
gous context, “[t]he structure of the Constitution does not 
permit  Congress  to  execute  the  laws;  it  follows  that  Con-
gress  cannot  grant  to  an  officer  under  its  control  what  it 
does  not  possess.”  Bowsher  v.  Synar,  478  U. S.  714,  726 
(1986).  Similarly,  the  Constitution  does  not  empower 
Congress to issue a judicially binding interpretation of the 
Constitution or its laws.  Lacking the power itself, it can-
not delegate that power to an agency.

To  hold  otherwise  would  be  to  vitiate  the  separation  of
powers and ignore the “sense of a sharp necessity to sepa-
rate  the  legislative  from  the  judicial  power  . . .  [that]
triumphed among the Framers of the new Federal Consti-
tution.”  Plaut  v.  Spendthrift  Farm,  Inc.,  514  U. S.  211, 
221  (1995).  As  this  Court  has  explained,  the  “essential 
balance”  of  the  Constitution  is  that  the  Legislature  is 
“possessed  of  power  to  ‘prescrib[e]  the  rules  by  which  the
duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated,’ but
the  power  of  ‘[t]he  interpretation  of  the  laws’  [is]  ‘the 
proper  and  peculiar  province  of  the  courts.’ ”    Id.,  at  222 
(citation  omitted;  third  brackets  added).    Although  the 
Constitution  imposes  a  duty  on  all  three  branches  to 
interpret the laws within their own spheres, the power to 
create legally binding interpretations rests with the Judi-
ciary.  See Marbury, 1 Cranch, at 177, 179–180. 

D 
A  final  proposed  justification  for  Seminole  Rock  defer-
ence is that too much oversight of administrative matters
would  imperil  the  “independence  and  esteem”  of  judges. 
See, e.g., Charles Evans Hughes, Speech before the Elmira
Chamber  of  Commerce,  May  3,  1907,  in  Addresses  of 
Charles  Evans  Hughes,  1906–1916,  p.  185  (2d  ed.  1916).
The  argument  goes  that  questions  of  administration  are 
those which “lie close to the public impatience,” id., at 186, 
and  thus  the  courts’  resolution  of  such  questions  could