Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf
Page Number: 42.0

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

5 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

the  framers  deliberately  sought  to  make  lawmaking  diffi-
cult by insisting that two houses of Congress must agree to
any new law and the President must concur or a legislative 
supermajority must override his veto.

The difficulty of the design sought to serve other ends too.
By effectively requiring a broad consensus to pass legisla-
tion, the Constitution sought to ensure that any new laws
would enjoy wide social acceptance, profit from input by an
array  of  different  perspectives  during  their  consideration, 
and thanks to all this prove stable over time.  See id., No. 
10, at 82–84 (J. Madison).  The need for compromise inher-
ent in this design also sought to protect minorities by en-
suring that their votes would often decide the fate of pro-
posed  legislation—allowing  them  to  wield  real  power 
alongside the majority.  See id., No. 51, at 322–324 (J. Mad-
ison).  The difficulty of legislating at the federal level aimed 
as  well  to  preserve  room  for  lawmaking  “by  governments
more local and more accountable than a distant federal” au-
thority,  National  Federation  of  Independent  Business  v. 
Sebelius, 567 U. S. 519, 536 (2012) (plurality opinion), and
in  this  way  allow  States  to  serve  as  “laborator[ies]”  for
“novel social and economic experiments,” New State Ice Co. 
v. Liebmann, 285 U. S. 262, 311 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dis-
senting); see J. Sutton, 51 Imperfect Solutions: States and 
the Making of American Constitutional Law 11 (2018).

Permitting Congress to divest its legislative power to the 
Executive  Branch  would  “dash  [this]  whole  scheme.”    De-
partment of Transportation v. Association of American Rail-
roads, 575 U. S. 43, 61 (2015) (ALITO, J., concurring).  Leg-
islation would risk becoming nothing more than the will of 
the  current  President,  or,  worse  yet,  the  will  of  unelected
officials  barely  responsive  to  him.  See  S. Breyer,  Making 
Our  Democracy  Work:  A  Judge’s  View  110  (2010)  (“[T]he 
president  may  not  have  the  time  or  willingness  to  review
[agency]  decisions”).    In  a  world  like  that,  agencies  could 
churn  out  new  laws  more  or  less  at  whim.  Intrusions  on