Reorganization authority was delegated by Congress to the President (5 U.S.C. 901-912)from time to time under various forms between 1932 and 1984. The rationale for this delegation wasto be found in the view that the key to effective and efficient government lay in delegation byCongress to the President of broad authority to reorganize the departments, agencies, and programadministration, subject only to a "legislative veto." Reorganization was viewed in large measure asa technical, non-political exercise best left to the "experts" in the executive branch. From the early 1960s on, however, questions were raised in congressional deliberations asto the constitutional basis for such authority and processes, and the political wisdom of assigningbroad reorganization authority to the President. Successive reorganization acts, despite changes inprocedures and limitations on what could be included in reorganization plans, remained based onthe concept of permitting the President to submit proposals to Congress that would go into effectunless either house prevented activation by passing a motion of disapproval. This legislative vetoprocess was increasingly criticized as the years passed. Also, the reorganization process began to be questioned as to both its utility and its potentialfor increasing conflict and distrust between the branches. Congress, in successive reorganizationacts, gave the President authority to skirt the regular legislative process, yet when the Presidentinvoked the authority, his actions were criticized by some for violating constitutional procedures. The White House appeared to some observers to be forwarding reorganization plans simply to justifyits request for reorganization authority. Plans were submitted that arguably would not have beenaccepted as legislation using the regular legislative process, thus increasing tensions between thebranches. The process was rigid; that is, no amendments were permitted, even technicalamendments agreed to by all the parties. After each presidential "misuse," Congress responded byadding restrictions and exemptions, gradually circumscribing the power until the reorganization planprocess (as provided in the 1977 Reorganization Act, as amended) was a mere shadow of thebaseline 1949 Reorganization Act. With the 1983 Chadha decision ( Immigration and NaturalizationService v. Chadha ; 462 U.S. 919) striking down the legislative veto, the utility and desirability ofthe Reorganization Act, compared to following the regular legislative process, came in to question. Whereas "fast track" options within the larger legislative process retain their appeal under certaincircumstances (and reorganization of the executive branch may indeed be one of thosecircumstances), no President since 1984 has requested the renewal of the reorganization authority. While questions regarding how best to organize the executive branch were raised in theConstitutional Convention, the Constitution itself is nearly silent on organizational matters. (2) The document does reflect,however, the clear intention that Congress is to play a critical role in the organization, design andmanagement of the executive branch. It is Congress, not the President, that establishes departmentsand agencies, and to whatever degree it chooses, the internal organization of agencies. It isCongress, through law, that determines the mission of agencies, personnel systems, confirmation ofexecutive officials, and funding, and ultimately evaluates whether the agency shall continue inexistence. All of which is not to downplay the role of the President as chief manager, but rather toreaffirm the intention of the Framers with respect to the role of Congress as co-manager of theexecutive branch. The co-managership concept has been criticized by proponents of the theory of the dominantPresident that has enjoy ascendency (beginning with the Progressive Movement), throughout mostof the last century. While Secretary of Commerce, President Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) had beena proponent of the idea that Congress should delegate to the President authority to proposereorganizations of the executive branch subject to some form of congressional disapproval. (3) Near the end of his term,Hoover was successful in persuading Congress, when passing the Economy Acts of 1932 and 1933,to include a provision assigning the President reorganization authority. (4) Hoover, a Progressive in his politics, believed that "economy and efficiency" in the executivebranch were possible only if the President could act decisively according to "scientific managementprinciples." (5) From thispoint of view, Congress and the legislative process were viewed as too cumbersome and prone toparticularistic interest group pressures. Support for the reorganization plan concept and process thusrested from the beginning on a negative opinion of congressional processes and Congress' allegedinability to move wisely and expeditiously on issues of organizational management. This criticalview, held by many members of Congress themselves, (6) has been recurrent over the years and continues to this day to be amajor rationale offered for proposals to renew the President's reorganization authority. (7) Although President Franklin Roosevelt had some interest in executive reorganization duringthe New Deal years, he was more focused toward creating new agencies and programs than inconsolidation and retrenchment. The Reorganization Act was rarely used and allowed to lapse in1935. As America faced heightened international pressures, however, Roosevelt indicated renewedinterest in executive reorganization as a tool for increasing presidential authority and for preparingAmerica to meet its wartime responsibilities. (8) One product of this changed political climate was passage of theReorganization Act of 1939. (9) This Act provided that for two years the President could submitreorganization plans that would go into effect unless Congress disapproved by a concurrentresolution of disapproval. As far as Congress was concerned, the objective was for the President touse the authority "to reduce expenditures to the fullest extent consistent with the efficient operationof Government." President Roosevelt, never persuaded that the principal purpose of reorganizingwas saving of money, took the opportunity to successfully propose in Reorganization Plan No. 1 theestablishment of an Executive Office of the President. (10) During World War II, the President was given authority underTitle I of the War Powers Act to make temporary, emergency wartime reorganizations for theduration of the war plus six months. (11) In 1945, Congress again granted the President authority for two years to submitreorganization plans. (59 Stat. 613). This Act was similar in most respects to the 1939 Act in thatit provided for congressional rejection of a plan by a concurrent resolution, (12) and expressly prohibitedthe abolition or transfer of all functions of executive departments and certain designated agencies. Congress next renewed the President's reorganization authority by passing the ReorganizationAct of 1949 (63 Stat. 203), major provisions of which remained in force until 1977. Although theAct was patterned, in the main, after the Reorganization Acts of 1939 and 1945, there were severalimportant differences. (13) At the urging of the first Hoover Commission, whose report appeared in 1949, (14) Congress gave thePresident much greater latitude than he had enjoyed under the earlier Acts because it appeared toauthorize submission of plans to reorganize executive departments and virtually all agencies. Oncea reorganization plan was submitted, Congress could not amend the plan but had either to accept orreject it in toto . A reorganization plan "... is effective at the end of the first period of 60 calendardays of continuous session of Congress after the date on which the plan is transmitted to it unless,between the date of transmittal and the end of the 60 day period, either House passes a resolutionstating in substance that the House does not favor the reorganization plan." The 1949 Act, therefore,established a one-house veto procedure for reorganization plans. In the immediate wake of the Hoover Commission Report and the passage of theReorganization Act, a large number of reorganization proposals were effected by the regularlegislative process, administrative order, and lastly, by reorganization plans. With respect to thelatter, President Truman in 1949 initially submitted eight reorganization plans, of which six becameeffective, while in 1950, 20 of the 27 were allowed to go into effect. These plans included proposalsfor strengthening the Executive Office of the President, broadening the authorities of independentregulatory commission chairmen, and transferring the Public Roads Administration to theDepartment of Commerce. Legislative bills were also enacted, most notably the National SecurityAct Amendments. The ease with which most of the reorganization plans became effective reflectedtwo factors: the existence of a consensus that the President ought to be given deference andassistance by Congress in meeting his managerial responsibilities, and the fact that most of thereorganization plans were pretty straightforward proposals of an organizational character. This highrate of passage, however, was misleading in that it tended to obscure the emergence, even at thisearly date, of opposition to the reorganization process itself. In the 28 years between 1949 and 1977, the Reorganization Act of 1949 was renewed seventimes. As renewals were sought, debated, and granted, amendments were adopted altering theoriginal Act. The thrust of these amendments was toward limiting the President's discretion in whatcould be included in reorganization plans, and what procedures would have to be followed in theapproval process. The limitations included modifications to the effect that only one plan could besubmitted within a 30 day period, and could include only logically consistent subject matter. A plancould not create new legal authority. This latter point was important to Congress as it prevented thereorganization procedures from being used to circumvent congressional authority to legislate. In1964, Congress eliminated the President's authority to submit plans proposing the creation orabolition of new executive departments. (15) Each restrictive limitation could, arguably, be traced to whatthe majority in Congress believed at the time to be an abuse by the White House of the discretionpermitted in the procedures. A good deal of distrust attributable to the reorganization processappeared to emerge between the branches. (16) With considerable regularity throughout this period, many in Congress challenged theReorganization Act on constitutional grounds. The chairman of the House Government OperationsCommittee, Representative Jack Brooks, was both persistent and consistent over the years in voicingobjections to the procedures provided in the Reorganization Act.