Article One of the Constitution of the United States establishes the legislative branch of the federal government, the United States Congress. Under Article One, Congress is a bicameral legislature consisting of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Article One grants Congress enumerated powers and the ability to pass laws "necessary and proper" to carry out those powers. Article One also establishes the procedures for passing a bill and places limits on the powers of Congress and the states from abusing their powers.
Article One's Vesting Clause grants all federal legislative power to Congress and establishes that Congress consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate. In combination with the vesting clauses of Article Two and Article Three, the Vesting Clause of Article One establishes the separation of powers among the three branches of the federal government. Section 2 of Article One addresses the House of Representatives, establishing that members of the House are elected every two years, with congressional seats apportioned to the states on the basis of population. Section 2 includes rules for the House of Representatives, including a provision stating that individuals qualified to vote in elections for the largest chamber of their state's legislature have the right to vote in elections for the House of Representatives. Section 3 addresses the Senate, establishing that the Senate consists of two senators from each state, with each senator serving a six-year term. Section 3 originally required that the state representatives elect the members of the Senate, but the Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, provides for the direct election of senators. Section 3 lays out other rules for the Senate, including a provision that establishes the vice president of the United States as the president of the Senate.
Section 4 of Article One grants the states the power to regulate the congressional election process, but establishes that Congress can alter those regulations or make its own regulations. Section 4 also requires Congress to assemble at least once per year. Section 5 lays out rules for both houses of Congress and grants the House of Representatives and the Senate the power to judge their own elections, determine the qualifications of their own members, and punish or expel their own members. Section 6 establishes the compensation, privileges, and restrictions of those holding congressional office. Section 7 lays out the procedures for passing a bill, requiring both houses of Congress to pass a bill for it to become law, subject to the veto power of the president of the United States. Under Section 7, the president can veto a bill, but Congress can override the president's veto with a two-thirds vote of both chambers.
Section 8 lays out the powers of Congress. It includes several enumerated powers, including the power to lay and collect "taxes, duties, imposts, and excises" (provided duties, imposts, and excises are uniform throughout the United States), "to provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States", the power to regulate interstate and international commerce, the power to set naturalization laws, the power to coin and regulate money, the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States, the power to establish post offices and post roads, the power to establish federal courts inferior to the Supreme Court, the power to raise and support an army and a navy, the power to call forth the militia "to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions" and to provide for the militia's "organizing, arming, disciplining ... and governing" and granting Congress the power to declare war. Section 8 also provides Congress with the power to establish a federal district to serve as the national capital and gives Congress the exclusive power to administer that district. In addition to its enumerated powers, Section 8 grants Congress the power to make laws necessary and proper to carry out its enumerated powers and other powers vested in it. Section 9 places limits on the power of Congress, banning bills of attainder and other practices. Section 10 places limits on the states, prohibiting them from entering into alliances with foreign powers, impairing contracts, taxing imports or exports above the minimum level necessary for inspection, keeping armies, or engaging in war without the consent of Congress.
Section 1: Legislative power vested in Congress
Section 1 is a vesting clause that bestows federal legislative power to Congress. Similar clauses are found in Article II, which confers executive power upon the president, and Article III, which grants judicial power to the federal judiciary. These three articles create a separation of powers among the three branches of the federal government. This separation of powers, interpreted by the federal courts as permitting each branch to exercise its own constitutional powers and no others,Atkins v. United States, 556 F.2d 1028, 1062 (Ct. Cl. 1977) ("The purpose of the [Vesting Clause] is to locate the central source of legislative authority in Congress, rather than the Executive or the Judiciary."), abrogated on other grounds by INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983).J. W. Hampton, Jr., & Co. v. United States, 276 U.S. 394, 406 (1928) ("Our Federal Constitution ... divide[s] the governmental power into three branches. The first is the legislative, the second is the executive, and the third is judicial, and the rule is that in the actual administration of the government Congress ... should exercise the legislative power, the President ... the executive power, and the courts or the judiciary the judicial power.") is fundamental to the idea of a limited government accountable to the people.
The separation of powers principle is particularly significant for Congress. The Constitution declares that Congress may exercise only those legislative powers "herein granted" within Article I (as later limited by the Tenth Amendment).United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 592 (1995) ("[Certain] comments of Hamilton and others about federal power reflected the well-known truth that the new Government would have only the limited and enumerated powers found in the Constitution. ... Even before the passage of the Tenth Amendment, it was apparent that Congress would possess only those powers 'herein granted' by the rest of the Constitution."). It also, by implied extension, had been interpreted as prohibiting Congress from delegating its legislative authority to either of the other branches of government, a rule known as the nondelegation doctrine.Touby v. the United States, 500 U.S. 160, 165 (1991) ("From [the language of this section of the Constitution] the Court has derived the nondelegation doctrine: that Congress may not constitutionally delegate its legislative power to another branch of Government."). However, the Supreme Court has ruled that Congress does have the latitude to delegate regulatory powers to executive agencies as long as it provides an "intelligible principle" which governs the agency's exercise of the delegated regulatory authority.See J. W. Hampton, Jr., & Co., 276 U.S. at 409 ("If Congress shall lay down by legislative act an intelligible principle to which the person or body authorized to [administer a statutory scheme] is directed to conform, such legislative action is not a forbidden delegation of legislative power."). That the power assigned to each branch must remain with that branch, and may be expressed only by that branch, is central to the theory. The nondelegation doctrine is primarily used as a way of interpreting a congressional delegation of authority narrowly,See Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 373 n.7 (1989) (nondelegation doctrine takes the form of "giving narrow constructions to statutory delegations that might otherwise be thought to be unconstitutional"). in that the courts presume Congress intended only to delegate that which it certainly could have, unless it clearly demonstrates it intended to "test the waters" of what the courts would allow it to do.UAW v. Occupational Health & Safety Admin., 938 F.2d 1310, 1317 (D.C. Cir. 1991) ("In effect [the nondelegation doctrine as a principle of statutory interpretation is used by the courts to] require a clear statement by Congress that it intended to test the constitutional waters."); cf. Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Fla. Gulf Coast Bldg. & Constr. Trades Council, 485 U.S. 568, 575 (1988) ("[W]here an otherwise acceptable construction of a statute would raise serious constitutional problems, the Court will construe the statute to avoid such problems unless such construction is plainly contrary to the intent of Congress.... This approach not only reflects the prudential concern that constitutional issues not be needlessly confronted, but also recognizes that Congress, like this Court, is bound by and swears an oath to uphold the Constitution. The courts will therefore not lightly assume that Congress intended to infringe constitutionally protected liberties or usurp power constitutionally forbidden it." (citing NLRB v. Catholic Bishop, 440 U.S. 490, 499–501, 504 (1979), and Grenada County Supervisors v. Brogden, 112 U.S. 261 (1884))); United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 349 (1971) ("[U]nless Congress conveys its purpose clearly, it will not be deemed to have significantly changed the federal-state balance.").