Bypassing Congress

Bypassing Congress is the substantive exercise of legislative power by executive action — most often, the imposition of policy that would clearly require statute, dressed up as regulation, emergency, or executive interpretation. Concrete forms include the announcement of large-scale spending without appropriations, the substantive rewriting of statutory programs through guidance documents, and emergency declarations invoked to access funds or powers that Congress withheld. Routine rulemaking under statutory authority is legitimate; bypassing is what happens when the executive takes a step the law plainly leaves to Congress.