Building a Legislative-Centered Public Administration: Congress and the Administrative State, 1946–1999. By David H. Rosenbloom. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2000. 199p. $34.95 cloth.

Abstract

In 1946, Congress passed the Administrative Procedure and Legislative Reorganization Act. In this legislation, Congress purposefully provided for itself a prominent role in the administration of the federal government. David Rosenbloom writes that the “… purpose of this book is to explain how and why Congress adopted that role, its underlying coherence, [and] its durability … for seemingly ever-increasing congressional involvement in federal administration …” (p. ix). The author maintains that Congress was uneasy about this endeavor but was forced by the “federal administrative state” to reposition itself. Some even believed that Congress' place in the constitutional scheme-of-things had been altered. For example, it was asserted that Congress was abandoning constitutional principle if it allowed unelected governmental administrators to make rules (i.e., administrative law). The 1946 legislation has resulted in a merger between Congress and the federal bureaucracy. The author contends that federal agencies became “extensions” of Congress' authority to make law. In addition, this legislation resulted in the view that the administration of the bureaucracy was no longer to be seen as the private preserve of the executive branch of government. The concept of “legislative-centered public administration” is used to describe the results of this legislation.