Executive Responsibility to Congress via Concurrent Resolution

A clause reserving to Congress the right to terminate by concurrent resolution (which has not for over a century and a quarter been submitted for presidential approval) powers delegated to the President or a department head appears in so many acts of the Seventy-seventh Congress that further consideration of its political and constitutional aspects seems appropriate. If its constitutionality is established, this clause enables a majority of both houses, when dissatisfied with executive conduct of any of these delegated powers, to terminate them. Leaders of the present administration, in Congress and in the executive branch, are aware of this possibility. Supporting the measure to extend the draft period, its author, Senator Elbert Thomas, said: “Broad authority is conferred by the measure, but that authority is expressly subject to revocation at any time by concurrent resolution of the Congress.”