Comment by rayiner
2 days ago
The Constitution doesn't say that Congress can have its employees (which is what the Copyright Office is) make legally binding rules. Congress can make laws, but only through a specific process involving votes in the House and Senate and the signature of the President.
As much as I'm inclined to disagree with your views on principle, that is actually a cogent and relevant point.
Your initial comment would have been far stronger if it had dropped the irrelevant ad hom I called out previously, and had clearly stated your concern with Congress both legislating and regulating copyright, through the Library of Congress.
This also makes the question of how the Library of Congress came to be empowered with executing and* regulating copyright of interest. You've failed to explore this history. I'm somewhat familiar with both copyright law and the history of the Library, though not as a lawyer, and not specifically on the history of copyright and the Library both being effectively an executive function of the Legislative.
That also makes me wonder what other cross-branch functional contradictions exist. One that comes to mind immediately are ALJs (administrative law judges), which operate under the Executive rather than Judiciary, with one notable area being immigration law. The Senate and House each have Seargents of Arms, a nominally executive law-enforcement role under the legislative.
And of course there's the question of the present Administration's view that not only is it a unitary executive, but apparently a unitary Legislative and Judiciary as well.
In this instance, this work is explicitly assigned to Congress directly in the Constitution. It does not arbitrarily limit the methods with which Congress carries out this work. There is no reason Congress cannot hire people to carry out this work and empower those employees to do so, which is something Congress commonly does in dozens of other instances, and has from the beginning.
There is also no requirement that the executive branch involve itself in that process. This is just another expansion of executive power; the latest in a decades-old tradition of Congress abdicating its responsibilities.