Presidential reorganization authority

It permits the president to divide, consolidate, abolish, or create agencies of the U.S. federal government by presidential directive, subject to limited legislative oversight.

Presidential reorganization authority is designed to allow periodic refinement of the organizational efficiency of the government through significant and sweeping modifications to its architecture that might otherwise be too substantial to realistically implement through a parliamentary process.

[3] Presidential reorganization authority is designed to allow periodic refinement of the organizational efficiency of the government through significant and sweeping modifications to its architecture that might otherwise be too substantial to realistically implement through a parliamentary process.

United States Attorney-General William D. Mitchell early expressed concern that the Economy Act of 1932, the first instance of presidential reorganization authority, was unconstitutional on the basis of it allowing the exercise of the so-called "legislative veto" by only one chamber of Congress.

The act provided that either the Senate or the House of Representatives could annul an executive order issued by the president under the reorganization authority.

However, in the 1983 case of Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha the U.S. Supreme Court essentially affirmed Mitchell's earlier opinion that a one-house legislative veto was unconstitutional.

[3] The creation of presidential reorganization authority was foreshadowed with the passage of the Overman Act in 1918, which allowed the president to consolidate government agencies, though abolishing any specific department was prohibited.

[13] Also in 2002, the National Commission on the Public Service proposed extending presidential reorganization authority to substantially restructure the executive branch which, it contended, had become incoherent in the level of overlapping jurisdiction and different management structures.