What Federal Overreach Means
Federal overreach refers to actions by the federal government, through the executive branch, administrative agencies, or Congress, that exceed the authority granted by the Constitution or that violate the constitutional structure of federalism by encroaching on powers reserved to the states or the people.
The term is used by conservatives to describe a wide range of government actions: regulations issued by agencies without clear congressional authorization, executive orders that create new legal obligations without statutory support, federal spending conditions that effectively coerce state policy choices, and administrative rules that contradict the plain meaning of statutes.
The Constitutional Framework
Ilya Shapiro, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a leading constitutional scholar, appeared on Breaking Battlegrounds Episode 229 to explain the legal framework conservatives use to identify and challenge federal overreach. Shapiro’s framework rests on two constitutional principles: enumerated powers and the non-delegation doctrine.
Enumerated powers: the Constitution grants Congress specific, listed powers in Article I, Section 8. The Tenth Amendment reserves all other powers to the states or the people. Federal overreach, in the constitutional sense, occurs when the federal government acts outside its enumerated powers.
The non-delegation doctrine: Article I vests legislative power in Congress, not in executive agencies. When Congress passes a vague statute that gives an agency broad discretion to make policy, conservatives argue this constitutes an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the executive branch.
Recent Examples Conservatives Cite
The Biden administration’s student loan cancellation program, struck down by the Supreme Court in Biden v. Nebraska in 2023, is the most prominent recent example conservatives cite as federal overreach. The Court held that the HEROES Act did not clearly authorize the executive branch to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan obligations. The major questions doctrine, applied in that case, holds that agencies need clear congressional authorization for decisions of vast economic and political significance.
OSHA’s vaccine mandate for large employers, also struck down by the Supreme Court in January 2022, is a second major example. The Court held that OSHA’s organic statute did not authorize a blanket vaccine mandate for all large employers and that such a major question required clear congressional authorization.
Shapiro noted on Breaking Battlegrounds that the post-Chevron landscape creates a new framework for challenging administrative overreach: courts no longer defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, which means agencies cannot rely on creative statutory readings to justify expansive regulatory action.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is federal overreach?
Federal overreach refers to actions by the federal government that exceed the authority granted by the Constitution or by Congress, particularly actions by administrative agencies that make policy without clear statutory authorization.
What is the constitutional basis for challenging federal overreach?
The primary constitutional tools are the enumerated powers doctrine (Article I limits Congress to specific listed powers), the Tenth Amendment (reserving unenumerated powers to states), and the non-delegation doctrine (prohibiting Congress from giving agencies unlimited discretion to make major policy decisions).
What is the major questions doctrine?
The major questions doctrine, applied by the Supreme Court in several recent cases, holds that when an agency claims authority for a decision of vast economic and political significance, it must point to clear congressional authorization for that specific action.
