3156

VETOES

the legislative veto arguably is merely a device for
enabling the Legislature to more directly oversee the
execution of its policy, by its offspring exercising its
delegated authority. 37 In this light, a rather strong case
can be made for the preposition that, rather than violating
Article 8, the legislative veto

"... device serves that aspect of the separation
of powers principle which seeks to prevent the
total vesting of the power of one branch in
another and that aspect of the principle which
enjoins the branches to act as checks and
balances which lies at the heart of the
separation of powers principle."

Cooper 6 Cooper, supra at 515. See also, Stewart, supra, at
619, viz,:

"'New institutions of government have developed
as new times produced new problems,' Professor
Archibald Cox has written, 'subject only to the
fundamental necessity of maintaining the
essential balance of the three departments and
preventing ore from taking over functions falling
exclusively in the core of power belonging to
another.' The legislative veto power is a mode
of congressional action that permits Congress to
rectify an imbalance that has arisen between the
branches due to Congress' delegation of
legislative authority to other government organs.
If limited in scope to those activities of
executive and administrative agencies that
involved legislative interests, the legislative
veto does not impinge upon the prerogatives of
Congress' co-ordinate branches."

Indeed, it has been asserted, with merit in our view,
that "one of the unique advantages of the veto, when
properly used and structured, is that in areas where ...
extensive powers must be delegated to the executive on the
basis of vague and incomplete standards, it offers a
mechanism for combining executive initiation and leadership
with ... [legislative] deliberation and control to the
mutual advantage of both." Cooper & Cooper, supra, at 513.

For these reasons, we are of the opinion that, at the
very least, House Bill 619 does not, in contravention of
Article 8 of the Declaration of Rights, clearly inject the
Legislative Branch into a realm which the Constitution has
reserved to the Executive Branch.

D. Separation of Powers: Judicial and Legislative.
Although the Court was not presented with this issue in
Atkins, some have suggested that to disapprove a proposed
administrative rule on the grounds that it is contrary to