Cite as: 535 U. S. 743 (2002)
Breyer, J., dissenting
broadly, the majority ignores a historical lesson, reflected in a constitutional understanding that the Court adopted long ago: An overly restrictive judicial interpretation of the Constitution's structural constraints (unlike its protections of certain basic liberties) will undermine the Constitution's own efforts to achieve its far more basic structural aim, the creation of a representative form of government capable of translating the people's will into effective public action.
This understanding, underlying constitutional interpretation since the New Deal, reflects the Constitution's demands for structural flexibility sufficient to adapt substantive laws and institutions to rapidly changing social, economic, and technological conditions. It reflects the comparative inability of the Judiciary to understand either those conditions or the need for new laws and new administrative forms they may create. It reflects the Framers' own aspiration to write a document that would "constitute" a democratic, liberty-protecting form of government that would endure through centuries of change. This understanding led the New Deal Court to reject overly restrictive formalistic interpretations of the Constitution's structural provisions, thereby permitting Congress to enact social and economic legislation that circumstances had led the public to demand. And it led that Court to find in the Constitution authorization for new forms of administration, including independent administrative agencies, with the legal authority flexibly to implement, i. e., to "execute," through adjudication, through rulemaking, and in other ways, the legislation that Congress subsequently enacted. See, e. g., Yakus v. United States, 321 U. S. 414 (1944); Crowell v. Benson, supra, at 45-47.
Where I believe the Court has departed from this basic understanding I have consistently dissented. See, e. g., Kimel v. Florida Bd. of Regents, 528 U. S., at 92 (Stevens, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part); Alden v. Maine, 527 U. S., at 760 (Souter, J., dissenting); College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd.,
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