Posner 2 – Professor of Law, Chicago (Eric and Adrian Vermeule, 69 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1721, AG)
This argument remains valid even if we accept the assumption that Congress really does not want much authority because then it has to make difficult decisions about to whom it should make transfers, when it would rather accumulate political goodwill by engaging in constituent service. 91 Thus, Congress delegates authority to agencies [*1747] without monitoring them, in effect holding a "regulatory lottery," in the words of Aranson and his coauthors. 92 The problem with this theory is that interest groups and constituents who pick the wrong ticket in the regulatory lottery will lobby Congress to reverse the agency's decisions, and indeed even to retract the delegation. Those who benefit from the agency decisions will lobby Congress to maintain the status quo. 93 Congress will have to answer the hard question of whether to interfere with its agency, and so it cannot divest itself of the responsibility for making difficult decisions. Indeed, both the winners and the losers will realize ex ante that the delegation might benefit or harm them, and so they will lobbyex ante about the delegation as vigorously as they would about any other kind of legislation.
