OCTOBER TERM, 1975
Per Curiam
424 U. S.
273 U. S. 135 (1927); Eastland v. United States Servicemen's Fund, 421 U. S. 491 (1975). As this Court stated
in McGrain, supra, at 175:
"A legislative body cannot legislate wisely or effectively in the absence of information respecting the
conditions which the legislation is intended to affect
or change; and where the legislative body does not
itself possess the requisite information-which not
infrequently is true-recourse must be had to others
who do possess it. Experience has taught that mere
requests for such information often are unavailing,
and also that information which is volunteered is
not always accurate or complete; so some means of
compulsion are essential to obtain what is needed.
All this was true before and when the Constitution
was framed and adopted. In that period the power
of inquiry-with enforcing process-was regarded
and employed as a necessary and appropriate attribute of the power to legislate-indeed, was treated
as inhering in it."
But when we go beyond this type of authority to the
more substantial powers exercised by the Commission,
we reach a different result. The Commission's enforcement power, exemplified by its discretionary power to
seek judicial relief, is authority that cannot possibly be
regarded as merely in aid of the legislative function of
Congress. A lawsuit is the ultimate remedy for a
breach of the law, and it is to the President, and not to
the Congress, that the Constitution entrusts the responsibility to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Art. II, § 3.
Congress may undoubtedly under the Necessary and
Proper Clause create "offices" in the generic sense and
provide such method of appointment to those "offices"
as it chooses. But Congress' power under that Clause
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