Did Congress's delegation to Attorneys General the retroactive reach of SORNA to offenders convicted of sex crimes before its enactment violate U.S. Const. Art. 1, §1?

QUESTION PRESENTED Title 1 of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 created the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). It established a national sex offender registry requiring persons convicted of a sex offense to register and keep their registration current in each jurisdiction in which the offender resided, worked as an employee, and enrolled as a student. 34 U.S.C. § 20913(a). Congress did not decide whether, when, or how SORNA’s registration requirements and criminal penalties for noncompliance apply to persons convicted of a sex offense before SORNA’s enactment. Congress delegated to the Attorney General the power to decide whether and how SORNA should apply to pre-Act offenders. It articulated no discernible principle to guide the Attorney General’s choice of which, if any, pre-Act sex offenders should be subjected to the new restrictions on their liberty. Successive Attorneys General adopted different positions on the extent SORNA applied retroactively. An eight-member Court in 2019 let Congress’s delegation of this issue to executive branch stand despite claim it violated the mandate in U.S. Const. Art. I, §1 that only Congress may create federal laws restricting liberty. Justice Alito’s concurrence voiced willingness to revisit the issue if a majority of the Court became ready to “reconsider the approach.” That support appears to exist now to review this issue. Petitioner also seeks to challenge SORNA as exceeding Congress’s Commerce Clause power. This case presents these issues to the Court: 1. Did Congress’s delegation to Attorneys General the retroactive reach of SORNA to offenders convicted of sex crimes before its enactment violate U.S. Const. Art. 1, §1? 2. Did Congress exceed its authority under the Commerce Clause, U.S. Const. Art 1, §8 in enacting SORNA? ii