Does a nonconstitutional administrative agency, during quasijudicial administrative proceedings, lack authority to determine the constitutionality of a statute?

The majority does not identify any pre-1978 decision holding that a nonconstitutional administrative agency, during quasijudicial administrative proceedings, lacked authority to determine a statute's constitutionality. The majority asserts that this court so held in State of California v. Superior Court (Veta) (1974) 12 Cal.3d 237, 115 Cal.Rptr. 497, 524 P.2d 1281. (Maj. opn., ante, 17 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 250, 95 P.3d at p. 480.) But this court there decided only that the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies did not apply to a constitutional challenge to the statute from which the administrative agency derived its authority. (State of California v. Superior Court (Veta), supra, at p. 251, 115 Cal.Rptr. 497, 524 P.2d 1281.) In concluding that a litigant was not required during quasi-judicial administrative proceedings to make a constitutional challenge to the statute that created the agency, this court explained that "[i]t would be heroic indeed to compel a party to appear before an administrative body to challenge its very existence and to expect a dispassionate hearing before its preponderantly lay membership on the constitutionality of the statute establishing its status and functions." (Ibid.) This court did not state, or even imply, that an administrative agency lacked authority to resolve constitutional issues that a litigant might present.