Administrative state
April 18, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
The Senate today voted to kill a five-year-old Obama administration “guidance” on making auto loans to minority borrowers. The House almost certainly will follow suit. The guidance, issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, took aim at a common industry practice whereby auto dealers mark up interest rates offered by finance companies. The finance companies set an interest rate based on objective criteria such as borrowers’ credit history and the
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April 4, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Today’s Wall Street Journal publishes a letter to the editor by OMB Director and Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Mick Mulvaney. In the letter Mulvaney responds to the column by Senator Elizabeth Warren published in the Journal last week attacking his leadership of the CFPB. At NR, Ronald Rubin has another take on Warren’s column. Mulvaney’s letter seems to me a classic of the kind. I don’t think
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March 12, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
I’ve written a series of posts about how the Department of Labor under Alex Acosta has barely lifted a finger to overturn the radical policies and practices of the Obama DOL. Acosta has left former president Obama’s Administrative Review Board, the DOL’s appellate court, in place. He has refused to disturb the pro-illegal immigrant polices of Obama and former DOL Secretary Tom Perez. Acosta changed the Obama administration’s interpretation of
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February 28, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The new (Winter) issue of the Claremont Review of Books is published today. Thanks to our friends at the Claremont Institute, I have read the new issue in galley to select three days’ worth of pieces to be submitted for the consideration of Power Line readers. The new issue is full of great reviews and essays. As always, wanting to do right by the magazine and by our readers, I
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February 27, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
In December, the Senate was on the verge of confirming Chai Feldblum for another term as a commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Feldblum, a leading gay rights advocate, is the architect of the Obama administration’s aggressive LGBT policy. While strong conservative nominees, including ones for top positions at the Department of Justice, have been on hold for the better part of a year, Feldblum was all set to
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February 19, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
As described below, Department of Labor policy and practice supports illegal immigrants in at least three ways. This shouldn’t be surprising. Illegal immigrants had no better friend in the Obama administration, and few anywhere in American, than Tom Perez, Obama’s Secretary of Labor. Here is how Perez used the DOL to promote the interests of illegal immigrants. First, an Obama administration-era memorandum of understanding between the DOL, the EEOC, the
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February 14, 2018 — Scott Johnson
I wrote about the problem of the administrative state in “A new old regime,” my review of Philip Hamburger’s audaciously great book Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (Plot spoiler: the answer is yes.) Even with a lot of help from my friends at the Claremont Institute, it took me a long time to understand the problem. Professor Hamburger expedited the process. The problem is the unconstitutionality, unwisdom, unaccountability, and lawlessness inherent
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February 11, 2018 — John Hinderaker
This is simply fantastic news: The Trump administration has adopted new limits on the use of “guidance documents” that federal agencies have issued on almost every conceivable subject, an action that could have sweeping implications for the government’s ability to sue companies accused of violations. Guidance documents offer the government’s interpretation of laws, and often when individuals or companies face accusations of legal violations, what they have really violated are
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February 6, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
When President Trump nominated Alex Acosta to be Secretary of Labor, we warned that his priority would be staying on the good side of the left, not advancing the administration’s conservative policy goals. We based our warning on his track record as head of the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department, described here. Even so, I would not have predicted that Acosta, as Secretary of Labor, would allow Obama
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February 3, 2018 — Steven Hayward
I’m not sure whether I have yet written here about why I’m not wild about the newly popular term “deep state,” which has become shorthand for the longer term I and many others have been using for a long time—the “administrative state.” The two terms overlap, but are not essentially the same thing. The “administrative state” refers to the Progressive constitutionalism that consciously seeks to supplant democratic self-government with rule
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February 2, 2018 — Steven Hayward
The infamous Nunes memo has been released in the last hour. The House website is intermittently clogging up as you might imagine, but you can try to download it yourself here or here. On a quick first read, there is not much in it that we didn’t already know in general terms— the flyblown Steele dossier was the sole “evidence” the FBI used to obtain a FISA warrant to monitor
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February 1, 2018 — Steven Hayward
It is still far from clear as of this writing just what is going to come of the drama over the Nunes memo, the FBI inspector general’s report, and the opposition memo that probably ought to be known as the Attempted Schiff Shaft. But if this all reveals large corruption, incompetence, or political malfeasance on the part of some rogue FBI officials, you can expect the basic five bureaucratic excuses
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January 31, 2018 — Steven Hayward
It may be hard for readers to believe this—and I do advise sitting down—but Gov. Jerry Brown is—relatively speaking, mind you—about the only adult in the room in Sacramento among Democrats. If you doubt me, just wait till we have a governor named “Gavin” next year (which California richly deserves), and you’ll see what I mean. Governor Moonbeam has actually vetoed a lot of bad bills that any other liberal
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January 30, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Here’s a puzzler for you: the number of civilian federal employees is actually smaller than it was when John F. Kennedy was president. This anomaly is explained by one of the smarter liberals around, John DiIulio, in his provocative book Bring Back the Bureaucrats. I say let’s not do that, but DiIulio does reveal that since government is vastly bigger than it was when Kennedy was president, there must be
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January 23, 2018 — Steven Hayward
In the mission of offering continuing political education here at Power Line University, herewith another timeless scene from Yes, Prime Minister on how the bureaucrats regard the idea of school choice, with a side of Obamacare thrown in for good measure. Betsy DeVos might want to screen this scene:
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January 23, 2018 — Steven Hayward
For at least 25 years now, conservatives have been asking why taxpayers should subsidize marginal art like “Piss Christ” through the National Endowment for the Arts and such. Periodic calls to abolish the NEA always seem to get turned back somehow in the DC swamp. But the Trump Administration just might be the people to blow off the special pleading of the “arts community” and zero out the NEA. But
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January 20, 2018 — Scott Johnson
OMB Director Mick Mulvaney is one of the all-stars among President Trump’s cabinet level appointees. President Trump had the inspired idea to appoint him acting director of the constitutional monstrosity known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau when Richard Cordray departed to run for elective office. Before his departure, however, in the lawless spirit of the bureau itself, Cordray sought to name his own successor. We admired his performance facing
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