Search Results for: administrative law
May 15, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Obama presents himself as detached from the events giving rise to the controversies that now beset his administration. He’s just the president. Obama has found this a useful pose in the face of the exposure of the IRS as the handmaiden of his efforts to help friends and harm enemies. He has touted the IRS as an independent agency. How can he be responsible for the shenanigans of agents that
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July 3, 2023 — John Hinderaker
As I have written more than once, the government we live under is not the one described in the Constitution. The ubiquitous and powerful arm of our government, found nowhere in the Constitution, is the Fourth Branch, the plethora of federal agencies, the administrative state. The administrative state has assumed much of the power that the Constitution assigns to the legislative and executive branches, a development that has progressed now
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March 2, 2023 — Steven Hayward
It is often said that America has too many lawyers, but if true wouldn’t this really indicate that we have too many laws? I think it was either Cicero or Marx (Groucho) who said “The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the republic.” Thus it is striking to see in the chart below, from the American Bar Association, that the growth of lawyers in the U.S. accelerates starting around
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January 27, 2023 — Steven Hayward
We have noted here several times the way in which executive agencies in the administrative state obliterate the separation of powers by the convenience of having their own “administrative law judges” to adjudicate disputes over an agency rule or action. Turns out Tocqueville was also on to this problem in 1840, where he saw the trends in Europe and cautioned that they might follow eventually in the United States: The
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June 16, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, EEOC chair Charlotte Burrows posted a guidance document purporting to apply the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County. That decision redefined Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination because of sex to include sexual orientation and transgender status in certain contexts. Burrows issued this guidance document unilaterally. She had to, because left-liberals are a minority among EEOC commissioners. Keith Sonderling, one of the non-lefty commissioners, points out that the
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March 11, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Georgetown Law School has fired a professor for noticing and commenting on the fact that Blacks make up a disproportionate number of low-performing students in her class. Another professor has been placed on administrative leave. Adjunct professor Sandra Sellers was caught on video telling adjunct prof David Batson: I hate to say this. I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are Blacks.
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February 15, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
I haven’t written much about the Department of Labor since Alex Acosta resigned as Secretary of Labor. However, in this post, written after Gene Scalia became the new Secretary, I complained that the DOL was still pursuing its specious “pay discrimination” case against Oracle. The culprit is the Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). During the Obama administration, OFCCP became a bastion of leftism. It pursued radical theories
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October 25, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Almost since the start of Power Line in 2002, we have reported with dismay the descent of American colleges and universities into a leftist bastion of illiberalism. Most of our focus has been on professors, and not without reason. They are the ones who have degraded the teaching of humanities through their obsession with identify politics and disdain for Western Civilization. However, I came away from this year’s ATHENA Roundtable
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December 28, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Four NGOs, including Oxfam and Greenpeace, have initiated legal proceedings against the French government, claiming that France has defaulted on its environmental obligations by eliminating, under intense pressure from “Yellow Vests,” the stiff carbon tax it had imposed. The initial filing gives the government two months to formulate a response, after which the organizations can choose to move forward with their lawsuit in administrative court. To an American lawyer, the
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December 25, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that might well have major implications for administrative law. The case is Kisor v. Wilkie, in which a Marine seeks retroactive benefits for his PTSD. Why is this case so important? Because, as David French explains, it turns on the deference, if any, the VA’s interpretation of the word “relevant” in the applicable federal regulations should receive. French explains
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November 19, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Last week, I had the honor of attending the swearing-in of Jeff Clark as Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) of the Justice Department. Jeff was sworn in by Judge Danny Boggs for whom he clerked. Matthew Whitaker and Ron Rosenstein both spoke, as did Jeff Wood who was in charge of the ENRD for 21 months while Jeff waited for the Senate to confirm
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July 21, 2018 — Steven Hayward
It’s not just here in California and New York that climate change lawsuits are being dismissed. Over in Britain a similar lawsuit has just been dismissed: Environmental campaigners lose High Court battle over carbon target Environmental campaigners have lost their High Court challenge against the Government over its policy for tackling climate change. Charity Plan B Earth brought legal action against the Government’s stance on the 2050 carbon target, set under
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March 6, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, Judge Roger Titus ruled that President Trump’s phaseout of the Obama-era DACA program is legal. Judge Titus is a senior federal district court judge for the district of Maryland. He’s one of the best district court judges I ever practiced before. However, it would take only a moderately able, fair-minded judge to rule as Judge Titus did in this case. Judge Titus’ opinion is here. It takes a few
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March 5, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Today was supposed to be the day that President Obama’s illegal DACA order expired. However, a lawless leftist judge contrived to find that President Trump’s revocation of Obama’s illegal order somehow was, itself, illegal. Thus, DACA remains in effect for now, protecting more than 600,000 illegal immigrants from deportation. A much larger group, the so-called Dreamers who differ from the DACA population because they didn’t come forward pursuant to the
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November 27, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Today may go down in history as one of the crucial turning points in the reversal of the Administrative State. The Supreme Court is hearing Oil States Energy v. Greene’s Energy, where the issue of whether administrative law judges beholden to executive agencies, rather than bona fide Article III judges and juries at trial, can decide whether or not patent property rights deserve protection. The Wall Street Journal editorial page has a
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November 21, 2017 — Scott Johnson
As it wound up its 2017 National Lawyers Convention this past Saturday, the Federalist Society convened an all-star panel to discuss administrative agencies and the separation of powers. Newly minted Eleventh Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom served as the panel’s moderator. The panel of law professors included Boston University’s Gary Lawson, the author of a classic article on administrative law, and Columbia University’s Philip Hamburger, author of (in my estimation) the
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November 20, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The Federalist Society held its 2017 National Lawyers Convention this past Thursday through Saturday. The topic of this year’s convention was Administrative Agencies and the Regulatory State. Most of the proceedings were streamed online and uploaded to YouTube. Senator Cotton gave the opening remarks. Attorney General Sessions formally addressed the convention. The heart of the convention consisted of panel discussions offering an intellectual feast on the threat of the administrative
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