A key congressional officer, the Comptroller General monitors government spending, rules on its legality, and polices impoundments, among other things. President Trump, however, clashed repeatedly with the last Comptroller General, and the position has been vacant since December, filled on an acting basis by a senior staff member. Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s “appropriations presidentialism”—its push […]
President Trump announced recently, in a post on Truth Social, that the United States is taking an ownership stake in an entity that will lease and develop Venezuelan oil fields. Is this arrangement lawful? As best I can tell, the answer is no. To my knowledge, the administration has not produced any legal justification for […]
What defines the Trump presidency’s approach to administration? The main themes are no doubt the turbocharged unitary executive branch, concentration of policy control in the presidency, evasion of procedural constraints on regulatory change, and clawing away of congressional spending control. I think there is another, subtler theme as well, though. In a new essay on Attempted […]
The AALS Administrative Law Section is seeking paper nominations for the annual emerging scholar award. Here’s the announcement: The AALS Administrative Law Section invites nominations for the 2027 Emerging Scholar Award. The award will be based on scholarship published between September 1, 2025, and August 31, 2026. Full-time faculty members without tenure at the time […]
This term in Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook, the Supreme Court overturned tenure protections for most agency heads while recognizing an exception for the Federal Reserve System’s board of governors. Are these decisions correct, do they matter, and what do they imply for federal officials other than agency heads? In this post, I’ll […]