In connection with one of its projects, the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) published a Federal Register Notice seeking comments on processing public comments in agency rulemaking. Professor Steve Balla (GW) is the consultant for this project, which is a superb fit given his expertise in the political science of rulemaking and mass […]
The D.C. Circuit didn’t issue any opinions last week, which is not uncommon in the fall. The Court did issue one order of public interest, denying the government a stay pending appeal in Phang v. Blanche, litigation about the government’s (non)compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The lawsuit was brought by a journalist who […]
Earlier this month over at Jotwell (The Journal of Things We Like Lots), I reviewed a terrific new article by Eric Fish, entitled Deportation in the Deep State (Stanford Law Review forthcoming). Here’s a snippet from the review: At the end of the Term in Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court overruled Humphrey’s Executor—the bedrock […]
Here is the list of works included in the October 2026 Comparative Administrative Law Scholarship Corner, which is curated by Eduardo Jordão (Professor of Law at Insper, São Paulo), with the assistance of Eduarda Onzi. The Scholarship Corner is a resource provided through the Comparative Administrative Law listserv. For more information about this terrific resource, check out my […]
Roughly 271 million people use Anthropic’s Claude each month. Observers expect that number to increase for the foreseeable future. Every one of those conversations is shaped, at least in part, by an 80-page document Anthropic calls Claude’s Constitution. It ranks the model’s priorities, sets a handful of absolute limits, and tells the model how much […]
In 2017, Congress used the Congressional Review Act to disapprove a sprawling Federal Communications Commission rule on broadband privacy. Seven years later, when the FCC updated its rules requiring telecom carriers to notify customers of data breaches, industry groups objected. Because one portion of the rule had similarly addressed data breaches, they argued, the 2017 […]
Introduced in September by Senators Capito, Lee, Whitehouse, and Heinrich, the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 (BAAJA) has been the subject of much scholarly analysis and critique. Previous analyses primarily focus on the ways in which BAAJA would amend the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act and undermine […]
The D. C. Circuit published two opinions last week in cases that were argued last term. Mennonite Church USA v. DHS, No. 25-5209, which was heard in February of this year, involved a challenge to the Trump Administration’s policy of pursuing immigration-enforcement operations at houses of worship. Prior to 2025, the federal government largely maintained […]
Last week, when issuing a stay of the Trump Administration’s construction of a border wall in Texas, a federal judge held that a “violation” of the major questions doctrine is a constitutional violation. We’ve seen the major questions doctrine get used in unusual ways over the past few years. This may be the strangest one […]
Recently, it was reported that the Department of Justice is investigating whether the major television networks violated federal antitrust laws when they suspended pooled coverage of President Trump after CNN was barred from participating. The theory appears to be that the networks acted as a cartel by engaging in a concerted refusal to deal or […]
With Chevron gone, there’s a deepening fracture in the standards of judicial review over executive branch actions. On one hand, courts police major agency policies with aggressive skepticism through the major questions doctrine (MQD). On the other hand, when executive actions evade the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and face non-statutory ultra vires review, some jurists […]
There was not much administrative law news in the published opinions of the D.C. Circuit during the first week of October. One published opinion dealt with res judicata and diversity jurisdiction. The other was Basin Electric Power Cooperative v. FERC. Writing for the unanimous panel, Judge Childs held that the Commission had properly interpreted a contract. The parties […]
My apologies for the hiatus; the Ad Law Reading Room has been busy wrestling with the bear that is teaching Federal Courts. Without further delay, today’s entry is “Murray’s Lessee, Non-Article III Adjudication, and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850,” by Ryan C. Williams, which is forthcoming in the Notre Dame Law Review. Here is […]
The ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice has selected Nicholas R. Parrillo, the William K. Townsend Professor of Law and Professor of History at Yale Law School, as the winner of its 2026 Annual Scholarship Award. The award recognizes the best work published in administrative law during 2025. It goes to his article, […]
The Supreme Court’s oral argument in Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County exposed a question that has received comparatively little attention in the broader debate over climate litigation: How should courts understand the role of corporate deception in these cases? “Climate deception” describes several different forms of litigation. Some lawsuits assert public nuisance, trespass, […]