Notice & Comment

Notice & Comment

Notice & Comment

Abusing Discretion in Sentencing after Beckles

Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided Beckles v. United States. The case involved a challenge to the federal sentencing guidelines. Section 4B1.1 of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines prescribes a sentencing enhancement for certain criminal defendants if the offense of conviction is a “crime of violence.”  At the time of Beckles’s conviction, the guideline defined “crime of […]

Notice & Comment

Economic Substance De-Codification and the Supreme Court

As one of the revenue raisers to offset the costs associated with the Affordable Care Act, Congress added Section 7701(o) to the tax code. That provision, which has nothing to do with health care, codifies the “economic substance doctrine” created by the federal district courts and appellate courts. Generally speaking, under the doctrine, the lower […]

Notice & Comment

Exciting New Comparative Administrative Law Blog

If the first blog post by Susan Rose-Ackerman is any indication, the new Admin Law Blog (on comparative administrative law) should be really terrific. From the welcome post: Welcome to the Admin Law Blog! This is a forum for the discussion of ideas and developments of interest to scholars of administrative law across the common law world. It […]

Notice & Comment

Symposium Issue: A Future Without the Administrative State? (AdLaw Bridge Series)

Last March the Missouri Law Review hosted a terrific symposium, organized by Professor Erin Morrow Hawley, entitled A Future Without the Administrative State? (video here). The published issue from the symposium was just posted to the Law Review‘s website. I tweeted out thread of summaries/links to each piece here. Professor Hawley’s introduction is definitely a […]

Notice & Comment

Taming the Shallow State, by Jennifer Nou

The gloves have now come off in the battle between President Trump and an increasingly alarmed federal bureaucracy. EPA employees are in the streets. The National Park Service is sending out insubordinate tweets. Intelligence agencies are not just leaking, they’re gushing. Bureaucratic resistance is, of course, not new. But what does seem unprecedented is the […]

Notice & Comment

The leaked Republican replacement.

The text of a draft bill to repeal and replace Obamacare leaked on Friday. Because the draft hews to principles that Republicans have outlined before, its basic contours aren’t that surprising. As I explained to Greg Sargent at the Washington Post: The emerging GOP replacement would repeal tax hikes on the very rich and, instead, […]

Notice & Comment

Nominate Your Favorite AdLaw Article/Book, Student Note & Agency Official for Annual ABA AdLaw Section Awards

Here’s the nomination information for each of these three awesome administrative law awards from the ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice. From the call for nominations: Nominations for 2017 are open! Visit the Awards page on our website to learn more about requirements and submitting nominations.   Award for Scholarship in Administrative Law […]

Notice & Comment

The Constitutionality of the Trump Organization’s Illegal (?) Chinese Trademark

Over the past week, several sources reported that the Trump Organization finally won its long-running battle to obtain a Chinese trademark. See, e.g., CNN (Feb. 17, 2017). A “squatter” had previously registered the trademark, which related to the use of the Trump name in construction-related businesses. But after years of litigation and administrative petitions, the […]

Notice & Comment

Due Process Sleight of Hand, by Jill E. Family

[2/21 3:10PM Update: The final signed versions of the Kelly guidance memos are available here. The final version of the relevant memo includes the same rationale about immigration court backlogs discussed in this post.] Are these the actual guidance memos? Two guidance memos signed by Secretary of Homeland Security Kelly recently surfaced that appear to […]