Access to government records is important for the general public in terms of governmental accountability and democratic governance, but may also be critical to assertion of a valid claim or defense in administrative proceedings or in assessing a potential legal challenge on behalf of an individual.[1] The Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, generally mandates […]
Today’s Ad Law Reading Room brings two entries. The first is “Presidential Brokering in the Regulatory State,” forthcoming in the George Washington Law Review, by Jennifer Nou. The second is “The Chadha Presidency,” by Josh Chafetz. Here is Nou’s abstract: Presidents seeking to make regulatory policy face formidable hurdles, most recently heightened litigation risk, reduced […]
Last week over at Jotwell, I reviewed Kevin Stack’s terrific new article The Internal Law of Democracy, which was recently published in the Vanderbilt Law Review. Here’s a snippet of that review: In Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. NRDC, 435 U.S. 519, 524 (1978), the Supreme Court famously announced that “[a]gencies are free to grant […]
The Senate just confirmed Elliot Gaiser as the new head of the Office of Legal Counsel, one of the most important positions within the U.S. Department of Justice with significant implications for administrative law. He was previously Solicitor General of Ohio. When I was Solicitor General of Texas,* I had the good fortune to work […]
From the Stanford Law Review editors: The Stanford Law Review is currently accepting articles for the summer submissions cycle. We expect the cycle to be open for a couple more weeks, but we review articles on a rolling basis, so we strongly encourage authors to submit articles as soon as possible. SLR is particularly enthusiastic about pieces touching on administrative law […]
This summer has been busy, so I’m just barely getting the June reading list posted before August begins. Here is the June 2025 Edition of the most-downloaded recent papers (those announced in the last 60 days) from SSRN’s U.S. Administrative Law eJournal, which is edited by Bill Funk. For more on why SSRN and this eJournal are such […]
In March 2025, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB)—the three-member commission that considers employment claims brought by federal employees—lost its quorum. Raymond Limon retired as his term expired even though the MSPB’s statute permitted him to remain for an additional year, and President Trump removed Cathy Harris from her position, violating statutory protections that limit […]
On July 18, a D.C. Circuit panel decided that an agency could invoke Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) Exemption 1 (the national security exemption), even though it had not met some of the procedural requirements related to classification set forth in Executive Order 13,526. Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability v. Department of Justice, slip […]
The Comparative Administrative Law Listserv, which was established by Susan Rose-Ackerman (Yale, USA) and expertly administered by Neysun Mahboubi (UPenn, USA), is currently being reinvigorated by a terrific group of new administrators. These include Mariolina Eliantonio (Maastricht, NL), Yseult Marique (Essex, UK & UCLouvain, BE), and Oren Tamir (Arizona, USA). One of their many exciting initiatives is the introduction of […]
The Trump Administration has shown great interest in using artificial intelligence tools in governance. It has reportedly used AI to, among other things, evaluate federal workers’ responses to the government-wide “Fork in the Road” email, “munch” agency contracts it viewed as nonessential, and assist General Services Administration staff—and it plans to “accelerate” AI usage across […]
[Part I is available here.] In the first part of this post, we explored the history of section 706, and why it probably does not support universal remedies. But even so, several Justices have hinted at their hesitation to read vacatur out of the APA. This will force the Court to contend with the second […]
[Part II is available here.] Universal relief is dead; long live universal relief! With the recent decision in Trump v. CASA, nationwide injunctions have been taken off the table as a way to control agency power. But as innocuous footnote 10 of the majority opinion notes, there remains another way for courts to grant universal, […]
Today’s Ad Law Reading Room entry is “The Gray Area: Finding Implicit Delegation to Agencies after Loper Bright,” by Matthew Stephenson. Here is the abstract: In Loper Bright v. Raimondo, the Supreme Court overruled Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council and repudiated Chevron’s the across-the-board presumption that statutory ambiguities should be treated as implied delegations […]
The D.C. Circuit has once again addressed the surprisingly vexing question of when a rule becomes a rule. National Council of Agricultural Employers v. Department of Labor involves two competing rules modifying the H-2A farmworker visa program. The Trump administration’s Department of Labor submitted a final rule to the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) on January […]
As Jack Goldsmith observed in February, one of the “innovations” of the second Trump presidency has been to “cut down or eliminate” the legal interpretive authority of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) and “center that authority firmly in the White House like never before.” OLC’s culture and tradition of independent thinking, once viewed as […]