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Full-Text Articles in Law
Reviving Negotiated Rulemaking For An Accessible Internet, Julie Moroney
Reviving Negotiated Rulemaking For An Accessible Internet, Julie Moroney
Michigan Law Review
Web accessibility requires designing and developing websites so that people with disabilities can use them without barriers. While the internet has become central to daily life, websites have overwhelmingly remained inaccessible to the millions of users who have disabilities. Congress enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to combat discrimination against people with disabilities. Passed in 1990, it lacks any specific mention of the internet Courts are split as to whether the ADA applies to websites, and if so, what actions businesses must take to comply with the law. Further complicating matters, the Department of Justice (DOJ) initiated the rulemaking …
Reconstructing An Administrative Republic, Jeffrey A. Pojanowski
Reconstructing An Administrative Republic, Jeffrey A. Pojanowski
Michigan Law Review
Review of Jon D. Michaels, Constitutional Coup: Privatization's Threat to the American Republic.
Restoring Congress's Role In The Modern Administrative State, Christopher J. Walker
Restoring Congress's Role In The Modern Administrative State, Christopher J. Walker
Michigan Law Review
A review of Josh Chafetzm Congress's Constitution: Legislative Authority and Separation of Powers.
Chevron In The Circuit Courts, Kent Barnett, Christopher J. Walker
Chevron In The Circuit Courts, Kent Barnett, Christopher J. Walker
Michigan Law Review
This Article presents findings from the most comprehensive empirical study to date on how the federal courts of appeals have applied Chevrondeference— the doctrine under which courts defer to a federal agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute that it administers. Based on 1,558 agency interpretations the circuit courts reviewed from 2003 through 2013 (where they cited Chevron), we found that the circuit courts overall upheld 71% of interpretations and applied Chevrondeference 77% of the time. But there was nearly a twenty-five-percentage-point difference in agency-win rates when the circuit courts applied Chevrondeference than when they did …
Making Treaty Implementation More Like Statutory Implementation, Jean Galbraith
Making Treaty Implementation More Like Statutory Implementation, Jean Galbraith
Michigan Law Review
Both statutes and treaties are the “supreme law of the land,” and yet quite different practices have developed with respect to their implementation. For statutes, all three branches have embraced the development of administrative law, which allows the executive branch to translate broad statutory directives into enforceable obligations. But for treaties, there is a far more cumbersome process. Unless a treaty provision contains language that courts interpret to be directly enforceable, they will deem it to require implementing legislation from Congress. This Article explores and challenges the perplexing disparity between the administration of statutes and treaties. It shows that the …
Delegating Tax, James R. Hines Jr., Kyle D. Logue
Delegating Tax, James R. Hines Jr., Kyle D. Logue
Michigan Law Review
Congress delegates extensive and growing lawmaking authority to federal administrative agencies in areas other than taxation, but tightly limits the scope of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Treasury regulatory discretion in the tax area, specifically not permitting these agencies to select or adjust tax rates. This Article questions why tax policy does and should differ from other policy areas in this respect, noting some of the potential policy benefits of delegation. Greater delegation of tax lawmaking authority would allow administrative agencies to apply their expertise to fiscal policy and afford timely adjustment to changing economic circumstances. Furthermore, delegation of the …
A Pragmatic Republic, If You Can Keep It, William R. Sherman
A Pragmatic Republic, If You Can Keep It, William R. Sherman
Michigan Law Review
These things we know to be true: Our modern administrative state is a leviathan unimaginable by the Founders. It stands on thin constitutional ice, on cracks between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. It burdens and entangles state and local governments in schemes that threaten federalism. And it presents an irresolvable dilemma regarding democratic accountability and political independence. We know these things to be true because these precepts animate some of the most significant cases and public law scholarship of our time. Underlying our examination of administrative agencies is an assumption that the problems they present would have been bizarre …
Inside Agency Preemption, Catherine M. Sharkey
Inside Agency Preemption, Catherine M. Sharkey
Michigan Law Review
A subtle shift has taken place in the mechanics of preemption, the doctrine that determines when federal law displaces state law. In the past, Congress was the leading actor, and courts and commentators focused almost exclusively on the precise wording of its statutory directives as a clue to its intent to displace state law. Federal agencies were, if not ignored, certainly no more than supporting players. But the twenty-first century has witnessed a role reversal. Federal agencies now play the dominant role in statutory interpretation. The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the ascendancy of federal agencies in preemption disputes-an ascendancy …
Rationalism In Regulation, Christopher C. Demuth, Douglas H. Ginsburg
Rationalism In Regulation, Christopher C. Demuth, Douglas H. Ginsburg
Michigan Law Review
Retaking Rationality: How Cost-Benefit Analysis Can Better Protect the Environment and Our Health, by Richard L. Revesz and Michael A. Livermore, aims to convince those who favor more government regulation-in particular environmental groups-that they should embrace cost-benefit analysis and turn it to their purposes. Coauthored by a prominent law school dean and a recent student with a background in environmental advocacy, the book is a jarring combination of roundhouse political polemics and careful academic argument. Sweeping pronouncements are followed by qualifications that leave the sweep of the pronouncements in doubt- rather like the give-and-take of the law school classroom …
Optimal Political Control Of The Bureaucracy, Matthew C. Stephenson
Optimal Political Control Of The Bureaucracy, Matthew C. Stephenson
Michigan Law Review
It is widely believed that insulating an administrative agency from the influence of elected officials, whatever its other benefits orjustifications, reduces the agency's responsiveness to the preferences of political majorities. This Article argues, to the contrary, that a moderate degree of bureaucratic insulation from political control alleviates rather than exacerbates the countermajoritarian problems inherent in bureaucratic policymaking. An elected politician, though responsive to majoritarian preferences, will almost always deviate from the majority in one direction or the other Therefore, even if the average policy position of a given elected official tends to track the policy views of the median voter …
Executive-Branch Rulemaking And Dispute Settlement In The World Trade Organization: A Proposal To Increase Public Participation, Aubry D. Smith
Executive-Branch Rulemaking And Dispute Settlement In The World Trade Organization: A Proposal To Increase Public Participation, Aubry D. Smith
Michigan Law Review
This Note argues that, because the Executive Branch increasingly will be promulgating domestic regulatory rules intended to comply with the rules of the world-trading system, it is necessary to increase formal oversight of the Executive Branch's role in that context. Part I argues that the United States' participation in the WTO implies a substantial increase in the impact of foreign policy on domestic policy. Part II points out a loophole in Congress's attempt to compensate for this increase by installing various devices to ensure political oversight of the Executive: the Executive Branch is subject, under the Uruguay Round Agreements Act …
Making Rules: An Introduction, Steven Croley
Making Rules: An Introduction, Steven Croley
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Rulemaking: How Government Agencies Write Law and Make Policy by Cornelius M. Kerwin
Untangling "Operation Common Sense": Reopening And Review Of Social Security Administration Disability Claims, Elizabeth S. Ferguson
Untangling "Operation Common Sense": Reopening And Review Of Social Security Administration Disability Claims, Elizabeth S. Ferguson
Michigan Law Review
Part I of the Note outlines how the SSA processes a disability claim and illustrates the ambiguity in the language of the reopening regulations that has caused the split in the courts. Part II examines the four interpretations of the reopening regulations created by courts. Part II begins with the Secretary's interpretation and concludes that this interpretation is plainly inconsistent with the language of the regulations. Thus, courts need not defer, as they normally would, to an agency's interpretation of its own regulation. This Part next examines the alternative interpretations of these regulations advanced by various courts, and describes how …
The Legalization Of American Society: Economic Regulation, Peter O. Steiner
The Legalization Of American Society: Economic Regulation, Peter O. Steiner
Michigan Law Review
My central thesis is that regulation may be insightfully classified into three broad types of response to perceived market failure, and I will merely touch examples of each. The first is protection of competitive results. I shall focus on natural monopoly regulation, although anti-trust would do as well. The second is protection from competitive results, such as entry control and setting of minimum prices. The third is regulation of externalities such as pollution and accidents arising as byproducts of more usual production.
Models Of Regulation, James V. Delong
Models Of Regulation, James V. Delong
Michigan Law Review
A Review of The Politics of Regulation edited by James Q. Wilson
Beyond The Limits Of Executive Power: Presidential Control Of Agency Rulemaking Under Executive Order 12,291, Morton Rosenberg
Beyond The Limits Of Executive Power: Presidential Control Of Agency Rulemaking Under Executive Order 12,291, Morton Rosenberg
Michigan Law Review
This Article addresses the substantial legal problems posed by Executive Order 12,291. Part I argues that the Order, taken as a whole or separated into its procedural and substantive components, violates the constitutional separation of powers. Drawing on the analytic framework outlined by Justice Jackson in the Steel Seizure case, Part I maintains that courts should demand clear congressional support for the Order's requirements. The available evidence, however, conclusively demonstrates Congress's intent to deny the President formalized, substantive control over administrative policymaking. As interpreted by the Supreme Court, moreover, the informal rulemaking provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act (AP A) …
The Little Agency That Could, Sallyanne Payton
The Little Agency That Could, Sallyanne Payton
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Regulatory Justice: Implementing a Wage-Price Freeze By Robert A. Kagan
The Power Of The Fcc To Regulate Newspaper-Broadcast Cross-Ownership: The Need For Congressional Clarification, Michigan Law Review
The Power Of The Fcc To Regulate Newspaper-Broadcast Cross-Ownership: The Need For Congressional Clarification, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
The controversy surrounding the FCC's Second Report and . Order, its appeal, and the subsequent decision in NCCB raises basic questions concerning the statutory authority of the FCC to promulgate rules concerning newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership. This Note suggests that the FCC, notwithstanding judicial affirmation in NCCB of the Commission's authority to adopt such rules, might well be exercising more authority than Congress intended it to possess under the Communications Act of 1934. This Note therefore concludes that, irrespective of the merits of the Second Report and Order, Congress should reexamine and clarify the scope of the FCC's power in this regard.
Public Participation In The Adoption Of Interpretive Rules And Policy Statements, Michael Asimow
Public Participation In The Adoption Of Interpretive Rules And Policy Statements, Michael Asimow
Michigan Law Review
Section I of this article surveys the practices of a selected group of federal agencies in the adoption of interpretive rules and policy statements. It emphasizes the importance of these rules both to members of the public and to the administrative process. Section II analyzes the cases that have considered the AP A exemption of interpretive rules and policy statements from preadoption notice and comment procedures. These cases are in disarray for several reasons. For one thing, the bright lines traditionally assumed to distinguish interpretive rules and policy statements from legislative rules have become blurred and indistinct. Moreover, the courts …
Military And Foreign Affairs Function Rule-Making Under The Apa, Arthur Earl Bonfield
Military And Foreign Affairs Function Rule-Making Under The Apa, Arthur Earl Bonfield
Michigan Law Review
There is an obvious need to conduct our governmental affairs effectively. expeditiously. and inexpensively. No administrative rule-making procedure is acceptable unless it fairly takes account of this consideration. Consequently, procedural requirements that unduly fetter agency action. or frustrate its purposes. are obvious!} unwise. What is needed, therefore. is a system of rule-making that will strike a sensible balance between the need for adequate public participation in that process. and the need for efficient government. In striking that balance. society's interest in involving affected members of the public in administrative rule-making at an early stage is not so slight that it …
Alternatives To Administrative Trial-Type Hearings For Resolving Complex Scientific, Economic, And Social Issues, Barry B. Boyer
Alternatives To Administrative Trial-Type Hearings For Resolving Complex Scientific, Economic, And Social Issues, Barry B. Boyer
Michigan Law Review
Within the current wave of criticism directed at the federal administrative agencies, a traditional theme of administrative law is frequently echoed: agencies have allowed their proceedings to become over-judicialized, and ought to engage in more rule-making to avoid the slow, cumbersome, and repetitious process of case-by- case adjudication. As if to confirm the urgency of these calls for greater use of the rule-making power, examples occasionally surface which suggest that trial-type proceedings may collapse under their own weight and force some agencies to resort to rule-making if they are to accomplish anything at all. Thus, the Interstate Commerce Commission has …
Labor Law--The Permissible Scope Of The National Labor Relations Board's Rule Against Relitigation, Michigan Law Review
Labor Law--The Permissible Scope Of The National Labor Relations Board's Rule Against Relitigation, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Under section 9 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or Act), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) is charged with the responsibility of determining what group of employees constitutes an appropriate unit for purposes of collective bargaining with an employer. While the Board itself originally handled representation petitions and determined appropriate bargaining units, Congress in 1959 amended the NLRA and authorized the Board to delegate its section 9 powers to the regional directors in order to expedite NLRB operations. Pursuant to this authorization, and in accordance with its rule-making authority under section 6 of the Act, the …
Representation For The Poor In Federal Rulemaking, Arthur Earl Bonfield
Representation For The Poor In Federal Rulemaking, Arthur Earl Bonfield
Michigan Law Review
The ample personal economic resources and relatively well-financed organizations of middle and upper income Americans usually assure their particular interests adequate representation in federal administrative rulemaking. The norm is that middle and upper income individuals, or their personal or organizational representatives, directly or indirectly monitor all agency activities. These persons attempt to protect their interests through formal or informal participation in rulemaking affecting them. But federal rulemaking very frequently affects large numbers of individuals who lack the personal economic resources and organized associations of middle and upper income Americans. These economically underprivileged persons are usually unable to keep themselves adequately …
The Executive Department Of Government And The Rule Of Law, Frank E. Cooper
The Executive Department Of Government And The Rule Of Law, Frank E. Cooper
Michigan Law Review
For a long time, people have been talking about the executive department of government and the Rule of Law. Indeed, the suggestion of Aristotle that government should be by law, and not by men, represented a protest directed to the earlier Grecian systems of despotically controlled administrative law. It is my privilege this afternoon to carry forward the discussion of a problem that has been talked about for some two thousand years: how to apply the Rule of Law to the executive agencies of the government. They are commonly called "independent agencies" within the executive branch. I suggest that the …