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Guideline Institutionalization: The Role Of Merger Guidelines In Antitrust Discourse, Hillary Greene
Guideline Institutionalization: The Role Of Merger Guidelines In Antitrust Discourse, Hillary Greene
William & Mary Law Review
With the growth of the administrative state, agency-promulgated enforcement policy statements, typically referred to as guidelines, have become ubiquitous in the U.S. federal system. Yet, the actual usage and impact of such guidelines is poorly understood. Often the issuing agencies declare the guidelines to be nonbinding, even for themselves. Notwithstanding this disclaimer, the government, private parties, and even the courts frequently rely on the guidelines in a precedent-like manner. In this Article, Professor Greene examines the evolution of one system of enforcement policy guidelines-the U.S. federal antitrust merger guidelines--and finds that these guidelines have acted as a stealth force on …
Democratizing The Administrative State, Richard J. Pierce Jr.
Democratizing The Administrative State, Richard J. Pierce Jr.
William & Mary Law Review
Scholars have long questioned the political and constitutional legitimacy of the administrative state. By 1980, a majority of Supreme Court Justices seemed poised to hold that large portions of the administrative state are unconstitutional. In 1984, the Court retreated from that abyss and took a major step toward legitimating and democratizing the administrative state. It instructed lower courts to defer to any reasonable agency interpretation of an ambiguous agency-administered statute, basing this doctrine of deference on the superior political accountability of agencies. Henceforth, politically unaccountable judges were prohibited from substituting their policy preferences for those of politically accountable agencies. The …