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Full-Text Articles in Law

Differentiating Deference, Anya Bernstein Jan 2016

Differentiating Deference, Anya Bernstein

Journal Articles

When an administrative agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statutory term is challenged in court, the Chevron doctrine instructs judges to evaluate whether it is reasonable. But how does a court know reasonableness when it sees it? Here, I first show that reasonableness review is more complex than it might seem. Contrary to common images, for instance, courts do not determine a range of reasonable interpretations; and that is a good thing, because they are not competent to do so. Moreover, because traditional statutory interpretation approaches presume the existence of one correct meaning for a given word, they are not well …


Minimally Democratic Administrative Law, Jud Mathews Jan 2016

Minimally Democratic Administrative Law, Jud Mathews

Journal Articles

A persistent challenge for the American administrative state is reconciling the vast powers of unelected agencies with our commitment to government by the people. Many features of contemporary administrative law — from the right to participate in agency processes, to the reason-giving requirements on agencies, to the presidential review of rulemaking — have been justified, at least in part, as means to square the realities of agency power with our democratic commitments. At the root of any such effort there lies a theory of democracy, whether fully articulated or only implicit: some conception of what democracy is about, and what …


Who’S Exercising What Power: Toward A Judicially-Manageable Nondelegation Doctrine, Martin Edwards Jan 2016

Who’S Exercising What Power: Toward A Judicially-Manageable Nondelegation Doctrine, Martin Edwards

Journal Articles

This Article argues that the traditional, "intelligible principle" nondelegation analysis is incomplete and that an examination of the delegate, rather than just the delegation, more effectively animates the doctrine. This is true not only as a practical matter; early Supreme Court cases, as well as later ones, have taken a keen interest in the recipient of the alleged delegation. In other words, a realistic and judicially enforceable nondelegation doctrine must include more than a mere tip of the juridical cap.