Law Commons^™

Federal Agencies In The Legislative Process: Technical Assistance In Statutory Drafting, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

Federal agencies draft statutes. Indeed, they are often the chief architects of the statutes they administer. Even when federal agencies are not the primary substantive authors, they routinely respond to congressional requests to provide technical assistance in statutory drafting. Yet despite their substantial role in the legislative process, our understanding about how agencies interact with Congress is greatly undertheorized and perhaps even less understood empirically. This Report, which was commissioned by the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), explores the latter role of federal agencies in the legislative process: the provision of technical assistance in statutory drafting.

To better …

Inside Regulatory Interpretation: A Research Note, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

In response to Kevin M. Stack, Interpreting Regulations, 111 Mich. L. Rev. 355 (2012).

In Interpreting Regulations, Professor Stack provides the first comprehensive approach to regulatory interpretation and situates this approach within the larger literature on legal interpretation. His theory of regulatory interpretation is simple yet pioneering: “a regulation should be read in light of its purposes, with the regulation’s text and the statement of basis and purpose constituting the privileged interpretive sources.” This Research Note takes a look inside regulatory interpretation to explore the empirical foundation for Professor Stack’s novel approach to regulatory interpretation.

In 2013, the author conducted …

Is The Chief Justice A Tax Lawyer?, Stephanie Hoffer, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

King v. Burwell is a crucial victory for the Obama Administration and for the future of the Affordable Care Act. It also has important implications for tax law and administration, as explored in the other terrific contributions to this Pepperdine Law Review Symposium. In this Essay, we turn to another tax-related feature of the Chief Justice’s opinion for the Court: It is hard to ignore the fingerprints of a tax lawyer throughout the opinion. This Essay focuses on two instances of a tax lawyer at work.

First, in the Chief’s approach to statutory interpretation one sees a tax lawyer as …

A Program In Legislation, Dakota S. Rudesill, Daniel P. Tokaji, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

This Essay urges that Legislation be conceived of not just as a single course, but as a set of curricular and extracurricular offerings that collectively constitute an integrated program of instruction. The three of us teach at The Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, which may serve as a model of such a program. Since 1995, Moritz has required Legislation as a part of the first-year curriculum. We also have a variety of upper-level offerings and extracurricular activities that help students develop a practical understanding of the legislative process. This Essay makes the case for an integrated program of …

Inside Agency Statutory Interpretation, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

The Constitution vests all legislative powers in Congress, yet Congress grants expansive lawmaking authority to federal agencies. As positive political theorists have long explored, Congress intends for federal agencies to faithfully exercise their delegated authority, but ensuring fidelity to congressional wishes is difficult due to asymmetries in information, expertise, and preferences that complicate congressional control and oversight. Indeed, this principal-agent problem has a democratic and constitutional dimension, as the legitimacy of administrative governance may well depend on whether the unelected bureaucracy is a faithful agent of Congress. Despite the predominance of lawmaking by regulation and the decades-long application of principal-agent …

Chevron Inside The Regulatory State: An Empirical Assessment, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

For three decades, scholars (as well as courts and litigants) have written thousands of articles (and opinions and briefs) concerning the impact of the Chevron deference regime on judicial review of agency statutory interpretation. Little attention, however, has been paid to how Chevron and its progeny have actually shaped statutory interpretation inside the regulatory state. As part of the Fordham Law Review symposium Chevron at 30: Looking Back and Looking Forward, this Essay presents the findings of the first comprehensive empirical investigation into the effect of Chevron and related doctrines on how federal agencies interpret statutes they administer.

The Essay …

Foreword — Chevron At 30: Looking Back And Looking Forward, Peter M. Shane, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

This Foreword introduces a Fordham Law Review symposium held in March 2014 to mark the thirtieth anniversary of Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council. The most-cited administrative-law decision of all time, Chevron has sparked thirty years of scholarly discussion concerning what Chevron deference means, when (or even if) it should apply, and what impact it has had on the administrative state. Part I of the Foreword discusses the symposium contributions that address Chevron’s scope and application, especially in light of City of Arlington v. FCC. Part II introduces the contributions that explore empirically and theoretically Chevron’s impact outside of …

Does The Legal Standard Matter? Empirical Answers To Justice Kennedy’S Questions In Nken V. Holder, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

In response to Fatma Marouf, Michael Kagan & Rebecca Gill, Justice on the Fly: The Danger of Errant Deportations, 75 Ohio St. L.J. 337 (2014).

In Justice on the Fly: The Danger of Errant Deportations, Professors Fatma Marouf, Michael Kagan, and Rebecca Gill take on the ambitious task of answering the empirical questions posed by Justice Kennedy and others in Nken v. Holder with respect to the proper legal standard for judicial stays of removal in the immigration adjudication context. To answer these questions, the authors review, code, and analyze 1,646 cases in all circuits that hear immigration appeals and …

The Ordinary Remand Rule And The Judicial Toolbox For Agency Dialogue, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

When a court concludes that an agency’s decision is erroneous, the ordinary rule is to remand to the agency to consider the issue anew (as opposed to the court deciding the issue itself). Despite that the Supreme Court first articulated this ordinary remand rule in the 1940s and has rearticulated it repeatedly over the years, little work has been done to understand how the rule works in practice, much less whether it promotes the separation-of-powers values that motivate the rule. This Article is the first to conduct such an investigation—focusing on judicial review of agency immigration adjudications and reviewing the …

The Death Of Tax Court Exceptionalism, Stephanie Hoffer, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

Tax exceptionalism—the view that tax law does not have to play by the administrative law rules that govern the rest of the regulatory state—has come under attack in recent years. In 2011, the Supreme Court rejected such exceptionalism by holding that judicial review of the Treasury Department’s interpretations of the tax code is subject to the same Chevron deference regime that applies throughout the administrative state. The D.C. Circuit followed suit by rejecting the IRS’s position that its notices are not subject to judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). This Article calls for the demise of another instance …

Dodd-Frank Regulators, Cost-Benefit Analysis, And Agency Capture, Paul Rose, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) has raised the stakes for financial regulation by requiring more than twenty federal agencies to promulgate nearly 400 new rules. Scholars, regulated entities, Congress, courts, and the agencies themselves have all recognized — even before Dodd-Frank — the lack of rigorous cost-benefit analysis in the context of financial rulemaking. The D.C. Circuit has struck down several financial regulations because of inadequate cost-benefit analysis, with three more challenges to be decided this summer. Members of Congress have introduced legislation to address this problem, including a call for the President to intervene …

The Importance Of Cost-Benefit Analysis In Financial Regulation, Paul Rose, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

This report reviews the role, history, and application of cost-benefit analysis in rulemaking by financial services regulators.

For more than three decades — under both Democratic and Republican administrations — cost-benefit analysis has been a fundamental tool of effective regulation. There has been strong bipartisan support for ensuring regulators maximize the benefits of proposed regulations while implementing them in the most cost-effective manner possible. In short, it is both the right thing to do and the required thing to do.

Through the use of cost-benefit analysis in financial services regulation, regulators can determine if their proposals will actually work to …

How To Win The Deference Lottery, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

In response to Jud Mathews, Deference Lotteries, 91 Texas Law Review 1349 (2013).

In Deference Lotteries, Jud Mathews proposes that the deference framework in administrative law be viewed through the game theory lens of a lottery. Such an approach helps us think critically about how varying standards of review may affect the behavior of agencies and courts engaged in the judicial review process. This Response suggests that the lottery lens can also help agencies think more strategically about how to develop and defend interpretations of statutes they administer. Assuming the validity of the lottery framework, the Response suggests a playbook …

Gender Equity In College Athletics: Women Coaches As A Case Study, Deborah L. Rhode, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

As Title IX celebrates its thirty-fifth anniversary, many have noted its enormous positive effect on women's sports. But an unintended and too-often neglected byproduct is that as opportunities for female students have increased, opportunities for female professionals have declined. This Article focuses on the barriers that still confront women in college athletics, particularly those who seek professional positions in coaching and administration. Part I presents a brief overview of Title IX, which makes clear its limitations in securing gender equity. Part II.A discusses the declining representation and lower success rate of women coaches, while Part II.B explores the areas of …

The History Of School Trust Lands In Nevada: The No Child Left Behind Act Of 1864, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

This Article details the history of the federal school lands grant program in Nevada - the first federal initiative to support public education in the new state. After providing a brief overview of federal land management history in the West, the Article presents the story of school lands in Nevada - tracing its birth in Congress and at the Nevada Constitutional Convention in 1864; analyzing the changes made by state constitutional amendments and court decisions; exploring Congress's attempts to adapt the program to Nevada's needs in the form of the two-million-acre grant of 1880 and the 30,000-acre exchange of 1926; …

Adequate Access Or Equal Treatment: Looking Beyond The Idea To Section 504 In A Post-Schaffer Public School, Christopher J. Walker

Christopher J. Walker

In light of the Supreme Court's decision this Term in Schaffer v. Weast, this Note analyzes the current state of special education law and argues that parents, attorneys, and advocates should look beyond the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to Section 504 in the post-Schaffer public school. This Note shows how these two standards operate in the context of state special schools for the blind and deaf. A state-by-state survey of thirty states' special school admission policies and practices reveals the IDEA's limitations and Section 504's potentially complementary role.

Although other works have briefly compared the IDEA and Section …