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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Undemocratic Roots Of Agency Rulemaking, Emily S. Bremer
The Undemocratic Roots Of Agency Rulemaking, Emily S. Bremer
Journal Articles
Americans often credit—or blame—Congress for the laws and policies that govern their lives. But Congress enacts broad statutes that give federal administrative agencies the primary responsibility for making and enforcing the regulations that control American society. These administrative agencies lack the political accountability of those in public office. To address this democratic deficit, an agency seeking to adopt a new regulation must publish a notice of proposed rulemaking and provide an opportunity for the public to comment on the proposal. Heralded as “one of the greatest inventions of modern government,” the Administrative Procedure Act’s (APA) notice-and-comment rulemaking procedure is understood …
Reasonable Tax Rules: Advancing Process Values With Remedial Restraint, James M. Puckett
Reasonable Tax Rules: Advancing Process Values With Remedial Restraint, James M. Puckett
Journal Articles
The tax administration is at risk of an overcorrection with respect to its rulemaking process. Tax practitioners increasingly are mining the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) as well as chipping away at barriers to pre-enforcement review of tax rules. Tax rules include regulations, revenue rulings, revenue procedures, and more informal guidance to the public. APA-based challenges to tax rules have gained traction in the courts, typically alleging inadequate explanation or timing irregularities involving notice and comment. Such claims potentially pose major challenges for fair and efficient tax administration.
This Article integrates administrative law scholarship calling for a rule of reason with …
Chipping Away At The Rock: Perez V. Mortgage Bankers Association And The Seminole Rock Deference Doctrine, Kevin O. Leske
Chipping Away At The Rock: Perez V. Mortgage Bankers Association And The Seminole Rock Deference Doctrine, Kevin O. Leske
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Legislative History Of The Administrative Procedure Act, Roni A. Elias
The Legislative History Of The Administrative Procedure Act, Roni A. Elias
Student Works
During the twentieth century, one of the most important developments in American government and politics was the expanding power of administrative agencies of all kinds. The enactment of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) of 1946 was the crucial event in the course of this expansion. The APA was the culmination of long-term efforts to regulate the decision-making of administrative agencies, and it reflected a significant political compromise. This paper traces the outlines of that reflection. In Part I, it reviews the political background leading up to the proposal of the legislation in the 79th Congress that became the APA. In …
Improving Agencies’ Preemption Expertise With Chevmore Codification, Kent H. Barnett
Improving Agencies’ Preemption Expertise With Chevmore Codification, Kent H. Barnett
Scholarly Works
After nearly thirty years, the judicially crafted Chevron and Skidmore judicial-review doctrines have found new life as exotic, yet familiar, legislative tools. When Chevron deference applies, courts employ two steps: they consider whether the statutory provision at issue is ambiguous, and, if so, they defer to an administering agency’s reasonable interpretation. Skidmore deference, in contrast, is a less deferential regime in which courts assume interpretative primacy over statutory ambiguities but defer to agency action based on four factors — the agency’s thoroughness, reasoning, consistency, and overall persuasiveness. In the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Congress directed courts …
The Reviewability Of The President's Statutory Powers, Kevin M. Stack
The Reviewability Of The President's Statutory Powers, Kevin M. Stack
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article argues that longstanding doctrines that exclude judicial review of the determinations or findings the President makes as conditions for invoking statutory powers should be replaced. These doctrines are inconsistent with the fundamental constitutional commitment to reviewing whether federal officials act with legal authorization. Where a statute grants power conditioned upon an official making a determination that certain conditions obtain - as statutes that grant power to the President often do - review of whether that power is validly exercised requires review of the determinations the official makes to invoke the power. Review of those determinations is commonplace with …
Reconceptualizing Chevron And Discretion: A Comment On Levin And Rubin, Gary S. Lawson
Reconceptualizing Chevron And Discretion: A Comment On Levin And Rubin, Gary S. Lawson
Faculty Scholarship
Professors Ronald Levin and Edward Rubin want to change the way we think about important administrative law concepts. Ronald Levin's paper, The Anatomy of Chevron: Step Two Reconsidered,1 argues that Chevron's2 currently ill-defined second step ought to be reconceptualized as an application of arbitrary or capricious review. Edward Rubin's paper, Discretion and Its Discontents,3 is part of his ongoing project to reconceptualize the way we think-and, more importantly, the way we talk-about the modern administrative state. Professor Rubin suggests that the oft-used word "discretion" does not usefully describe the bureaucratic operation of the modern managerial state and that it profitably …
Preemption By Fiat: The Department Of Labor's Usurpation Of Power Over Noncitizen Workers' Right To Unemployment Benefits, Irene Scharf
Preemption By Fiat: The Department Of Labor's Usurpation Of Power Over Noncitizen Workers' Right To Unemployment Benefits, Irene Scharf
Faculty Publications
This Article starts with the premise that the right to unemployment insurance benefits is a property right protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which apply to noncitizen unemployment applicants as well as to United States citizens. Given this assumption, certain actions being taken by the United States Department of Labor ("DOL") violate both procedural and substantive due process as well as the Administrative Procedure Act ("APA"). The challenged actions involve the DOL's issuance of internally-created missives, termed Unemployment Insurance Program Letters ("Program Letters"), that purport to interpret the meaning of a requirement under federal …