Articles

Lately, the Supreme Court has rewritten the textbooks for the study of regulation, known as administrative law. Most scholars ascribe the legal upheaval to politics, period. They say the Court's conservative majority is shaping the law in line with its "anti-regulatory" beliefs. The Justices' values are important, to be sure, but the critics ...

In a recent news broadcast, WDIV Local 4 and other NBC affiliates reported on the ripple-effects of the Supreme Court's ruling last year in Sackett v. EPA. But the segment muddies the waters by distorting the true stakes, and the media's overwrought narrative won't wash. The piece opens with weatherman Bryan Schuerman intoning, "Today marks the ...

Can Congress give away its power of the purse to a regulatory agency? That's the important constitutional question the Supreme Court decided it will take on earlier this week. Regrettably, the Court can't answer the obvious follow-up question: Why would a legislature give away its own core authority? Congress created the Consumer Financial Prote ...

The in-house courts of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are not just at odds with the separation of powers, they also don't serve their alleged purpose of efficient justice. In Federalist 47, James Madison, quoting Montesquieu, warned that government would become an oppressor if the prosecutor were "joined" with the judge, which is w ...

Arbitrary government has no place in our constitutional order. Yet many of today's most significant federal policies reflect blatant abuses of presidential discretion. To cite the latest example, President Biden continues to maintain an indefinite state of "national emergency" for the COVID-19 pandemic, even though he declared last September tha ...

Last week, Pacific Legal Foundation (where we work) filed an amended class action complaint challenging the Biden Administration's plan to cancel up to $519 billion in federally held student debt. The short history of our suit sheds light on the program's shambolic implementation. After announcing the policy, the Education Department created a w ...

The Supreme Court recently kicked off this term with oral arguments in Sackett v. EPA, a blockbuster environmental law case that could provide property owners with long-overdue clarity regarding the enjoyment of their land. To understand the facts of the controversy is to sympathize with the petitioners. In 2004, Chantell and Mike Sackett purcha ...