Last month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases striking at the heart of a legal doctrine that props up the administrative state: Chevron deference. Herring fishermen are challenging a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) regulation that requires them to pay the salary of federal monitors riding on their fishing boats. In the ...
Taking the government to court When the federal government takes an action that hurts you, you probably assume there is a legal remedy available—that you can challenge the government in court. And indeed, you can: Under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) “a person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected o ...
The Constitution grants executive power to the president, but presidents cannot do all the work of the executive branch alone. They need subordinates to help them carry out their work: cabinet secretaries, undersecretaries and thousands of other political appointees throughout the federal government. But the Constitution also promises a government ...
Jamie Leach has dedicated her life to the pursuit of child safety. After receiving her Bachelor of Science degree in nursing, Jamie worked as a nurse in a pediatric intensive care unit in Ada, Oklahoma, where she lives. She later went on to combine her love of helping others with her natural proclivity toward innovation … ...
“I’ll take it all the way to the Supreme Court.” It’s far easier said than done, and it can take years for a legal battle to wind its way through the courts. When the federal government is on the other side—as it often is in Pacific Legal Foundation cases—it takes a relentless, determined attitude to … ...
Just about every time a case involving the administrative state heads to the Supreme Court, we’re subjected to hysterical warnings of the end of the world. A recent piece in The Atlantic might set a new standard for apocalyptic fearmongering. NYU Law Professor Noah Rosenblum frets that what he calls a garden-variety securities fraud case ...
Fantasy stories delight our senses by taking us to imaginary worlds where wizards roam the earth and magic is real. Yet, in this fictional realm where readers have the pleasure of suspending reality, there are still universal truths that mirror the real world around us. The beloved Harry Potter series, for example, is ripe with … ...
This article first appeared in the winter 2023 edition of Sword&Scales. Imagine you are a young child living in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. You are brought into a crowded meetinghouse where two magistrates—both commanding older men who serve on the council of Massachusetts Bay Colony—are waiting to interrogate you in front of an angry au ...
Brian Wanner is the owner of Peters Brothers Trucking in Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania. But on some of the most important decisions facing his business he doesn’t call the shots. Instead, he takes orders from regulators . . . in California — a state he doesn’t even do business in. That’s because the Pennsylvania Department of Envi ...