Quite apart from such such agencies’ subservience to the current White House, screeds like Kavanaugh’s, against the “headless fourth branch” leave out the landmark accountability regime that the post-New Deal Congress enacted. This is the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act, or APA, which gives targets of agency actions statutory rights, enforceable in court—to receive notice, to […]
Read MoreTag: Unitary Executive
John Roberts and the Cynical Cult of Federalist No. 70
“‘Decision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number,’” he wrote, quoting from No. 70. “The centralization of authority in the president alone is particularly crucial in matters of national defense, war, and foreign policy choices, where a […]
Read More
Get Ready for Another Rightward Lurch in the New Supreme Court Term
Another case, Chiles v. Salazar, will allow the justices to scrutinize Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for young LGBTQ patients on First Amendment grounds. Nearly two dozen states forbid medical professionals from using treatments that try to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, citing the scientific consensus that such treatments are both psychologically […]
Read More