The American Constitution Society is pleased to release Rethinking Admin Law: From APA to Z highlighting ideas from leading administrative law scholars and practitioners addressing what an affirmative progressive agenda for regulatory reform might look like. In the wake of decades of increased corporate influence in politics, regulatory reform has become virtually synonymous with deregulation. But as the essays in this publication demonstrate, that need not be the case.

Among the authors recommendations are establishing Offices of Advocacy within key regulatory agencies, creating an ROTC program for civilian government to recruit, train, subsidize, and help place a new generation of government officials, subjecting the President to the APA, reconstituting immigration courts as Article I courts subject to judicial review, isolating scientists from political pressures, and creating administrative structures that default to action rather than inaction. The publication’s final essay urges a reorientation of administrative law away from the constraints of procedure and what the author calls “court-centric legalism”.

As Senator Sheldon Whitehouse says in the Foreword, Rethinking Admin Law: From APA to Z comes at an important time: “Regulatory agencies ensure that we have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink, that our workplaces are safe, that our retirement accounts are secure from risky speculation and self-dealing, and much more. Yet they are under a sustained political and legal attack. Progressives must respond.”

Featuring:

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Senator from Rhode Island, Foreword
Nicholas Bagley, University of Michigan Law School
Sam Berger, Center for American Progress
Sharon Block, Harvard Law School Labor and Worklife Program
Jill Family, Widener University Commonwealth Law School
Thomas McGarity, University of Texas School of Law
Jon Michaels, UCLA Law
Alan Morrison, George Washington University Law School
Rajesh Nayak, National Employment Law Project

Debra Perlin is the Director of Policy and Program at the American Constitution Society.