Trump Versus ALJs?

This week, Jason and Easha discuss a new executive order and accompanying guidance by the Trump Administration that dramatically change the rules for hiring Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) across the entire federal government.  Easha starts the discussion by explaning the background of the federal bureaucracy, what role ALJs play, and why that role has changed after the Supreme Court's recent decision in Lucia v. SEC. They then discuss the Trump Administration's response to Lucia, which, taken as a whole, substantially changes the way ALJs are hired and could potentially alter the reasons they can be fired. Easha and Jason consider whether the changes—which will permit the President to have more control over administrative judges—are good or bad, and they also wonder whether these issues will ever be aired in court. They end with a few Trump nuggets updating other important cases, including the Manafort case and the census case. You can find us at @VersusTrumpPod on twitter, or send us an email at [email protected]. You can buy t-shirts and other goods with our super-cool logo here.  NotesThe President's executive order is here.The DOJ guidance memo is here. Reuters first posted the memo in a story that can be found here.Jason discussed updates to the census and national monuments cases. Those updates were based on this article (census) and this one (monuments). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.