Gray Matters

Adam chats with AEI’s Peter Wallison and John Yoo about their new book: The Administrative State Before the Supreme Court: Perspectives on the Nondelegation Doctrine. They discuss common arguments about the nondelegation doctrine and whether the US Supreme Court is likely to start applying the doctrine to restrain administrative agencies. Source

Ed Whelan, Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, chats with Paul D. Clement, 43rd Solicitor General of the United States, about Clement’s experience with religious liberty cases leading up to the 110th case he has argued before the US Supreme Court, Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. Source

Attorneys Nathan Lewin, Erin E. Murphy, Mark Rienzi, and Marc D. Stern talk about upcoming religious liberty cases before the US Supreme Court in a panel discussion moderated by former Assistant Attorney General Steven A. Engel. The panelists debate the potential impact of Supreme Court rulings in those cases in addition to whether current approaches to protecting religious liberty are adequate to... Source

Matt Bowman of Alliance Defending Freedom, Andrea R. Lucas of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and Roger T. Severino of the Ethics and Public Policy Center talk about developing policy challenges related to the free exercise of religion in a panel discussion moderated by D.C. District Court Judge Trevor N. McFadden. The panelists touch on issues like Covid-related limits on worship... Source

Adam chats with Wharton School Assistant Professor Brian D. Feinstein about his new paper, “Submerged Independent Agencies,” co-authored with the University of Chicago Law School’s Jennifer Nou. The paper covers hundreds of examples of administrative agency officials sub-delegating rulemaking powers to civil servants who are not appointed by the president, a court of law, or a department head and... Source

On March 18, the Gray Center hosted the First Annual Gray Lecture on the Administrative State, an event that we hope to make a keynote of our calendar each year. This included a panel discussion, featuring Professors John Harrison, Aaron Nielson and Aditya Bamzai, along with Gray Center Co-Executive Director Adam White. They discussed the future of “agency independence” in the aftermath of Seila... Source

Last month, the Second Circuit heard oral arguments in Community Housing Improvement Program v. City of New York, a constitutional challenge to New York’s Rent Stabilization Law. The plaintiffs argue that New York’s law violates the Constitution’s Due Process and Takings Clauses. To discuss the case—and its relationship to federal administrative state issues—Adam chats with the plaintiffs’ lead... Source

Steven Engel Today, in the Gray Center’s “Pulse of the Court” podcast series, Steve Engel of Dechert LLP and Jenn discuss the just-completed February oral argument sitting at the Supreme Court. They focus primarily on the final case of the sitting, Egbert v. Boule, which raises important questions about whether, and when, federal officers should be subject to monetary damages for alleged... Source

Please join us for a conversation on the Supreme Court’s term so far, and the cases soon to be heard. Halfway through the Supreme Court’s term, the Justices already have issued decisions with major consequences for the administrative state — most recently, its decisions on the OSHA and HHS vaccine mandates. Next the Court will hear cases involving the breadth and limits of the EPA’s powers on... Source

When the Supreme Court ruled that OSHA’s Covid vaccine mandate was unlawful, Justice Gorsuch wrote separately that the Court’s decision “rightly applies the major questions doctrine.” The Major Questions Doctrine has been increasingly important in the Supreme Court and lower courts’ decisions, among judges who believe (as Gorsuch puts it) that the doctrine “ensures that the national government’s... Source