The Drive to Tame the ‘Administrative State’

by Brendan Kirby March 13, 2019

While Senate Democrats and much of the public have spent the past two Supreme Court confirmation battles obsessing over abortion, judicial conservatives quietly have been laying the groundwork for an assault on the “administrative state.” That is the buzz phrase to describe the nameless and faceless bureaucracy responsible for most of the rules that now govern America.

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch went out of his way as an appeals court judge to call attention to the issue, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh has given indications that he, too, is willing to re-examine court precedents that have helped grow the power of unelected bureaucrats.

With those two nominees of President Donald Trump now on the nation’s highest court, American Enterprise Institute scholar Peter Wallison believes there now is a majority in place to begin reversing 3½ decades of jurisprudence on the issue. And he describes the stakes as nothing less than the future of American democracy.

“There will be a time when the American people realize that they are not actually in charge,” Wallison told a group of conservative lawyers in Mobile, Alabama, recently...........To Read More....