Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2017

Center/Program

Center for Constitutional Governance

Abstract

Eighty years on, we are seeing a resurgence of the antiregulatory and antigovernment forces that lost the battle of the New Deal. President Trump's administration has proclaimed the "deconstruction of the administrative state" to be one of its main objectives.1 Early Trump executive actions quickly delivered on this pledge, with a wide array of antiregulatory actions and a budget proposing to slash many agencies' funding.2 Invoking the long-dormant Congressional Review Act 3 (CRA), the Republican-controlled Congress has eagerly repealed numerous regulations promulgated late in the Obama Administration.4 Other major legislative and regulatory repeals are pending, and bills that would impose the most significant restrictions on administrative governance since the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) was adopted in1946 - like the proposed Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA) - now stand a chance of enactment. 5 This resistance to administrative government reflects antigovernment themes that have been a consistent presence in national politics since President Reagan's election in 1980.6 But the immediate trigger for the current resurgence of attacks on the administrative state is the national regulatory and administrative expansion that took place under President Obama.7

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