Advance Advance the Journal of ACS Issue Briefs
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Advance Advance The Journal of ACS Issue Briefs Volume 12 The Journal of ACS Issue Briefs The Journal of TABLE OF CONTENTS | FALL 2018 Reforming ‘Regulatory Reform’: A Progressive Framework for Agency Rulemaking in the Public Interest Daniel A. Farber, Lisa Heinzerling, and Peter M. Shane Truth is Truth: U.S. Abortion Law in the Global Context Martha F. Davis and Risa E. Kaufman The Special Counsel, Morrison v. Olson, and the Dangerous Implications of the Unitary Executive Theory Victoria Nourse What Starts in Texas Doesn’t Always Stay in Texas: Why Texas’s Systematic Elimination of Grassroots Voter Registration Drives Could Spread Mimi Marziani and Robert Landicho Restoring Objectivity to the Constitutional Law of Incarceration Margo Schlanger Fall 2018 What the Military Law of Obedience Does (and Doesn’t) Do Christopher Fonzone Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute: What’s at Stake for Voters Allegra Chapman Federal Civil Rulemaking, Discovery Reform, and the Promise of Pilot Projects Volume 12 Brooke D. Coleman Litigating Federal Habeas Corpus Cases: One Equitable Gateway at a Time Eve Brensike Primus 1899 L Street, NW, 2nd Floor Washington, D.C. 20036 The Detention and Forced Medical Treatment of Pregnant Women: A Human Rights Perspective www.ACSLaw.org Cynthia Soohoo and Risa E. Kaufman 202-393-6181 Preparing for the 2020 Census: Considerations for State Attorneys General John H. Thompson and Robert Yablon Advance The Journal of ACS Issue Briefs TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Introduction 3 Reforming ‘Regulatory Reform’: A Progressive Framework for Agency Rulemaking in the Public Interest Daniel A. Farber, Lisa Heinzerling, and Peter M. Shane 29 Truth is Truth: U.S. Abortion Law in the Global Context Martha F. Davis and Risa E. Kaufman 43 The Special Counsel, Morrison v. Olson, and the Dangerous Implications of the Unitary Executive Theory Victoria Nourse 61 What Starts in Texas Doesn’t Always Stay in Texas: Why Texas’s Systematic Elimination of Grassroots Voter Registration Drives Could Spread Mimi Marziani and Robert Landicho 79 Restoring Objectivity to the Constitutional Law of Incarceration Margo Schlanger 99 What the Military Law of Obedience Does (and Doesn’t) Do Christopher Fonzone 117 Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute: What’s at Stake for Voters Allegra Chapman 127 Federal Civil Rulemaking, Discovery Reform, and the Promise of Pilot Projects Brooke D. Coleman 141 Litigating Federal Habeas Corpus Cases: One Equitable Gateway at a Time Eve Brensike Primus 161 The Detention and Forced Medical Treatment of Pregnant Women: A Human Rights Perspective Cynthia Soohoo and Risa E. Kaufman 179 Preparing for the 2020 Census: Considerations for State Attorneys General John H. Thompson and Robert Yablon ACS BOARD OF DIRECTORS Christina Beeler, Student Caroline Fredrickson, Philippa Scarlett Board Member, University ACS President Ricki Seidman of Houston Law Center Ruben Garcia Marc Seltzer Nicole G. Berner Hon. Nancy Gertner (Ret.) Hon. Shira A. Sheindlin (Ret.) Elise Boddie Daniel S. Goldman Ganesh Sitaraman Timothy W. Burns Reuben A. Guttman Cliff Sloan Mark Califano Keith M. Harper Dawn L. Smalls Alejandra Castillo Christopher Kang Paul M. Smith Erwin Chemerinsky Peter Karanjia David A. Strauss Andrew DeVore Pamela S. Karlan, Chair Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. Michael J. Faris Brad S. Karp Adam Winkler Steve Fineman Hon. Tim Lewis (Ret.) Sahng-Ah Yoo, Student Board David C. Frederick William P. Marshall Member, New York Melissa Murray University Law School ACS BOARD OF ADVISORS Debo P. Adegbile Jay W. Eisenhofer James T. O’Hara Brooksley E. Born Faith E. Gay Spencer Overton David M. Brodsky Linda Greenhouse Robert Post Elizabeth J. Cabraser Dennis Herrera Judith Scott Myron M. Cherry Dawn Johnsen Ted Shaw Drew S. Days III Ronald Klain Reva Siegel Walter E. Dellinger III Geoffrey Klineberg Geoffrey Stone Karen Dunn Victor Kovner Stephen D. Susman Peter B. Edelman Judith Lichtman Daniel Tokaji Christopher Edley, Jr. Frank I. Michelman Christine A. Varney ACS BOARD OF ACADEMIC ADVISORS Kate Andrias Linda Greenhouse Neil S. Siegel Erwin Chemerinsky Dawn Johnsen Reva Siegel Justin Driver Pamela S. Karlan Ganesh Sitaraman Joseph R. Fishkin William P. Marshall David A. Strauss Ruben Garcia Allegra McLeod Mark Tushnet Hon. Nancy Gertner (Ret.) Melissa Murray Stephen I. Vladeck Jamal Greene Douglas NeJaime Adam Winkler The Journal of ACS Issue Briefs 1 Advance dvance, the Journal of the Issue Briefs of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS), is published annually. Our mission is to promote the vitality of the U.S. Constitution and the fundamental Avalues it expresses: individual rights and liberties, genuine equality, access to justice, democracy and the rule of law. Each issue of Advance features a collection of articles that emanate from the work of ACS’s network of scholars, advocates and practitioners, and features a selection of Issue Briefs written for ACS in the preceding year on a variety of topics. ACS Issue Briefs—those included in Advance as well as others available at www.acslaw.org—are intended to offer substantive analysis of legal or policy issues in a form that is easily accessible to practitioners, policymakers and the general public. Some Issue Briefs tackle the high-profile issues of the day, while others take a longer view of the law, but all are intended to enliven and enrich debate in their respective areas. ACS encourages its members to make their voices heard, and we invite those interested in writing an Issue Brief to contact us. We hope you find this issue’s articles, which span a range of topics, engaging and edifying. The Journal of ACS Issue Briefs 3 Reforming ‘Regulatory Reform’: A Progressive Framework for Agency Rulemaking in the Public Interest* Daniel A. Farber, Lisa Heinzerling, and Peter M. Shane or over three decades, “regulatory reform” has been an aspiration chiefly for opponents of regulation. “Better regulation” is a goal nearly everyone would embrace. But changes in the federal administrative process since Fthe 1980s have frequently had the foreseeable, and often intended, effect of hinder- ing efforts to protect the environment, public health, civil rights, and other well- established public interest goals. The purpose of this Issue Brief is to envision what regulatory reform could look like from a different direction. Our specific focus is on administrative rulemaking, the primary target of contemporary law reform efforts. We ask, what if reformers started with full recognition of the value of administrative regulation in the public interest? Progressives have always argued for strengthening the law’s substantive requirements in advancing the public good, such as stronger rules against pollution or more robust protections for worker safety. But beyond any specific substantive agenda, it is worth asking whether there are potential changes in agency process and in the oversight of agencies that would improve the administrative state. Are there changes that could make regulation more evidence-based, more transparent, more inclusive, more accountable, and more efficient? If so, then progressives should take up the cause of regulatory reform as our own. Our immediate aim is not to propose a specific text for the ideal progressive regulatory reform platform, but rather to set out a framework and illustrative sug- gestions to demonstrate that such a platform is plausible and significant. In Part I, we discuss ways of improving notice-and-comment rulemaking. In Part II, we cover the role of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). We seek to improve OIRA’s processes and reset its mission to better align with con- gressional mandates. We then analyze, in Part III, the rules governing judicial review of agency actions, with the aim of clarifying the law and making judicial review more effective and efficient. Finally, in Part IV, we advocate the repeal of the Congressional Review Act, to eliminate this avenue for special interests to ambush important regulations in Congress. By focusing on rulemaking, we do not mean to slight the importance of other administrative activities such as issuing permits, distributing benefits, overseeing state regulatory programs, or enforcing legal requirements and issuing sanctions. But the biggest controversies over administrative law have involved rulemaking, which involves the most important and visible policy decisions. For that reason, we view this topic as the appropriate starting point for an agenda of progressive regulatory reform. * This Issue Brief was initially published in October 2018. 4 Advance I. IMPROVING NOTICE-AND-COMMENT RULEMAKING When Congress enacted the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act (APA), it gave far less attention to rulemaking than it did to the relatively detailed processes for formal on-the-record agency hearings. That is no doubt because—insofar as agencies used any kind of procedurally elaborate tools for statutory implementation—admin- istrative adjudication rather than rulemaking was the preferred process for policy elaboration. Lawyers and clients seeking to understand, for example, what the National Labor Relations Board considered an “unfair labor practice,” what the Federal Trade Commission considered an “unfair or deceptive trade practice,” or what the Federal Communications Commission considered broadcasting “in the public interest” had to synthesize those agencies’ views chiefly through analysis of their orders in individual proceedings. In the 1960s and 1970s, however, informal rulemaking