Unorthodox Lawmaking, Unorthodox Rulemaking
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UNORTHODOX LAWMAKING, UNORTHODOX RULEMAKING Abbe R. Gluck,* Anne Joseph O'Connell,**and Rosa Po*** The Schoolhouse Rock! cartoon version of the conventional legislative process is dead, if it was ever an accurate description in the first place. Major policy today is often the product of "unorthodox lawmaking' and "unorthodox rulemaking'-deviations from tradi- tional process marked by frequent use of omnibus bills and multiple agency implementation; emergency statutes and regulations issued without prior comment; outsourcing to lawmaking commissions and unconventional delegates; process shortcuts outside of emergencies; presidential policymaking; and outside drafters, some nonpartisan and others hyperpartisan. These unorthodoxies are everywhere, and they have shifted the balance in the elected branches and beyond, often centralizing power in actors-like party leadership and the White House-not traditionallypart of the core lawmaking and rulemakingprocesses. These unorthodoxies are the new textbook process. The theories and doctrines of legislation and administrative law, however, have paid little attention to these evolutions. The limited commentary that does exist tends to lump all unorthodox policymaking together or to preserve an artificial divide between their legislative and administrative manifestations. But omnibus policymaking is different from emergency policymaking-not only in process and product, but in the challenges that each poses for courts. And both forms of policymaking are different from presidentialpolicymaking, and so on. Unorthodoxies in one branch are also closely linked to unorthodoxies in the other * Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy, Yale Law School. GeorgeJohnson Professor of Law, Berkeley Law School (Boalt Hall). J.D. Candidate 2016, Yale Law School. We received helpful suggestions from discussions at the Berkeley Law Faculty and Public Law Workshops, the Boston University Law School Faculty Workshop, the Harvard Public Law Workshop, the University of Pennsylvania's New Doctrinalism Conference, the Yale Law Inside-Out Workshop, and the Columbia Law School Symposium honoring Peter Strauss. We are grateful to Daniel Farber, Logan Gowdey, Sophia Lee, Gillian Metzger, David Schraub, Martin Shapiro, Kevin Stack, and Adrian Vermeule for feedback. For excellent research assistance, we are thankful to Yale Law students Victoria Black, Nina Cohen, Ariel Dobkin, Margaret Goodlander, Grace Heusner, Stephanie Krent, Rachel Tuchman, and David Simins, and to the wonderful Berkeley Law Librarians Stewart Caton, Keri Klein, Edna Lewis, Dean Rowan, and I-Wei Wang. Gluck and O'Connell are especially grateful to Peter Strauss, not only for his insightful comments about this Essay but even more so for all he has meant to us as a mentor, teacher, and friend and for his incredible contributions to the fields of administrative law and legislation. 1789 1790 COLUMBIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 115:1789 The "law crowd"--a group in which the value of process is deeply instilled-tends to look upon these modern changes with suspicion. But some unorthodoxies may in fact be beneficial to democracy, and any assessment requires a much clearer understanding of what legislative and administrative doctrines are for than we currently have. Unorthodox policymaking may make the job of courts more dfficult by, for instance, making law messier or less transparent, but is the role of courts to reflect how policy is made? Improve how policy is made? Or advance different values altogether? This Essay develops an account of today's unorthodox lawmaking and unorthodox rulemaking and substantiates the link between them. It utilizes a new typology of unorthodoxies to explore the causes, costs and benefits, and winners and losers associated with each different kind of policymaking, and plays out the ways that the theories and doctrines of legislation and administrativelaw might respond to the modern context in which they now unquestionably operate. INTRO DUCTIO N ........................................................................................ 1791 I. THE MANY FORMS OF UNORTHODOX LAWMAKING AND R ULEMAKING ............................................................................. 1799 A. Unorthodox Lawmaking and Rulemaking on the Rise: An Empirical Snapshot .......................................... 1800 B. Omnibus Policymaking: Complexity and Overlap ................... 1803 1. O m nibus Legislation ........................................................... 1804 2. O m nibus R ules .................................................................... 1805 3. Omnibus Implementation .................................................. 1806 C. Emergency Policymaking ....................................................... 1807 1. Em ergency Legislation ........................................................ 1808 2. Em ergency Rulem aking ...................................................... 1809 3. Non-Emergency Emergency Rulemaking (and Lawmaking) ..................... 1810 4. Em ergency Staffi ng .............................................................. 1811 D. Unorthodox Outsourcing: Legislative Workarounds and U northodox D elegations ........................................................... 1812 1. "Automatic" Lawmaking as a Legislative Workaround ...... 1812 2. Quasi-Rulemaking as an Administrative Workaround ....... 1814 3. Unorthodox Delegations: States, Private Actors, Private Standards, and W aivers ........................................................ 1815 E. The Unorthodox President: President as Both Legislator and R egulato r .................................................................................... 18 18 1. Signing Statem ents .............................................................. 1819 2. President as Initiator of Legislation .................................... 1820 3. President as Legislation Substitute ..................................... 1820 20151 UNORTHODOX LAWMAKING, RULEMAKING 1791 4. President as D elegator ......................................................... 1821 5. President as Rulemaker-or Quasi-Rulemaker .................. 1822 E Unorthodox Drafters: The People, Lobbyists, CBO , and M any M ore ................................................................ 1822 1. D irect D em ocracy ................................................................ 1823 2. Lobbyists, CBO, and Others ................................................ 1824 II. WHAT DRIvEs UNORTHODOX PRACTICES AND How O NE LEADS TO ANOTHER .................................................................1826 A . G rid lock ...................................................................................... 1828 B. Horizontal and Vertical Institutional Complexity .................... 1830 C . Fiscal C onstrain ts ....................................................................... 1832 D. Unorthodox Drafters, Unorthodox Delegations ...................... 1834 III. WINNERS, LOSERS, AND NORMATIvE IMPLICATIONS ........................... 1835 A . Social W elfare ............................................................................. 1836 1. Policy G ets M ade .................................................................... 1836 2. Policy M ay (?) Be Im proved ................................................... 1837 B. Democratic Legitimacy: Accountability, Transparency, and P ublic In pu t ................................................................................ 1839 1. For the Public ...................................................................... 1839 2. For the C ourts ...................................................................... 1843 C. Distribution of Political Power ................................................... 1844 IV. IMPLICATIONS FOR DOCTRINE AND THEORY ...................................... 1846 A. Doctrine to Reflect Policymaking Practice ................................ 1850 B. Doctrine to Promote Shared Conventions for Interbranch Conversation ......................................................... 1854 C. Doctrine to Incentivize Better Process ...................................... 1856 D. Doctrine to Further Accountability ........................................... 1858 E . R ule of L aw ................................................................................. 1862 C O N CLU SIO N ............................................................................................ 1865 INTRODUCTION Over a lifetime of work as a scholar who is unequalled in his simultaneous devotion to the fields of administrative law and legislation, Peter Strauss's insistence that legal theory and doctrine must take into account the realities of the modern lawmaking and rulemaking processes has charted the course for the next generation of work in the two fields. Strauss was among the first to identify the functional overlap among Congress, courts, and the executive when it comes to how laws are actually made, implemented, and interpreted,' and is one of the most insightful 1. See, e.g., Ronald A. Cass & Peter L. Strauss, The Presidential Signing Statements Controversy, 16 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts.J. 11, 14-21 (2007) (identifying President's dual roles 1792 COLUMBIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 115:1789 and institutionally realist scholars in understanding the challenges for courts in developing doctrines to respond to the increasing complexity of the modem regulatory state.2 These questions loom ever larger today. Our regulatory landscape looks very different