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Courts and the Chevron Doctrine

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Courts and the Chevron Doctrine

Courts and the Chevron Doctrine

When and why do federal courts defer to administrative agencies? What is Chevron deference? Professor Christopher Walker of the University of Michigan Law School talks about constitutional problems with Chevron but also outlines some benefits of judicial deference.

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NARRATOR: Thanks for joining this episode of the No. 86 lecture series, where we discuss Administrative Law, including the history of the administrative state and modern debates about its powers. Today’s episode features Christopher J. Walker, who is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker. PUBLIUS: In this episode, I want to focus on the relationship between federal courts and administrative agencies. When do courts review agency actions? CHRIS WALKER: The second half of the Administrative Procedure Act deals with judicial review. In other words, the Administrative Procedure Act sets the default rules for how federal courts should review agency actions. So the agency acts, there's a final agency action, and the Administrative Procedure Act then says that in almost all circumstances, if you're not happy with what the agency did to you, you can go to federal court and seek review. Federal courts don't re-review everything federal agencies do. It's not as if they get to rejudge what happened in an immigration court. Instead, what the Administrative Procedure Act does, is it provides for a very agency friendly, deferential review of those agency actions. For instance, the Administrative Procedure Act says, defer to the agency so long as they didn't act arbitrarily, or didn't abuse its discretion. It doesn't allow, in most circumstances, for the court to reweigh evidence, to hear witnesses or the like. Instead, it's reviewing the administrative record and reviewing it for reasonableness with a very heavy deferential standard. And that's an important compromise that was reached in the Administrative Procedure Act. When you think of judicial review of agency actions, it's helpful to divide the world of judicial review into kind of two separate buckets. On the one hand, courts review how agencies interpret statutes that govern the agency. Those are review of legal questions. On the other hand, courts also review how agencies act. The factual findings they make. The policy decisions they make. These are two different types of judicial review. The reason why we distinguish between questions of law and everything else agencies do when we think about judicial review, gets us back to Marbury vs. Madison. The case where Chief Justice Marshall said that it is the emphatic duty of the courts, of this court, to say what the law is. In other words, when we usually think about interpreting laws, the primary interpreter is the court. Not the agency, not the president, not congress, not the public. Courts really should play that primary role in interpreting saying what the law is. And so, when we're thinking about how to review agency actions, or any action for that matter, we might view factual determinations, policy judgements, in one category. But, when it comes to the law it plays a special role for courts to be the ultimate adjudicator of what the law means. PUBLIUS: What is the Chevron doctrine and where did it come from? CHRIS WALKER: The Chevron doctrine commands courts to defer to agency interpretations of statues that they administer, so long as they're reasonable. In other words, courts do not decide what the meaning of the statutes are, if agencies have the authority to implement that statute. Instead courts have to defer. This Chevron deference doctrine is a bedrock principle of administrative law, and it comes from a decision during the Reagan administration, in 1984. There the environmental protection agency, under president Reagan, was trying to deregulate. They were trying to make it easier for businesses to grow and develop The NRDC opposed this move by the Reagan EPA, because it would not be as stringent in enforcing environmental protections. The case made it all the way up to the Supreme Court, and the question was, can an agency just change its position on a question of law with the definition of stationary sources under the clean air act? Or is it stuck with that position that the prior administration made? At the time, I don't think that the Supreme Court thought it was doing anything remarkable. Justice Stevens, writing the opinion for the Court, said that an agency can change its position, so long as the statute is ambiguous, and the agency's interpretation is reasonable. Now importantly, what the court said was, it is not our duty or responsibility to provide the best interpretation of the statute. We might not agree with the agency that this is the best interpretation of the statute, so long as it is reasonable, the agency wins. And that started, or clarified a deference doctrine that has controlled for the last three decades, how federal courts review agency actions. One reason why we have a law fact distinction in judicial review, why courts review more searching legal questions than factual questions is one of comparative expertise. A court is the expert on saying what the law is. Whereas, they're not the experts, especially appellate courts on determining facts, or making policy judgements. And so, we structure judicial review in a way that a court is reviewing de novo, or saying what the law is. And yet, it's deferring to fact finders to trial courts, to juries, to federal agencies, to presidents, on what factual and policy determinations is. In administrative law, that actually still isn't the case. In administrative law, there's deference doctrines even with respect to factual questions. And that brings us to one of the law hottest debated questions in administrative law today of Chevron deference, the level of deference the court should give to agency interpretations of statutes. PUBLIUS: Does Chevron deference really matter? Does it significantly impact court rulings in favor of agencies or is that exaggerated? CHRIS WALKER: I think it's a mistake to say that Chevron deference doesn't matter. For kind of two different reasons. First, the vast majority of agency rules never make it to the Supreme Court. They're reviewed by the lower courts. By the courts of appeals, and often times by the district courts. And at that level, Chevron deference matters. Kent Barnett and Christy Boyd, at the university of Georgia, and I, have spent the last several years reviewing 11 years of published circuit decisions, over 1,500 decisions in the federal courts of appeals that involve Chevron deference. And our findings have shown the Chevron has a tremendous effect on whether an agency wins before a lower court. In fact, there's a 25 percentage point, in fact, there's a 25 percentage point different between agency win rates when the court decides to apply Chevron and when they don't. So, it's a mistake to argue it doesn't matter. On another level though, beneath the surface, it affects how agencies act, and how parties litigate. I've spent time surveying agency officials at 11 different agencies, asking them about how they draft regulations and interpret statutes. And the tool that most, the biggest winner of the study, the tool that most agency officials said they use, is Chevron deference. And when I asked more about why, how do they use it. Their suggestion, the federal agencies are more aggressive when they know they're going to get Chevron deference than when they're not. That they're going to advance interpretations of statutes that are not as conservative, that are not as faithful to their statutory mandates, when they know that they have a better chance of winning in court. So, if we were to get rid of Chevron deference, or narrow Chevron deference, agencies are going to lose more in court, but more importantly, agencies are then going to adjust how they approach their statutory obligations, and be more faithful to their statutory mandates. PUBLIUS: Are there constitutional issues with Chevron deference? CHRIS WALKER: In recent years, Chevron deference has come under attack by academics, by judges, and on the Hill. For instance, pending in congress is the separation of powers restoration act. Which would eliminate Chevron deference, and tell courts they need to review De Novo, without any deference agency interpretations of law. You also see a number of federal judges criticizing Chevron deference. Most notably Justice Gorsuch at his confirmation hearing, Chevron deference was front and center. Because as a judge on the 10th Circuit court of appeals, had raised constitutional concerns about Chevron. Justice Thomas has raised constitutional concerns about Chevron. And most recently Justice Kennedy has raised constitutional concerns about Chevron. So, what are these constitutional concerns? What's going on? What's wrong with Chevron? Why should we get rid of it? I think before we get to the constitutional concerns, we should return to the Administrative Procedure Act. The Administrative Procedure Act commands courts to determine questions of law and the constitution. There's nothing in the Administrative Procedure Act itself, in the text, that says the court should refer to agencies. Now, there's historical debates about whether deference doctrines were codified, backdrop principles of common law were codified. But, the text itself doesn't say anything about deference. And that's an important fact when we're determining what to do with a deference doctrine. Now, when we're looking at the constitutional concerns, they kind of come in two main flavors. The first is that there's an article three concerns under the constitutional Chevron deference. As Justice Thomas has explained, under Marbury vs. Madison, it's the duty of courts to say what the law is. Chevron deference by contrast says that it's the agency's primary authority to say what the law is. In other words, even if the court thinks an agency's interpretation is the not the best interpretation, the right interpretation of a statute. The court still has to defer, so long as it's reasonable. So, that could raise some article three judicial concerns about Chevron. The other types of concerns that Justice Gorsuch has explored, are the article one concerns. The non delegation concerns. In other words, Chevron deference may encourage congress to delegate too much lawmaking power to federal agencies. And that creates problems of non delegation, because congress isn't playing it's proper role to legislate. And agencies are playing too much of a role. And so, when you combine these two constitutional concerns, with the fact that Administrative Procedure Act says nothing about deference, Chevron deference, you might have an opportunity here to eliminate to doctrine. PUBLIUS: Is it realistic to get rid of Chevron deference? Are there any alternative doctrines that could replace it or improve it? CHRIS WALKER: If we're going to reform the Chevron doctrine, how do you do it? Obviously, the easiest answer would be just to get rid of it. Actually, it's not that easy. There are lots of complications of what will remain if Chevron disappears. Whether there will still be some type of deference or not. But, putting that aside, we're not going to get rid of Chevron deference, what else can we do? Once thing that we can do is something, one way that we can narrow Chevron deference is by adjusting when it applies. One way that the court has done this in recent years is the major questions doctrine. The major question doctrine, featured most prominently in a case called King v. Burwell, which was a statutory challenge to the affordable care act. There were numerous plausible arguments that the statute was ambiguous. And therefore, it should've gotten Chevron deference, and the agency should've won. But, Chief Justice Roberts writing for the court refused to apply Chevron deference. Instead, he invoked the major questions doctrine. And what he said is that when a statutory ambiguity implicates a major question, a question of significant political or economic important. Here, billions of dollars in a market, we're not going to assume that congress intended for the agency to answer that question. Another way is to provide for more search and review of what we call Chevron step one. The question of whether the statute is ambiguous. This was Justice Scalia's approach for a narrow Chevron. . .For Justice Scalia, he seldom ever reached Chevron step two. He almost always found the statute unambiguous. Found no discretion of the agency, because the statute was clear. Most federal judges, however, are much more willing to find statues ambiguous. And so, one way to limit that is to require a more heightened intellectualist inquiry at step one. Another way to limit Chevron deference is to have a more invigorated step two of Chevron. So now, step two of Chevron is the reason most inquiry. After we determine that a statute is ambiguous, the court then proceeds to ask is the agency's interpretation of the statute reasonable? In recent years, the Supreme Court has grafted onto this reasonable requirement, both the substantive reasonable requirement and a procedural reasonable requirement. So, you see now the Supreme Court, for instance, in a case by Justice Kennedy and Encino Motor Cars, saying, if the agency changes its position, it better provide good reasons or it's not going to get Chevron deference. Or if the agency doesn't follow the right procedures, even if substantially it's a reasonably decision, we're not going to give it Chevron deference, because they didn't follow the right procedures. So, when you're thinking about how to reform Chevron deference, short of actually getting rid of it, you have three main options. One, you make it harder for it to apply, by taking a closer look at whether the court thinks that type of ambiguity is one that congress meant to delegate to the agency. Two, you don't find ambiguities as often. You use all the tool of statutory interpretation to figure out what the right answer is. And three, if you do find an ambiguity, the court does a more search and review of both the process and the substance, to figure out whether it was reasonable, and whether it complied with the law. PUBLIUS: Are there any benefits to courts using Chevron deference? CHRIS WALKER: One of the main benefits of Chevron deference is that it removes politics from judicial decision making. In other words, the Chevron court itself recognized this political accountability rationale for Chevron, and said, "You know what, agencies are more politically accountable than courts. So, if we're going to have an interpretation, we should have an agency, whose directed by the president and reports to congress, make that decision." Having just reviewed 11 years of every published circuit court decision dealing with Chevron deference, we have found that it has a powerful constraining role. In other words, judges are much less likely to vote in favor of an agency interpretation that matches their own political preferences when Chevron applies, than when it doesn't. And so, when we're thinking about political accountability, and thinking about what to do with Chevron, if we want to remove politics from judging, Chevron might be one of our strongest tools. Most of the attacks on Chevron deference are coming from conservatives, from the right. And yet, the Chevron doctrine itself is a conservative doctrine. It was born in the Reagan Administration as a way to help agencies deregulate. In a way to remove agencies from the law making process. And it was also born in a way to remove politics from judicial decision making. So that judges don't second guess the political branches. They defer, if the political branches are acting reasonably. And these are core principles of judicial conservatism. Of deference to political branches. Of allowing for elections to matter. For the federal regulatory state to shift, to deregulate, to be able to move in response to electoral politics. If we care about the administrative states vast and deep interactions with it on a daily basis, courts are really only a small part of the answer. If we care about reforming the administrative state, we have to think a lot more about congress' role in oversight, in the legislating, in the controlling federal agencies. And also thinking about the president's role in ensuring that federal agencies act within its proper authority. And so, it's a mistake to think about, or to focus too much on courts as a safe guard in our constitutional republic. But the rise and rise of the administrative state, we have to look to the political branches as well to play their proper role. NARRATOR: Thank you for listening to this episode of the No. 86 Lecture series. The spirit of debate of our Founding Fathers animates all of the No. 86 content, encouraging discussion and critical reflection relative to how each subject is widely understood and taught in law schools and among law students. Subscribe to the No. 86 Lecture series on your favorite podcast platform to have each episode delivered the moment it’s released. You can also go to fedsoc.org/no86 for lectures and videos on Federalism, Separation of Powers, the Judiciary and more. Thanks for listening. See you in class! TRANSCRIPT - VERBATIM FOR YOUTUBE Thanks for joining this episode of the No. 86 lecture series, where we discuss Administrative Law, including the history of the administrative state and modern debates about its powers. Today’s episode features Christopher J. Walker, who is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. As always, the Federalist Society takes no position on particular legal or public policy issues; all expressions of opinion are those of the speaker. In this episode, I want to focus on the relationship between federal courts and administrative agencies. When do courts review agency actions? The second half of the Administrative Procedure Act deals with judicial review. In other words, the Administrative Procedure Act sets the default rules for how federal courts should review agency actions. So the agency acts, there's a final agency action, and the Administrative Procedure Act then says that in almost all circumstances, if you're not happy with what the agency did to you, you can go to federal court and seek review. Federal courts don't re-review everything federal agencies do. It's not as if they get to rejudge what happened in an immigration court. Instead, what the Administrative Procedure Act does, is it provides for a very agency friendly, deferential review of those agency actions. For instance, the Administrative Procedure Act says, defer to the agency so long as they didn't act arbitrarily, or didn't abuse its discretion. It doesn't allow, in most circumstances, for the court to reweigh evidence, to hear witnesses or the like. Instead, it's reviewing the administrative record and reviewing it for reasonableness with a very heavy deferential standard. And that's an important compromise that was reached in the Administrative Procedure Act. When you think of judicial review of agency actions, it's helpful to divide the world of judicial review into kind of two separate buckets. On the one hand, courts review how agencies interpret statutes that govern the agency. Those are review of legal questions. On the other hand, courts also review how agencies act. The factual findings they make. The policy decisions they make. These are two different types of judicial review. The reason why we distinguish between questions of law and everything else agencies do when we think about judicial review, gets us back to Marbury vs. Madison. The case where Chief Justice Marshall said that it is the emphatic duty of the courts, of this court, to say what the law is. In other words, when we usually think about interpreting laws, the primary interpreter is the court. Not the agency, not the president, not congress, not the public. Courts really should play that primary role in interpreting saying what the law is. And so, when we're thinking about how to review agency actions, or any action for that matter, we might view factual determinations, policy judgements, in one category. But, when it comes to the law it plays a special role for courts to be the ultimate adjudicator of what the law means. What is the Chevron doctrine and where did it come from? The Chevron doctrine commands courts to defer to agency interpretations of statues that they administer, so long as they're reasonable. In other words, courts do not decide what the meaning of the statutes are, if agencies have the authority to implement that statute. Instead courts have to defer. This Chevron deference doctrine is a bedrock principle of administrative law, and it comes from a decision during the Reagan administration, in 1984. There the environmental protection agency, under president Reagan, was trying to deregulate. They were trying to make it easier for businesses to grow and develop The NRDC opposed this move by the Reagan EPA, because it would not be as stringent in enforcing environmental protections. The case made it all the way up to the Supreme Court, and the question was, can an agency just change its position on a question of law with the definition of stationary sources under the clean air act? Or is it stuck with that position that the prior administration made? At the time, I don't think that the Supreme Court thought it was doing anything remarkable. Justice Stevens, writing the opinion for the Court, said that an agency can change its position, so long as the statute is ambiguous, and the agency's interpretation is reasonable. Now importantly, what the court said was, it is not our duty or responsibility to provide the best interpretation of the statute. We might not agree with the agency that this is the best interpretation of the statute, so long as it is reasonable, the agency wins. And that started, or clarified a deference doctrine that has controlled for the last three decades, how federal courts review agency actions. One reason why we have a law fact distinction in judicial review, why courts review more searching legal questions than factual questions is one of comparative expertise. A court is the expert on saying what the law is. Whereas, they're not the experts, especially appellate courts on determining facts, or making policy judgements. And so, we structure judicial review in a way that a court is reviewing de novo, or saying what the law is. And yet, it's deferring to fact finders to trial courts, to juries, to federal agencies, to presidents, on what factual and policy determinations is. In administrative law, that actually still isn't the case. In administrative law, there's deference doctrines even with respect to factual questions. And that brings us to one of the law hottest debated questions in administrative law today of Chevron deference, the level of deference the court should give to agency interpretations of statutes. Does Chevron deference really matter? Does it significantly impact court rulings in favor of agencies or is that exaggerated? I think it's a mistake to say that Chevron deference doesn't matter. For kind of two different reasons. First, the vast majority of agency rules never make it to the Supreme Court. They're reviewed by the lower courts. By the courts of appeals, and often times by the district courts. And at that level, Chevron deference matters. Kent Barnett and Christy Boyd, at the university of Georgia, and I, have spent the last several years reviewing 11 years of published circuit decisions, over 1,500 decisions in the federal courts of appeals that involve Chevron deference. And our findings have shown the Chevron has a tremendous effect on whether an agency wins before a lower court. In fact, there's a 25 percentage point, in fact, there's a 25 percentage point different between agency win rates when the court decides to apply Chevron and when they don't. So, it's a mistake to argue it doesn't matter. On another level though, beneath the surface, it affects how agencies act, and how parties litigate. I've spent time surveying agency officials at 11 different agencies, asking them about how they draft regulations and interpret statutes. And the tool that most, the biggest winner of the study, the tool that most agency officials said they use, is Chevron deference. And when I asked more about why, how do they use it. Their suggestion, the federal agencies are more aggressive when they know they're going to get Chevron deference than when they're not. That they're going to advance interpretations of statutes that are not as conservative, that are not as faithful to their statutory mandates, when they know that they have a better chance of winning in court. So, if we were to get rid of Chevron deference, or narrow Chevron deference, agencies are going to lose more in court, but more importantly, agencies are then going to adjust how they approach their statutory obligations, and be more faithful to their statutory mandates. Are there constitutional issues with Chevron deference? In recent years, Chevron deference has come under attack by academics, by judges, and on the Hill. For instance, pending in congress is the separation of powers restoration act. Which would eliminate Chevron deference, and tell courts they need to review De Novo, without any deference agency interpretations of law. You also see a number of federal judges criticizing Chevron deference. Most notably Justice Gorsuch at his confirmation hearing, Chevron deference was front and center. Because as a judge on the 10th Circuit court of appeals, had raised constitutional concerns about Chevron. Justice Thomas has raised constitutional concerns about Chevron. And most recently Justice Kennedy has raised constitutional concerns about Chevron. So, what are these constitutional concerns? What's going on? What's wrong with Chevron? Why should we get rid of it? I think before we get to the constitutional concerns, we should return to the Administrative Procedure Act. The Administrative Procedure Act commands courts to determine questions of law and the constitution. There's nothing in the Administrative Procedure Act itself, in the text, that says the court should refer to agencies. Now, there's historical debates about whether deference doctrines were codified, backdrop principles of common law were codified. But, the text itself doesn't say anything about deference. And that's an important fact when we're determining what to do with a deference doctrine. Now, when we're looking at the constitutional concerns, they kind of come in two main flavors. The first is that there's an article three concerns under the constitutional Chevron deference. As Justice Thomas has explained, under Marbury vs. Madison, it's the duty of courts to say what the law is. Chevron deference by contrast says that it's the agency's primary authority to say what the law is. In other words, even if the court thinks an agency's interpretation is the not the best interpretation, the right interpretation of a statute. The court still has to defer, so long as it's reasonable. So, that could raise some article three judicial concerns about Chevron. The other types of concerns that Justice Gorsuch has explored, are the article one concerns. The non delegation concerns. In other words, Chevron deference may encourage congress to delegate too much lawmaking power to federal agencies. And that creates problems of non delegation, because congress isn't playing it's proper role to legislate. And agencies are playing too much of a role. And so, when you combine these two constitutional concerns, with the fact that Administrative Procedure Act says nothing about deference, Chevron deference, you might have an opportunity here to eliminate to doctrine. Is it realistic to get rid of Chevron deference? Are there any alternative doctrines that could replace it or improve it? If we're going to reform the Chevron doctrine, how do you do it? Obviously, the easiest answer would be just to get rid of it. Actually, it's not that easy. There are lots of complications of what will remain if Chevron disappears. Whether there will still be some type of deference or not. But, putting that aside, we're not going to get rid of Chevron deference, what else can we do? Once thing that we can do is something, one way that we can narrow Chevron deference is by adjusting when it applies. One way that the court has done this in recent years is the major questions doctrine. The major question doctrine, featured most prominently in a case called King v. Burwell, which was a statutory challenge to the affordable care act. There were numerous plausible arguments that the statute was ambiguous. And therefore, it should've gotten Chevron deference, and the agency should've won. But, Chief Justice Roberts writing for the court refused to apply Chevron deference. Instead, he invoked the major questions doctrine. And what he said is that when a statutory ambiguity implicates a major question, a question of significant political or economic important. Here, billions of dollars in a market, we're not going to assume that congress intended for the agency to answer that question. Another way is to provide for more search and review of what we call Chevron step one. The question of whether the statute is ambiguous. This was Justice Scalia's approach for a narrow Chevron. . .For Justice Scalia, he seldom ever reached Chevron step two. He almost always found the statute unambiguous. Found no discretion of the agency, because the statute was clear. Most federal judges, however, are much more willing to find statues ambiguous. And so, one way to limit that is to require a more heightened intellectualist inquiry at step one. Another way to limit Chevron deference is to have a more invigorated step two of Chevron. So now, step two of Chevron is the reason most inquiry. After we determine that a statute is ambiguous, the court then proceeds to ask is the agency's interpretation of the statute reasonable? In recent years, the Supreme Court has grafted onto this reasonable requirement, both the substantive reasonable requirement and a procedural reasonable requirement. So, you see now the Supreme Court, for instance, in a case by Justice Kennedy and Encino Motor Cars, saying, if the agency changes its position, it better provide good reasons or it's not going to get Chevron deference. Or if the agency doesn't follow the right procedures, even if substantially it's a reasonably decision, we're not going to give it Chevron deference, because they didn't follow the right procedures. So, when you're thinking about how to reform Chevron deference, short of actually getting rid of it, you have three main options. One, you make it harder for it to apply, by taking a closer look at whether the court thinks that type of ambiguity is one that congress meant to delegate to the agency. Two, you don't find ambiguities as often. You use all the tool of statutory interpretation to figure out what the right answer is. And three, if you do find an ambiguity, the court does a more search and review of both the process and the substance, to figure out whether it was reasonable, and whether it complied with the law. Are there any benefits to courts using Chevron deference? One of the main benefits of Chevron deference is that it removes politics from judicial decision making. In other words, the Chevron court itself recognized this political accountability rationale for Chevron, and said, "You know what, agencies are more politically accountable than courts. So, if we're going to have an interpretation, we should have an agency, whose directed by the president and reports to congress, make that decision." Having just reviewed 11 years of every published circuit court decision dealing with Chevron deference, we have found that it has a powerful constraining role. In other words, judges are much less likely to vote in favor of an agency interpretation that matches their own political preferences when Chevron applies, than when it doesn't. And so, when we're thinking about political accountability, and thinking about what to do with Chevron, if we want to remove politics from judging, Chevron might be one of our strongest tools. Most of the attacks on Chevron deference are coming from conservatives, from the right. And yet, the Chevron doctrine itself is a conservative doctrine. It was born in the Reagan Administration as a way to help agencies deregulate. In a way to remove agencies from the law making process. And it was also born in a way to remove politics from judicial decision making. So that judges don't second guess the political branches. They defer, if the political branches are acting reasonably. And these are core principles of judicial conservatism. Of deference to political branches. Of allowing for elections to matter. For the federal regulatory state to shift, to deregulate, to be able to move in response to electoral politics. If we care about the administrative states vast and deep interactions with it on a daily basis, courts are really only a small part of the answer. If we care about reforming the administrative state, we have to think a lot more about congress' role in oversight, in the legislating, in the controlling federal agencies. And also thinking about the president's role in ensuring that federal agencies act within its proper authority. And so, it's a mistake to think about, or to focus too much on courts as a safe guard in our constitutional republic. But the rise and rise of the administrative state, we have to look to the political branches as well to play their proper role. Thank you for listening to this episode of the No. 86 Lecture series. The spirit of debate of our Founding Fathers animates all of the No. 86 content, encouraging discussion and critical reflection relative to how each subject is widely understood and taught in law schools and among law students. Subscribe to the No. 86 Lecture series on your favorite podcast platform to have each episode delivered the moment it’s released. You can also go to fedsoc.org/no86 for lectures and videos on Federalism, Separation of Powers, the Judiciary and more. Thanks for listening. See you in class!

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