Law and Leviathan: Redeeming the Administrative State

Winner of the Scribes Book Award

ÒAs brilliantly imaginative as it is urgently timely.Ó
_Richard H. Fallon, Jr., Harvard Law School

ÒAt no time more than the present, a defense of expertise-based governance and administration is sorely needed, and this book provides it with gusto.Ó
_Frederick Schauer, author of The Proof

A highly original framework for restoring confidence in a government bureaucracy increasingly derided as Òthe deep state.Ó

Is the modern administrative state illegitimate? Unconstitutional? Unaccountable? Dangerous? America has long been divided over these questions, but the debate has recently taken on more urgency and spilled into the streets. Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule argue that the administrative state can be redeemed so long as public officials are constrained by morality and guided by stable rules. Officials should make clear rules, ensure transparency, and never abuse retroactivity, so that current guidelines are not under constant threat of change. They should make rules that are understandable and avoid issuing contradictory ones.

These principles may seem simple, but they have a great deal of power. Already, they limit the activities of administrative agencies every day. In more robust form, they could address some of the concerns of critics who decry the Òdeep stateÓ and yearn for its downfall.

ÒHas something to offer both critics and supportersÉa valuable contribution to the ongoing debate over the constitutionality of the modern state.Ó
_Review of Politics

ÒThe authors freely admit that the administrative state is not perfect. But, they contend, it is far better than its critics allow.Ó
_Wall Street Journal