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Adam White Subscribe

Adam White is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on American constitutionalism, the Supreme Court, and the administrative state.

July 9, 2019|Flight 93 Election, Michael Anton, Rhetoric

The Flight from Virtue

by Adam White|

Detail view of the Flight 93 National Memorial in Stoystown, PA (Chicago Photographer/Shutterstock.com).
We have yet to see the days “after” the Flight 93 Election; if anything, we have only begun the Flight 93 Era of American politics.

June 14, 2018|Administrative Procedure Act, Administrative State, Clean Power Plan, Dear Colleague Letters, Regulatory Accountability Act, REINS Act, Trump Administration

The Administrative State under Trump: A Conversation with Adam White

by Adam White|

Adam White discusses President Trump's attempt to rein in regulatory state power.

October 31, 2016|

A (Long) Path to Reforming Our Administrative State

by Adam White|

In response to: Ten Ways for the Next President to Promote the Rule of Law

When Law and Liberty invited me to write on 10 things that a new president could do to promote the rule of law, I was struck by how counterintuitive the question was. After years upon years of debate over presidents pushing the boundaries of the constitutional powers (and not just during the most recent administration, as Philip Wallach stresses), it seemed rather novel to reflect upon ways in which the president himself might promote the rule of law through unilateral action—or, in some cases, unilateral cessation of previous unconstitutional action. Needless to say, my list of ten suggestions was hardly intended…

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More Responses

Wishing for a Goat, Not a Hero

by Philip A. Wallach

Adam White’s Liberty Forum essay offers 10 ways for our 45th President to promote the rule of law, many of which I find appealing. But I fear he could offer a thousand such ideas without much effect, and in the end he concedes that he, too, doubts that Presidents will restrain themselves or their governments…

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Understanding Why and How the Obama Administration Has Flouted the Rule of Law

by Richard Epstein

It is very difficult to take issue with the pessimistic tone of Adam White’s sensible advice to the next President on 10 ways to promote the rule of law. All of the topics that he mentions are understood as serious, systemic weaknesses. When it comes to administrative law, President Obama has a penchant for excessive…

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Coherence in the Executive

by Brian Mannix

I can only applaud the excellent “to do list” in Adam White’s Liberty Forum essay, even as I scan the absentee ballot that I received in September wondering whether any of the leading candidates would have the good sense to give the list the attention it deserves. But we are giving advice here, not forecasting…

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October 4, 2016|

Ten Ways for the Next President to Promote the Rule of Law

by Adam White|

After eight years of President Obama’s administration, conservatives are much more likely to see executive power as a threat to the rule of law than a tool in service of it. Indeed, after 16 years of Presidents Bush and Obama, we are all well accustomed to hearing critics comparing modern Presidents to King George III. (They don’t mean it as a compliment.) But it is a mistake to believe that presidential power is inherently and categorically a threat to the rule of law—quite the contrary. While it is true that presidential power unchecked by Congress, the courts, or the states can…

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Responses

Wishing for a Goat, Not a Hero

by Philip A. Wallach

Adam White’s Liberty Forum essay offers 10 ways for our 45th President to promote the rule of law, many of which I find appealing. But I fear he could offer a thousand such ideas without much effect, and in the end he concedes that he, too, doubts that Presidents will restrain themselves or their governments…

Read More

Understanding Why and How the Obama Administration Has Flouted the Rule of Law

by Richard Epstein

It is very difficult to take issue with the pessimistic tone of Adam White’s sensible advice to the next President on 10 ways to promote the rule of law. All of the topics that he mentions are understood as serious, systemic weaknesses. When it comes to administrative law, President Obama has a penchant for excessive…

Read More

Coherence in the Executive

by Brian Mannix

I can only applaud the excellent “to do list” in Adam White’s Liberty Forum essay, even as I scan the absentee ballot that I received in September wondering whether any of the leading candidates would have the good sense to give the list the attention it deserves. But we are giving advice here, not forecasting…

Read More

A (Long) Path to Reforming Our Administrative State

by Adam White

When Law and Liberty invited me to write on 10 things that a new president could do to promote the rule of law, I was struck by how counterintuitive the question was. After years upon years of debate over presidents pushing the boundaries of the constitutional powers (and not just during the most recent administration,…

Read More

July 17, 2015|

A Great Example of Judicial Restraint

by Adam White|

The Supreme Court is slowly but surely demonstrating, over a series of cases, that the First Amendment cannot plausibly be squared with public sector unions’ court-awarded power to require payments from non-members. The Court’s 1977 decision granting unions that extraordinary power, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, is an anomaly that should be overturned next year in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. Michael Toth makes these points well in his lead essay, as do Daniel DiSalvo, my Manhattan Institute colleague, in his response and in his terrific new book, and John Eastman in his own response. Alongside their comprehensive critiques, I would…

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April 17, 2014|

“Just, Wise, and Constitutional”: Justice Thomas’s Legacy in Law and Politics

by Adam White|

In response to: Understanding Clarence Thomas: The Jurisprudence of Constitutional Restoration

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas

Ralph Rossum has followed his indispensible volume on Justice Scalia with an equally indispensible analysis of Justice Clarence Thomas’s life and work. The two seem destined to be paired forever. Because they share so much in common, each is the other’s best foil. Professor Rossum draws such contrasts expertly, as have Randy Barnett and Lee Strang, among others. Court observers often focus first on the justices’ differences on how best to temper originalist interpretive methods with the prudential limits of stare decisis (differences that Thomas himself thinks are exaggerated). But much more important are the differences in the justices’ basic senses…

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More Responses

Sowing the Seeds of an Originalist Future

by Keith Whittington

Not too long ago, I found myself discussing the U.S. Supreme Court with an acquaintance who does not particularly follow politics. During the conversation, I mentioned the name of Justice Clarence Thomas, which provoked the question, “He’s the one who doesn’t do anything, right?” I suppose there are worse ways that Justice Thomas could be remembered,…

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The Jurisprudence of Constitutional Restoration Is Originalism, but Not All Conceptions of Originalism

by Lee J. Strang

Dr. Ralph Rossum’s most recent book, Understanding Clarence Thomas: The Jurisprudence of Constitutional Restoration, performs the valuable service of cataloguing and synthesizing the jurisprudential work of one of America’s great living jurists. Rossum’s book joins other sympathetic—though not hagiographic—accounts of Justice Thomas’ work, most importantly Professor Scott Douglas Gerber’s First Principles: The Jurisprudence of Clarence…

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Thomas’s Full Throated Originalism: Ralph Rossum Responds

by Ralph Rossum

I am grateful for the thoughtful commentaries and kind words that Keith Whittington, Lee J. Strang, and Adam White have provided on my essay on Clarence Thomas’s jurisprudence of constitutional restoration. Since all three commentaries address the low value that Thomas, as an originalist, places on stare decisis, I will begin there. Antonin Scalia, the Court’s…

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November 14, 2012|Adam White, Dodd-Frank Act, Independent Agencies, NLRB, SEC, Yucca Mountain

The Rise and Rise of Independent Federal Agencies

by Adam White|

This next edition of Liberty Law Talk is a discussion with Adam White, a lawyer in Washington with Boyden Gray & Associates, about the increasing policy significance of independent agencies. White discusses how these agencies have assumed increasing power for implementing policy items that are politically unpalatable but are favored by key segments of a president's political coalition. Analyzed by White in this podcast are the NLRB-Boeing episode, the derailing of the Yucca Mountain nuclear  repository project, and the avalanche of independent agency power delegated by the Dodd-Frank Act.  

March 2, 2012|

“When the facts change, I change my mind”

by Adam White|

In response to: The Decline of the Morals Head of the Police Power Under the First Amendment

Professor Epstein is right to shine a light on the Court’s decisions and analysis in the recent free speech cases, Snyder v. Phelps and Brown v. Entertainment Merchant Association. In each case, the Court embraced unnecessarily absolutist interpretations of the constitutional right to free speech. I say “unnecessarily” absolutist because, in my opinion, the Court’s most glaring failure in each case was its refusal to grapple seriously with factual circumstances presented in each case. And in each case, Justice Alito’s separate opinion demonstrates a much more sensible approach to handling difficult facts. Take Brown, the video game case. The State of…

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More Responses

Protecting the Islands of Speech

by Paul Salamanca

Professor Epstein argues that all textual constitutional rights — most particularly, those pertaining to contracts, property, speech, and religion — should be protected by the same regime.  This argument has intuitive appeal, but he does not defend it, at least not here.  Why should we protect contracts and property as much as speech or religion? …

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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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Recent Posts

  • The Just Restraint of the Vicious

    For some contemporary criminal justice reformers, devotion to ideology leads to illogical conclusions about human nature and character change.
    by Gerard T. Mundy

  • Too Immature to be Punished?

    When I look back on my own life, I think I knew by the age of ten that one should not strangle old ladies in their beds.
    by Theodore Dalrymple

  • A Badge of Discrimination

    The British National Health Service has spoken: Wear the badge or declare yourself to be a bigot.
    by Theodore Dalrymple

  • A Judicial Takeover of Asylum Policy?

    Thuraissigiam threatens to make both the law and the facts in every petition for asylum—and there are thousands of them—a matter for the courts.
    by Thomas Ascik

  • The Environmental Uncertainty Principle

    By engaging in such flagrant projection, the Times has highlighted once again the problem with groupthink in the climate discussion.
    by Paul Schwennesen

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Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

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