The Life of the Law: What Has Happened Since 1946?

On June 11, 1946, President Truman signed the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) into law, and it was intended to be “a bill of rights for the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose affairs are controlled or regulated in one way or another by agencies of the Federal Government,” according to its lead sponsor in the Senate. If we were to redesign the APA for today’s version of the administrative state, what would it be? To mark the 75th anniversary of the APA, on June 11, 2021, the Gray Center hosted a conference gathering many of the George Mason Law Review Symposium Issue authors together at the Historic Decatur House in DC for an afternoon of conversations on this and related questions.

The second panel session, titled “The Life of the Law: What Has Happened Since 1946?” centered on papers by four Symposium Issue authors: The Honorable Ronald A. Cass, Aaron L. Nielson, Richard J. Pierce, Jr., and Stuart Shapiro. The panel session was moderated by Jennifer Mascott, Co-Executive Director of the Gray Center, who also gave opening remarks, along with Adam White. Links to the papers by this panel’s authors are available below, and the videos from the entire event as well as all Symposium Issue papers are available at https://administrativestate.gmu.edu/events/the-75th-anniversary-of-the-apa-the-george-mason-law-reviews-3rd-annual-symposium-on-administrative-law/.

This episode features Ronald Cass, Jennifer Mascott, Aaron Nielson, Richard Pierce, Stuart Shapiro, and Adam White.

Papers discussed during this panel session include:

“Rulemaking Then and Now: From Management to Lawmaking” by Ronald Cass, available at: https://lawreview.gmu.edu/print__issues/rulemaking-then-and-now-from-management-to-lawmaking/

“Three Wrong Turns in Agency Adjudication” by Aaron Nielson, available at: https://lawreview.gmu.edu/print__issues/three-wrong-turns-in-agency-adjudication/

“Agency Adjudication: It Is Time to Hit the Reset Button” by Richard Pierce, available at: https://lawreview.gmu.edu/print__issues/agency-adjudication-it-is-time-to-hit-the-reset-button/

“The Impossibility of Legislative Regulatory Reform and the Futility of Executive Regulatory Reform” by Stuart Shapiro, available at: https://lawreview.gmu.edu/print__issues/the-impossibility-of-legislative-regulatory-reform-and-the-futility-of-executive-regulatory-reform/