Top Law Prof: Kavanaugh Likely to Help Bring Administrative State 'To Heel'

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh may be President Donald Trump's way of reining in federal administrative law, says Jonathan Adler, a professor and director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

"In Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump may not have found a justice to 'deconstruct the administrative state' — in [former Trump adviser] Steve Bannon's formulation — but he has found one who will help bring it to heel," Adler writes in an opinion piece published Monday in The New York Times.

Adler says that for years, "Kavanaugh has toiled in the vineyards of administrative law, writing highly influential opinions on regulatory matters and demonstrating a willingness to discipline federal agencies when they go astray."

His opinions show "someone who takes administrative law principles to heart. Federal regulatory agencies are not provided for in the Constitution. Instead, agencies get their power from Congress."

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