While sometimes portrayed as merely a threat to big business, the true victims of the Administrative State are small to medium-sized businesses. NCLA’s cases, Polyweave Packaging v. DOT and gH Package Product Testing and Consulting v. DOT, are each case studies of such practices, which demonstrate the material effects of agencies’ unconstitutional procedures on hardworking Americans. Small businesses…

The Administrative State has nearly every aspect of American life under its thumb. Many Americans have developed Stockholm syndrome-like feelings toward the deep state, crediting clean rivers, uncontaminated food, and safe airline travel to the virtue-laden hearts of unelected bureaucrats with no constituents to answer to. But what if we escaped our captors? What if…

The Constitution allows the government to express its views from the bully pulpit but prohibits bullying people into silence. The government generally may select its views and say what it wishes. But the Supreme Court made clear in Bantam Books v. Sullivan (1963) that government may not resort to even “informal sanctions,” such as “the threat of invoking…

The government recently had an opportunity to attempt to convince a federal court why efforts to abridge United States citizens’ disfavored political speech are consistent with the First Amendment. As explained in NCLA’s Missouri v. Biden case, ever since 2016, the federal government has become more interested in monitoring and managing what circulates on social media. With…

In an op-ed published last fall by Law360, I called out the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its appalling dereliction of duty in refusing to decide administrative appeals from enforcement sanctions imposed by the agency’s administrative law judges (ALJs). To summarize, more than two years ago the SEC simply stopped deciding those appeals, trapping the beleaguered…

In March 2021, the New Civil Liberties Alliance launched its First Annual King George III Prize, calling out the worst abusers of Americans’ civil liberties. Two years and 96 nominations later, we are nearing the final round of the third installment of what we came to call “The Georgies!” The Georgies?! Are We Serious? While…