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Case Opened: March 4, 2020
Focus Area:
Judicial Deference
Agency: Department of Commerce | National Marine Fisheries Service | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Jurisdiction: SCOTUS | 1st Cir. | D. R.I.
Role: Counsel
Case Opened: December 20, 2023
Focus Area:
Administrative Speech Controls
The Administrative State tries to squelch speech, especially through licensing, speech bans, and speech mandates. Licensing requires one to get the government’s permission prior to speaking. Nothing was more clearly forbidden by the First Amendment than prior restraints on speech, but such controls are now commonplace.
Agency: Securities and Exchange Commission
Role: Counsel
Case Opened: November 5, 2021
Focus Area:
Agency: Centers for Disease Control | National Institutes for Health
Jurisdiction: S.D. Texas
Role: Counsel
Case Status: Closed
Focus Area:
Administrative Speech Controls
The Administrative State tries to squelch speech, especially through licensing, speech bans, and speech mandates. Licensing requires one to get the government’s permission prior to speaking. Nothing was more clearly forbidden by the First Amendment than prior restraints on speech, but such controls are now commonplace.
Agency: Securities and Exchange Commission
Jurisdiction: SCOTUS | 5th Cir. | S.D. NY
Role: Counsel
Case Opened: February 7, 2022
Focus Area:
Unreasonable Searches
The Fourth Amendment forbids warrantless searches and seizures of information, yet the Administrative State violates this right to privacy through administrative subpoenas and warrants, automated information collection devices, civil investigative demands, and “voluntary” requests for information.
Agency: City of Marco Island
Jurisdiction: M.D. Fla.
Role: Counsel
Case Status: Closed
Focus Area:
Agency: Securities and Exchange Commission
Jurisdiction: SCOTUS | 5th Cir. | N.D. Tex.
Role: Counsel
Case Opened: June 17, 2021
Focus Area:
Administrative Speech Controls
The Administrative State tries to squelch speech, especially through licensing, speech bans, and speech mandates. Licensing requires one to get the government’s permission prior to speaking. Nothing was more clearly forbidden by the First Amendment than prior restraints on speech, but such controls are now commonplace.
Agency: Securities and Exchange Commission
Jurisdiction: 5th Cir. | N.D. Tex.
Role: Counsel
Case Opened: August 21, 2020
Focus Area:
Guidance Abuse
Agency guidance is easier to promulgate than formal rules and regulations, so agencies prefer to issue it. Such “guidance” supplies relatively informal indications of how an agency interprets rules and statutes. Although guidance is not permitted to bind Americans (unlike laws made by elected legislators), agencies treat guidance as binding and courts often fail to stop them.
Agency: Securities and Exchange Commission
Jurisdiction: 11th Cir. | M.D. Fla.
Role: Counsel
Case Status: Closed
Focus Area:
Scope of Authority / Nondelegation
The structure of the Constitution allows only Congress to legislate, only the Executive to enforce laws, and only the Judiciary to decide cases. But the Administrative State evades the Constitution’s avenues of governance when executive agencies issue regulations without statutory authorization from Congress.
Agency: Bureau of Prisons
Jurisdiction: D.C.
Role: Counsel
Case Status: Closed
Focus Area:
Agency: Rhode Island Department of Health
Jurisdiction: D. R.I.
Role: Counsel
Case Status: Closed
Focus Area:
Judicial Deference
Deference doctrines require judges to defer to an administrative agency’s fact finding, or its interpretation of statutes and regulations. Thus, judges surrender their independent judgment and, where the government is a party, must exhibit systematic bias in the government’s favor, which denies due process of law to the other litigant.
Agency: Internal Revenue Service
Jurisdiction: Fed. Cir. | Fed. Cl.
Role: Counsel
Case Opened: February 22, 2024
Focus Area:
Scope of Authority / Nondelegation
The structure of the Constitution allows only Congress to legislate, only the Executive to enforce laws, and only the Judiciary to decide cases. But the Administrative State evades the Constitution’s avenues of governance when executive agencies issue regulations without statutory authorization from Congress.
Agency: Department of Energy
Jurisdiction: W.D. Tex.
Role: Counsel