Executive Orders are one source of egregious expansions of administrative power, and NCLA litigators frequently challenge unconstitutional exercises of lawmaking by executive fiat. For example, see NCLA’s recent amicus brief challenging the authority of the Department of Labor to develop and use a non-statutory enforcement regime under the auspices of Executive Order 11246. But…

While the Supreme Court’s ruling to reduce the SEC’s power to inflict so-called “disgorgement’ penalties on its targets is welcome news, it is disappointing that it did not go further. In a narrow win for the Petitioners the Supreme Court held: The Court holds today that a disgorgement award that does not exceed a wrongdoer’s…

Ten years ago, Ray Lucia was a successful San Diego-based financial advisor who through in-person seminars, webinars, books, radio and TV appearances promoted an uncontroversial and academically recognized method of savings for retirement. His “buckets of money” strategy encouraged dividing and diversifying savings among safer to riskier “buckets” and then spending in retirement from the…

Last fall, President Trump issued two Executive Orders aimed at reining in unlawful administrative state action. Together, the orders represented a welcome change for regulated parties, who too often find themselves in regulatory agencies’ crosshairs with little notice or understanding of what, if any, law or regulation they allegedly violated. But the Executive Orders are…

  Most people have heard that “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” but we have to worry before corruption is absolute. Seemingly small, every-day abuses of power can have real effects on our lives and can slowly chip away at our resolve and our faith in government. Power is on the minds of Americans this year more…