Congress and the Administrative State: Delegation, Nondelegation, and Un-Delegation

Registration is now closed. Please contact the event planner with any questions. 

On behalf of the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State, I’m pleased to invite you to the Center’s next public policy conference: “Congress and the Administrative State: Delegation, Nondelegation, and Un-Delegation.”

“Agencies are creatures of Congress,” Chief Justice Roberts has observed. “[A]n agency literally has no power to act . . . unless and until Congress confers power upon it.” And, to that end, Congress has conferred immense powers upon agencies. 

But do exceptionally broad grants of power raise constitutional concerns? And, if so, are courts well suited to draw lines between constitutional grants of power and unconstitutional ones?

Our conference will bring together scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to discuss Congress’s delegations and the Supreme Court’s nondelegation doctrines. The panel discussions will center around significant new scholarship by Cary Coglianese, Brenner Fissell, Adam Gustafson, Paul Larkin, Jr., Jennifer Mascott, Joseph Postell, and David Schoenbrod. And the conference will feature keynote remarks by nationally syndicated columnist, George F. Will.

We hope you will join us.

Agenda

8:15 – 8:55 am : Registration and Breakfast, Founders Hall, Multi-Purpose Room

8:55 – 9:00 am : Welcome, Founders Hall Auditorium

Adam White, Executive Director, The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State and Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

9:00 – 10:25 am : Panel 1: The Nondelegation Doctrine, Reconsidered

Cary Coglianese, Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science; and Director, Penn Program on Regulation, University of Pennsylvania Law School

Ambassador C. Boyden Gray, Founding Partner, Boyden Gray & Associates PLLC, and Senior Fellow, C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State

Jennifer Mascott, Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University 

Alan B. Morrison, Lerner Family Associate Dean for Public Interest and Public Service Law; Professorial Lecturer in Law, The George Washington University Law School

Moderator: Adam White, Executive Director, The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State and Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

10:25 – 10:35 am : Break

10:35 am – 11:50 am : Panel 2: Why Does Congress Delegate Power? 

Jonathan Burks, Former Chief of Staff to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan

Joseph Postell, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

David S. Schoenbrod, Trustee Professor of Law, New York Law School

Michael M. Uhlmann, Professor, Department of Politics and Government, Claremont Graduate University

Moderator: Melanie Marlowe, Lecturer, Georgetown Center for Security Studies              

11:50 – 12:00 pm : Break

12:00 – 1:25 pm : Lunch & Keynote, Founders Hall, Multi-Purpose Room

George F. Will, Syndicated Columnist 

1:25 – 1:35 pm : Break

1:35 – 2:35 pm : Panel 3: Delegations and Criminal Law  

Brenner Fissell, Associate Professor of Law, Maurice A. Deane School of Law, Hofstra University

Carissa Byrne Hessick, the Ransdell Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Prosecutors and Politics Project, University of North Carolina School of Law

Moderator: Craig Lerner, Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University 

2:35 – 3:35 pm : Panel 4: Delegations to Private Actors  

Paul J. Larkin, Jr., The John, Barbara & Victoria Rumpel Senior Legal Research Fellow, The Heritage Foundation

Kimberly Wehle, Professor of Law, University of Baltimore, School of Law

Moderator: JoAnn Koob, Director, Liberty & Law Center, and Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University

3:35 – 3:50 pm : Break

3:50 – 5:15 pm : Panel 5: Chevron, Nondelegation, and the "Major Questions" Doctrine

Adam Gustafson, Partner, Boyden Gray & Associates 

Ilya Shapiro, Director, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute

Rena Steinzor, Edward M. Robertson Professor, University of Maryland Carey Law School

Moderator: Andrew Kloster, Deputy Director, The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State 

5:15 pm : Adjourn

About the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State

The C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State is dedicated to fostering significant legal scholarship on new and timeless questions about the modern administrative state, in order to elevate and improve debates occurring in the courts, in Congress, in the executive branch, and in the broader public.

Since its founding in 2015, initially under the leadership of Professor Neomi Rao and now Professor Adam White, the Gray Center has hosted countless scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to research and debate the constitutional and practical issues of administrative power and discretion.

At George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, across the Potomac River from our nation’s capital, the Gray Center serves as a bridge between the work of academia and the work of courts, Congress, the executive branch, and private practitioners. Learn more at administrativestate.gmu.edu.