Legislation and the Regulatory State

The second edition is now available. Click here for more information.

Legislation and the Regulatory State is unique in several respects. It is perhaps the only "LegReg" offering explicitly designed to build fluency in the concepts and vocabulary of the federal regulatory state. To do so, the volume explains the workings of key federal statutes—the Securities and Exchange Acts, Federal Trade Commission Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, and 1964 Civil Rights Act, among others—in simple, easy-to-understand terms that highlight Congress's regulatory goals as well as the choices lawmakers make when regulating at the federal level.

The book thus serves as a bridge to upper-level administrative law and adjectival courses, in addition to introducing the constitutional aspects of the regulatory state, statutory interpretation, and agency action. The most distinctive feature, however, is what one distinguished early reviewer terms its "laser-focus" on law.

As scholars, professors are deeply interested in topics such as interpretive theory, cost-benefit analysis, and the institutional structure of the federal bureaucracy. Nonetheless, Legislation and the Regulatory State proceeds from the premise that institutional arrangements and judicial decisions rarely adopt academic theories in toto, but instead reflect "a formula upon which opposing social and political forces have come to rest," as the Court said in Vermont Yankee.

The volume therefore emphasizes law in action. It uses statues and doctrine as a springboard for discussion of broader theoretical issues, rather than vice versa.