You may recall that when the President issued an Executive Order changing the hiring process for Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) to allow agencies to hire with few formalities or limitations I raised the question of whether Trump's order complied with the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) which normally requires that proposed changes to regulations be published in the Federal Register for public comment before they can come into effect. I didn't pursue this issue since I assumed there had to be some obscure provision in the civil service laws that allowed the President to do this. Valerie C. Brannon of the Congressional Research Service (which is part of the Congress) pursued this issue and found that there are serious APA problems with the Trump Executive Order. I doubt that agencies will even try to hire ALJs under the new process.
This Executive Order is an exemplar of the Trump Administration -- trying to heroically and simplistically solve difficult problems with the stroke of a pen while dissembling about the reasons for the actions that are taken (claiming the Order was a response to a Supreme Court decision when it wasn't), all coupled with incompetent execution. If Trump and those who work for him weren't such bumbling fools, he'd be a lot more dangerous.
5 comments:
Did I miss something? From what I understand from Ms. Brannon's article, she seems to conclude that the President was within his powers, but that in order to implement the order, the agencies will need to comply with the APA and publish the procedure. Correct?
"If Trump and those who work for him weren't such bumbling fools, he'd be a lot more dangerous."
I've been saying this for a while now and that's the main problem when calling for impeachment. Pence is the more dangerous option.
I think you are misinterpreting this. All this says is that when OPM moves to implement the order, it must engage in notice and comment rule-making (this is not really news). It doesn't say that the President violated the APA or that the EO was unconstitutional.
1:02 I believe you are correct. Charles has misinterpreted this. It doesn't say the president violated the APA or that the EO was unconstitutional. It merely says that when OPM moves to implement the order (which they have already started to do), they must engage in notice and comment rule making (which is not really new news).
But has OPM engaged in notice an comment rulemaking?
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