The Patriot Post® · Taking the Administrative State to Task

Whatever happened to government of the people, by the people, for the people?

It’s bad enough that Democrats and Republicans in Congress these days have lost touch with the issues that matter most to their constituents. But politicians are politicians. They always look out for themselves, forgetting about the people they represent — which is why our Founding Fathers created a system of checks and balances.

Then again, the Founders never envisioned the Leviathan that our federal bureaucracy has become. The bloated administrative state is so deep and complex that it wields near-absolute authority over our lives, but without any accountability.

President Donald Trump famously pledged to “drain the Swamp,” but it looks like the deep state is winning bigly by attempting to destroy the man who dared to put up a fight. That and Joe Biden’s henchmen quickly undid most of thing good things Trump did in terms of deregulation. Unlike politicians, we have no power to elect, demote, or otherwise control hundreds of thousands of government busybodies who think they know better.

“There are too many rules for people to know, so they cannot conform their behavior to them,” writes The Heritage Foundation’s GianCarolo Canaparo. “There are too many rules for bureaucrats to enforce equally, so bureaucrats are free to pick and choose their targets,” he adds. “This is the greatest problem of a system of administrative laws: it tends to become a system of no laws at all. It replaces the rule of laws — general, equal and knowable — with the rule of men who enforce unknowable decrees unequally and with absolute discretion. And so, 10,000 little rules become 10,000 little tyrannies.”

This didn’t happen overnight, and Republican administrations have contributed to it as much as the Democrats. But, in fact, it was “progressive” President Woodrow Wilson who more than a century ago envisioned a federal government where so-called “experts” would run the show.

Wilson, who authored Constitutional Government in the United States, was a pedant academic who thought he knew better than the Founders and believed in anything other than constitutional government. The separation of powers was an obstacle to be overcome, he thought, and the executive branch an opportunity to wield power and expand the bureaucracy.

As we wrote way back in 2014: “Political Progressivism — basically the American version of Otto von Bismarck’s German socialism — made its appearance in the late 19th century when exciting new technological wonders seemed to come daily. There were new advances like radio, X-rays, the discovery that tiny bugs caused the plague, and the new theory of human origin. Progressives thought that ‘experts’ in these various fields could better manage the lives of citizens than could those citizens. We see this arrogance today in every IRS bulletin, health care mandate, and EPA regulation.”

Any chance of meaningfully taking on the deep state was dealt a serious blow in 1984, when the Supreme Court established what’s known as Chevron deference in the case of Chevron v. National Resources Defense Council. In simple terms, the Court decided that it would defer to government agencies to interpret government statutes.

Just this year, Biden made a move to give more power to that same oppressive administrative state by signing an executive order giving government agencies power to make regulatory changes without review or approval.

Woodrow Wilson would be proud.

For more than a century now, the expansion of federal agencies has moved us ever closer to tyranny. But there’s hope. A couple of cases coming before the Supreme Court could bring about the deep state’s death knell. One such case is Jarkesy v. Securities and Exchange Commission. Again in simple terms, the SEC, like so many other government agencies, decided it wanted to make rulings in its own courts rather than in federal courts. This power was granted to the SEC when the Dodd-Frank Act was passed into law during the early years of the Obama administration.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes, “The fundamental constitutional problem is that the SEC combines enforcement and judicial power, acting as prosecutor, judge and jury.”

That’s a bad thing, but there are still some reasons to be hopeful.

In May, the Fifth Circuit ruled in Jarkesy’s favor, giving the Supreme Court an opportunity to begin the process of dismantling the administrative state. In June, the Court limited the power of the Environmental Protection Agency. And three dozen members from the House and Senate recently filed a brief supporting a challenge to the Chevron ruling.

Where does the slate of Republican presidential candidates stand on this issue? Donald Trump, for one, continues to speak broadly about taking on the deep state. Others likewise promise to rein it in. But Vivek Ramaswamy has laid out a specific plan to eliminate federal agencies from the FBI to the Department of Education.

After more than a century of steadily creeping administrative tyranny, it’s time to destroy the progressive machine built by Woodrow Wilson and other Democrats. If we can do so, we’ll restore our constitutional system and launch a new wave of freedom across the country.

And we’ll begin to restore government of the people, by the people, for the people.