John Lewis

The Trump administration has made clear that it is going to use AI to supercharge deregulation. What do the doctrines of administrative law have to say about AI? A new Issue Brief from me and GFI explores that question.
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This also came up in the litigation over the sanctuary cities EO in Trump I, with the Ninth Circuit at least holding that these sorts of ambiguous savings clauses can't override clear and specific provisions that are unconstitutional.

A third option is that it’s governing like it thinks that Democrats won’t use the same tools as aggressively if they ever manage to return to power, which is…not entirely unfounded.

Can you unpack that a little? Even setting aside the rule-of-law and legitimacy issues, an opinion that made bad law would still give litigators an opportunity to navigate around whatever principles the court laid out—as in the California funding case where litigators have found ways to distinguish.

Affirmative action for conservatives is apparently the only form of affirmative action that’s still permitted.

Pathways to “Universal” Relief After Trump v. CASA CASA’s reasoning left open multiple avenues for litigants seeking to obtain broad relief against unlawful executive actions

It misses several pathways — vacatur and stays under the APA, for sure, but also suits by associations, organizations, states, and broad coalitions of plaintiffs. www.justsecurity.org/116162/unive...

It looks like Cooper & Kirk is actually just representing an amicus, so that must be an error. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

And vacates the rule nationwide, without even mentioning CASA’s restrictions on universal injunctions. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, so expect challengers to Trump administration rules to continue seeking the same relief.

Unforgivable.

Terminated NIH grants are being reinstated almost entirely in blue states Researchers in Democratic congressional districts stand to have $2.1 billion in NIH grants reinstated, compared to $62 million in Republican districts.

Republican-led states may also come to regret CASA, to the extent it makes it less likely that Democrat-led states will obtain nationwide injunctions that they can free-ride off of. See this great STAT piece: www.statnews.com/2025/07/03/n...

Too late to include in our piece, but add this decision by Judge Bates to the list of post-CASA vacatur.

Out this morning, my colleague @j-p-a.bsky.social and I explain how plaintiffs can still seek universal relief after CASA, including through the Administrative Procedure Act's remedies and/or by framing broad injunctions as necessary to provide "complete relief" to specific plaintiff types.

By curbing injunctive relief, but signaling that vacatur may present a different question, the decision might just encourage further direct presidential action to which the APA doesn’t apply. That also seems somewhat asymmetric since progressive priorities tend to require action through agencies.

Checks and Balances: Deregulation Based on Supreme Court Rulings Among the points emphasized by the second Trump administration has been a major push for deregulatio...

ICYMI, I was on this panel earlier this month to discuss President Trump's unlawful memorandum directing agencies to immediately repeal rules that they believe are unlawful - video now available.

But the preceding text contains the interpretation that the quoted post was responding to—that ICE has determined that field offices categorically don’t qualify as detention facilities. Granted, that issue maybe isn’t clear cut, but it does seem true that they’re barring members from them.

The Legal Defects in the Trump Administration’s Attempts to Deregulate Without Notice and Comment The Trump administration's efforts to circumvent the APA's notice-and-comment requirements risk setting a damaging precedent.

Efforts to sidestep the APA’s rulemaking process may be unlikely to survive legal scrutiny. A new analysis from Adam Grogg and @jtlew3.bsky.social breaks down why.

www.justsecurity.org/114539/trump...

Somebody should be pointing out that this could just as easily impede conservative litigants; the bond required in one of Texas’s Biden-era immigration challenges could have been immense under this standard.

She’s the acting head; Trump’s nominee to run OLC on a permanent basis is this guy. ohiosenate.gov/news/the-dem...

More evidence that CFPB is using non-enforcement to kill off protections for consumers - wrote about this back in April. www.yalejreg.com/nc/enforcing...

Doesn’t the instruction “to coordinate with the Governors of the States” (plural) “in identifying and ordering into Federal service the appropriate members and units of the National Guard” suggest that Trump may be seeking to deploy other state national guards to circumvent Newsom?

This seems to be the converse of the Trump administration’s efforts to use settlements to wipe away *federal* rules they dislike without going through normal processes, e.g. acquiescing in the vacatur of CFPB rules, the forced reset trigger settlement, etc.

Increasingly seeing efforts by the Trump administration to enter settlements with private parties to rescind rules without going through lawful processes.

💡 JUST RELEASED: Governing for Impact's Administrative Procedure Act Library! The Library aims to provide explanations of key concepts in administrative law and litigation to assist litigators and non-litigators alike in holding the Trump administration accountable.

English v. Trump case caption

Throwback to Trump 1!

U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration—Application of the Impoundment Control Act to Memorandum Suspending Approval of State Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Deployment Plans The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program is a formula grant program authorized by the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and...

The GAO today found that the Trump Administration violated the Impoundment Control Act by suspending approval of state plans and stopping spending money for the electric vehicle infrastructure program created by President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. www.gao.gov/products/b-3...

This seems too strong--we can both acknowledge that the Trump administration's actions are exceptionally unreasoned and lawless, and acknowledge that the APA has been a stumbling block to effective agency governance, as this brilliant piece by @srf1802.bsky.social and Brad Lipton notes.

SG's stay application doesn't acknowledge that a big part of the reason DOGE is in this mess is its attempt to act as an agency for some purposes (the Economy Act) but not others (FOIA). We explained here.

For more on why these sorts of notices are unlawful and might be subject to challenge, here's our primer

They've now issued virtually identical notices for three separate rules! (Buy Now Pay Later, Nonbank Registry, Payday Lending) Under the APA, agencies can't just nullify notice-and-comment rules, but that's exactly what they're doing, and will keep doing until someone calls them out. See also:

Stay tuned for more – if there’s a thorny question of administrative law that you’re interested in, we probably are too! 6/end