Christopher DeMuth Presents the Huffman Lecture
Open gallery
November 8, 2021
Christopher DeMuth, a distinguished fellow at Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., with a long career in government and the law, presented the 2021 James L. Huffman Lecture in Honor of the Western Resources Legal Center. The lecture was titled Executive Government and Its Reform.
DeMuth described his talk by stating, “In recent decades, much national lawmaking has shifted from Congress to agencies of the executive branch. The rise of “executive government” has altered the Constitution’s separation-of-powers structure and due-process guarantees and also the nature of American politics. To date, reform proposals have focused on the courts (e.g., to tighten judicial review of executive rule-making and adjudication) and Congress (e.g., to incorporate more specific policy guidance in regulatory statutes). However, these reforms are unlikely to resolve the most serious problems that have been identified. The president, who has played a leading role in regulatory reform efforts in the past, has a critical responsibility for addressing the constitutional and political problems of today’s executive-centered government.”
