Law both constrains and facilitates policymaking. Administrators are both empowered and limited by law in their creation and implementation of public policy. This course will examine the intersection of law and policy in the modern administrative state and the respective roles played by legislative bodies, executive and independent agencies, and the courts, in the articulation, implementation, and enforcement of policy. The course will also consider the ways in which policy determinations become more or less authoritative as a legal matter, how the various branches of government contribute to that process, and the means by which that process occurs. Because agencies manifest policy determinations principally through enforcement, agency adjudication, and rulemaking procedures, the course will examine these phenomena and will pay particular attention to the respective roles and responsibilities of the three branches of government with respect to them.
