The administrative state is preparing for former President Donald Trump to win reelection by implementing a surge of bureaucratic regulations before a deadline that renders them difficult to undue by a potential Trump administration.
Trump vowed to drain the administrative state or “deep state,” as he termed it, upon returning to office. Trump successfully deleted many of the administrative states’ rules during his presidency. Biden reinstated some of them.
The term “administrative state” specifically describes the phenomenon of unaccountable and unelected administrative agencies, including the national security apparatus, exercising power to create and enforce their own rules. The administrative state uses its rule-making ability to essentially usurp the separation of powers between the three branches of government by creating a so-called fourth branch of government not formed by the Constitution.
Biden’s administrative state in recent months appears to be working overtime to cement his agenda into the fabric of America. For example, the administrative state implemented 66 significant rules in April alone, a number that is greater than any month since the Reagan administration, a Regulatory Studies Center analysis found.
Biden’s administrative state published 111 more regulations than Trump implemented at the same point in his term, Axios reported. Many of the rules will protect the progressive agenda of “climate change,” such as limiting auto tailpipe emissions and forcing power plants to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
The rules implemented during an upcoming “lookback period” can be reversed in a potential Trump administration via the Congressional Review Act. Any rules put into action before the deadline cannot be reversed. When the “lookback period” begins in 2024 is murky, but Axios reported Biden’s deadline to range between next week and September.
That means Biden has little time to cement his radical left agenda within the administrative state, Steven Balla, co-director of George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center, told Axios.
The administrative state holds significant institutional power because elected federal lawmakers essentially abdicate their legislative authority, according to experts at conservative think tanks. Many conservative experts believe lawmakers should accomplish more legislative business and perform fewer public relations stunts that grow their political brand.
Many America First conservatives are working to alter the incentive structure. “The President never had a policy process that was designed to give him what he actually wanted and campaigned on,” Russell Vought, Trump’s former director of the Office of Management and Budget, previously told Time. “[We are] sorting through the legal authorities, the mechanics, and providing the momentum for a future Administration.”
Before Trump left office in 2021, he signed an executive order (EO) to reclassify federal government employees into Schedule F, which would have allowed the president to enhance accountability and job performance within the bureaucratic agencies. “You have some people that are protected that shouldn’t be protected,” Trump said in May about Schedule F.
Biden canceled the order when he assumed office in 2021, but if Trump reclaims the White House, he will reportedly reimplement the executive order and purge the unelected technocrats artificially running the federal government. “It would effectively upend the modern civil service, triggering a shock wave across the bureaucracy,” Axios previously concluded about the EO’s impact.
“The mere mention of Schedule F,” added Vought, “ensures that the bureaucracy moves in your direction.”