Federalism at Step Zero

Fordham Law Review

Volumn 83, Issue 2, 2014, Pages 633-654

  Seifter, Miriam ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN LAW SCHOOL   (United States)

^b GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84925399806     PISSN: 0015704X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (96)

1. City of Arlington v. FCC, 133 S. Ct. 1863 (2013)
2. Cuomo v. Clearing House Ass'n, L.L.C., 557 U.S. 519 (2009)
3. Wyeth v. Levine, 555 U.S. 555 (2009)
4. Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc., 552 U.S. 312, 329-30 (2008)
5. Watters v. Wachovia Bank, N.A., 550 U.S. 1 (2007)
6. Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U.S. 243 (2006)
7. Smiley v. Citibank (S.D.), N.A., 517 U.S. 735 (1996)
8. Gillian E. Metzger, Administrative Law As the New Federalism, 57 DUKE L.J. 2023 (2008)
9. Jacob E. Gersen, Overlapping and Underlapping Jurisdiction in Administrative Law, 2006 SUP. CT. REV. 201, 202-03.
10. Miriam Seifter, States, Agencies, and Legitimacy, 67 VAND. L. REV. 443, 446-47 (2014).
11. DANIEL ELAZAR, AMERICAN FEDERALISM: A VIEW FROM THE STATES (2d ed. 1972)
12. JOHN D. NUGENT, SAFEGUARDING FEDERALISM (2009)
13. Larry Kramer, Understanding Federalism, 47 VAND. L. REV. 1485 (1994).
14. Peter M. Shane & Christopher J. Walker, Foreword: Chevron at 30: Looking Back and Looking Forward, 83 FORDHAM L. REV. 475 (2014).
15. Scott A. Keller, How Courts Can Protect State Autonomy from Federal Administrative Encroachment, 82 S. CAL. L. REV. 45, 50 (2008).
16. Rick Hills, How Did Scalia's Anti-Federalism Bluster in City of Arlington v. FCC Go Unnoticed by Six Justices?, PRAWFSBLAWG (May 24, 2013, 11:35 AM), http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2013/05/scalias-odd-view-of-federalism-in-city-of-arlington-v-fcc.html.
17. William N. Eskridge, Jr., Vetogates, Chevron, Preemption, 83 NOTRE DAME L. REV. 1441, 1471 (2008)
18. Nina A. Mendelson, Chevron and Preemption, 102 MICH. L. REV. 737, 742 (2004)
19. Thomas W. Merrill, Preemption and Institutional Choice, 102 NW. U. L. REV. 727, 730 (2008)
20. Cass R. Sunstein, Nondelegation Canons, 67 U. CHI. L. REV. 315, 331 (2000)
21. Damien J. Marshall, Note, The Application of Chevron Deference in Regulatory Preemption Cases, 87 GEO. L.J. 263, 278 (1998)
22. The Supreme Court, 2008 Term - Leading Cases, Preemption of State Common Law Claims, 123 HARV. L. REV. 262, 271 (2009).
23. Skidmore v. Swift & Co., 323 U.S. 134 (1944).
24. Catherine M. Sharkey, Preemption by Preamble: Federal Agencies and the Federalization of Tort Law, 56 DEPAUL L. REV. 227, 256-57 (2007)
25. Ernest A. Young, Executive Preemption, 102 NW. U. L. REV. 869, 883, 891 (2008)
26. City of Arlington v. FCC, 133 S. Ct. 1863, 1877-78 (2013)
27. Util. Air Regulatory Grp. v. EPA, 134 S. Ct. 2427, 2444 (2014).
28. 533 U.S. 218 (2001).
29. 133 S. Ct. 1863 (2013)
30. Jack M. Beermann, Chevron at the Roberts Court: Still Failing After All These Years, 83 FORDHAM L. REV. 731, 741-43 (2014)
31. Kristin E. Hickman, The Three Phases of Mead, 83 FORDHAM L. REV. 527, 528-30 (2014)
32. Thomas W. Merrill, Step Zero After City of Arlington, 83 FORDHAM L. REV. 753, 556-58 (2014)
33. Peter L. Strauss, In Search of Skidmore, 83 FORDHAM L. REV. 789, 792-93 (2014).
34. Catherine M. Sharkey, State Farm "with Teeth": Heightened Judicial Review in the Absence of Executive Oversight, 90 N.Y.U. L. REV. 101, 107 (forthcoming 2014).
35. Miriam Seifter, States As Interest Groups in the Administrative Process, 100 VA. L. REV. 953 (2014).
36. After all, there is no plausible quantification of what share of federalism questions would be better decided by agencies or how much better agencies would be at deciding such questions.
37. Adrian Vermeule, Introduction: Mead in the Trenches, 71 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 347, 348 (2003).
38. As discussed in Part III, this Essay does not take a position on current debates regarding whether Steps One and Two of Chevron are redundant, either with each other or with arbitrary and capricious review. It suffices here that, both within Chevron and in arbitrary and capricious review, courts have authority to review the reasonableness of agency decisions, taking many factors into account.
39. My criticism does not preclude the application of the "federalism canons" of statutory interpretation at Step One (or Step Two), though as I explain in Part III, some of the flaws of a Federalism Step Zero also counsel against heavy reliance on federalism canons.
40. Thomas W. Merrill & Kristin E. Hickman, Chevron's Domain, 89 GEO. L.J. 833 (2001).
41. City of Arlington v. FCC, 133 S. Ct. 1863 (2013) (No. 11-1545).
42. United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U.S. 218, 221 (2001).
43. Nat'l Cable & Telecomms. Ass'n v. Brand X Internet Servs., 545 U.S. 967, 1004 (2005).
44. 529 U.S. 576 (2000).
45. 535 U.S. 212 (2002).
46. Lisa Schulz Bressman, How Mead Has Muddled Judicial Review of Agency Action, 58 VAND. L. REV. 1443, 1475 (2005)
47. Cass R. Sunstein, Chevron Step Zero, 92 VA. L. REV. 187, 248 (2006).
48. Abbe R. Gluck & Lisa Schultz Bressman, Statutory Interpretation from the Inside - An Empirical Study of Congressional Drafting, Delegation, and the Canons: Part I, 65 STAN. L. REV. 901, 993-94 (2013).
49. Aziz Z. Huq, The Institution Matching Canon, 106 NW. U. L. REV. 417, 440 (2012).
50. Thomas W. Merrill, The Mead Doctrine: Rules and Standards, Meta-Rules and Meta-Standards, 54 ADMIN. L. REV. 807, 819 (2002).
51. Abbe R. Gluck, What 30 Years of Chevron Teach Us About the Rest of Statutory Interpretation, 83 FORDHAM L. REV. 607, 623-25 (2014).
52. United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U.S. 218, 236 (2001).
53. City of Arlington v. FCC, 133 S. Ct. 1863, 1868 (2013).
54. Catherine M. Sharkey, Products Liability Preemption: An Institutional Approach, 76 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 449, 491 (2008)
55. Gregory M. Dickinson, Calibrating Chevron for Preemption, 63 ADMIN. L. REV. 667, 669 (2011).
56. Catherine M. Sharkey, Federalism Accountability: "Agency-Forcing" Measures, 58 DUKE L.J. 2125, 2180 (2009).
57. PLIVA, Inc. v. Mensing, 131 S. Ct. 2567, 2575 n.3 (2011).
58. Wyeth v. Levine, 555 U.S. 555, 576 (2009)
59. 555 U.S. 555 (2009).
60. Howard P. Walthall, Jr., Comment, Chevron v. Federalism: A Reassessment of Deference to Administrative Preemption, 28 CUMB. L. REV. 715, 754-58 (1997-98)).
61. Wyeth v. Levine, 555 U.S. 555, 577 (2009).
62. Edward S. Corwin, The Passing of Dual Federalism, 36 VA. L. REV. 1 (1950)
63. Ernest A. Young, Dual Federalism, Concurrent Jurisdiction, and the Foreign Affairs Exception, 69 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 139, 188 (2001).
64. 546 U.S. 243 (2006).
65. Gonzales, 546 U.S. at 290.
66. City of Arlington v. FCC, 133 S. Ct. 1863, 1873 (2013).
67. There is, of course, no agreed upon baseline for the desired extent of protection of federalism values. The assertion here is thus comparative: federalism values, as defined here, will likely be no better off if federal questions are intercepted by courts at Step Zero than if they are evaluated in the ordinary Chevron framework.
68. Wyeth v. Levine, 555 U.S. 555, 576-77 (2009)
69. Akhil Reed Amar, Five Views of Federalism: "Converse-1983" in Context, 47 VAND. L. REV. 1229 (1994)
70. Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Unbundling Federalism: Colorado's Legalization of Marijuana and Federalism's Many Forms, 85 U. COLO. L. REV. 1067, 1070 (2014).
71. John F. Manning, Federalism and the Generality Problem in Constitutional Interpretation, 122 HARV. L. REV. 2003, 2040 (2009).
72. Robert D. Cooter & Neil S. Siegel, Collective Action Federalism: A General Theory of Article I, Section 8, 63 STAN. L. REV. 115 (2010).
73. As the discussion suggests, I take as given that the majority of federalism proponents have nuanced goals related to state autonomy, expertise, and democratic accountability, rather than a singular focus on any one facet of federalism.
74. New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 182 (1992)
75. David A. Dana, Democratizing the Law of Federal Preemption, 102 NW. U. L. REV. 507, 515 (2008).
76. Morton Grodzins, The Federal System, in AMERICAN INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS 54, 54 (Laurence J. O'Toole, Jr. ed., 4th ed. 2007).
77. William N. Eskridge, Jr., The New Textualism, 37 UCLA L. REV. 621, 665 (1990).
78. Karl N. Llewellyn, Remarks on the Theory of Appellate Decision and the Rules or Canons About How Statutes Are to Be Construed, 3 VAND. L. REV. 395, 401-06 (1950).
79. Daniel Abebe & Aziz Z. Huq, Foreign Affairs Federalism: A Revisionist Approach, 66 VAND. L. REV. 723, 754 (2013).
80. Lisa Schultz Bressman, Reclaiming the Legal Fiction of Congressional Delegation, 97 VA. L. REV. 2009 (2011).
81. Kent Barnett, Improving Agencies' Preemption Expertise with Chevmore Codification, 83 FORDHAM L. REV. 587 (2014)
82. Kent Barnett, Codifying Chevmore, 89 N.Y.U. L. REV. (forthcoming 2014), available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2405016.
83. Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building & Constuction Trades Council, 485 U.S. 568, 575 (1988)
84. ADRIAN VERMEULE, JUDGING UNDER UNCERTAINTY: AN INSTITUTIONAL THEORY OF LEGAL INTERPRETATION 210-11 (2006)
85. Christopher J. Walker, Avoiding Normative Canons in the Review of Administrative Interpretations of Law: A Brand X Doctrine of Constitutional Avoidance, 64 ADMIN. L. REV. 139, 190 (2012).
86. Kenneth A. Bamberger, Normative Canons in the Review of Administrative Policymaking, 118 YALE L.J. 64, 111 (2008).
87. Judulang v. Holder, 132 S. Ct. 476, 483 n.7 (2011)
88. Mayo Found. for Med. Educ. & Research v. United States, 131 S. Ct. 704, 711 (2011).
89. Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass'n v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 48-49 (1983)
90. Merrick B. Garland, Deregulation and Judicial Review, 98 HARV. L. REV. 505, 586 (1985)
91. Kathryn A. Watts, Proposing a Place for Politics in Arbitrary and Capricious Review, 119 YALE L.J. 2, 5 (2009).
92. Matthew C. Stephenson & Adrian Vermeule, Chevron Has Only One Step, 95 VA. L. REV. 597 (2009)
93. Kenneth A. Bamberger & Peter L. Strauss, Chevron's Two Steps, 95 VA. L. REV. 611, 612 (2009).
94. Richard Re, Should Chevron Have Two Steps?, 89 IND. L.J. 605 (2014).
95. For purposes of this illustration, I bracket the non-federalism reasons the Court relied upon at Step Zero.
96. Brian Galle & Mark Seidenfeld, Administrative Law's Federalism: Preemption, Delegation, and Agencies at the Edge of Federal Power, 57 DUKE L.J. 1933, 1997 (2008).