The Bureaucracy

The Pendleton Act (1883) ended the spoils (patronage) system for federal hiring in favor of a merit-based civil service. It established competitive examinations for most federal positions and created the Civil Service Commission (predecessor of today's Office of Personnel Management) to oversee the system. Initially it covered only about 10% of federal jobs but expanded steadily over time to cover the vast majority of positions.

Motivating event: The 1881 assassination of President James Garfield by Charles Guiteau, a disappointed office-seeker who believed he was owed a federal job in return for his political support. The shooting and Garfield's lingering death generated widespread public outrage at the corruption and dysfunction of the patronage system, providing the political momentum to pass the Pendleton Act two years later.

Steps under the APA:

1. Statutory authority: Congress passes a statute granting the agency authority to regulate in some area (e.g., the Clean Air Act gives EPA authority to set air-quality standards).
2. Proposed rule: Agency drafts a proposed regulation, often after extensive internal study, scientific review, and consultation with stakeholders.
3. Notice-and-comment: Agency publishes the proposed rule in the Federal Register, opening a comment period (typically 30–90 days, sometimes longer). Public, industry, NGOs, state governments, and other agencies submit comments.
4. Review and revision: Agency reviews and analyzes all comments (sometimes thousands or millions on major rules); revises the proposal in response to legitimate concerns.
5. OMB review: For major rules, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA, within OMB) reviews for cost-benefit analysis and consistency with administration priorities.
6. Final rule: Agency issues a final rule with response to comments. Effective on a stated date.
7. Litigation: Affected parties may sue in federal court, challenging the rule's statutory or constitutional basis.

Why it takes years:

• Scientific and economic analysis of complex problems is genuinely slow.
• Statutorily required comment periods, OMB review, and inter-agency consultation each add months.
• Affected industries often submit thousands of pages of detailed comments that the agency must read and respond to.
• Litigation can stay implementation for years.
• Major rules attract White House attention and become politically negotiated, slowing them further.

The APA was designed to ensure transparency and accountability in regulation — at the cost of speed.

An iron triangle is a durable, mutually beneficial alliance among three sets of actors that share an interest in a particular policy area:

1. Congressional subcommittee with jurisdiction over the policy area (e.g., House Agriculture Subcommittee on Commodity Markets).
2. Federal bureaucratic agency that administers programs in that area (e.g., USDA Agricultural Marketing Service).
3. Interest groups representing the affected constituencies (e.g., farm bureaus, commodity trade associations).

How each side benefits:

• Congressional members receive campaign contributions, electoral support, and constituent services from interest groups; receive policy expertise and helpful testimony from the agency.
• Agency officials receive favorable budget treatment and statutory authority from the committee; receive political support and field information from groups.
• Interest groups receive friendly statutes from the committee and favorable program implementation from the agency.

Each side has powerful incentives to maintain the relationship; outsiders find it hard to break in. Iron triangles are characteristically stable, narrow, and insulated from broader public oversight.

Note: Modern policymaking is more often described as issue networks — broader, more fluid alliances of think tanks, NGOs, journalists, agencies, and committees that form around an issue. Iron triangles still exist (especially in defense, agriculture, and veterans' affairs) but compete with these more open networks.

(a) Chevron deference (Chevron U.S.A. v. NRDC, 1984): When a federal statute is AMBIGUOUS, courts defer to a federal agency's reasonable interpretation of its own statutory authority. The two-step framework: (1) Is the statute ambiguous? If clear, court applies its plain meaning. (2) If ambiguous, the agency's interpretation controls so long as it is reasonable, even if the court would have read the statute differently. Chevron empowered agencies to fill statutory gaps with technical expertise.

(b) What Loper Bright changed: The Court (Roberts, 6–3) overruled Chevron. Going forward, federal courts must independently determine the best reading of an ambiguous statute, not defer to the agency. Agencies' views may still be PERSUASIVE based on expertise or thoroughness (older Skidmore-style "respect"), but they no longer command judicial deference. The Court reasoned that the Administrative Procedure Act requires courts — not agencies — to "decide all relevant questions of law."

(c) Practical implications:

• More litigation, more uncertainty. Industries opposed to a rule are more likely to sue and more likely to win, because they no longer face a deference presumption.
• Slower and narrower rulemaking. Agencies will draft rules more cautiously, anticipating closer judicial scrutiny; ambitious regulatory programs (climate, financial reform) face higher legal risk.
• Stronger pressure on Congress to write more specific statutes. When agencies cannot fill gaps, ambiguities default to whatever a court decides — Congress can no longer rely on agencies to operationalize broad delegations.
• Shifts power from the executive branch to the judiciary. Federal judges (lifetime appointed) gain more authority over technical regulatory questions previously resolved by subject-matter experts.
• Differential effects across administrations. Aggressive deregulatory or regulatory moves by either party become harder to sustain — a structural check on bureaucratic policymaking but also on Congress's ability to delegate.