Transcripts For CSPAN2 James Copland The Unelected 20240712

At the Manhattan Institute where he is also director of legal policy and you have read his work all over national media, youve seen him on television youve heard on radio and, by the way, he holds the jd and mba from yale where he was an owen fellow in law and economics, also a ba in economics from none other than unc chapel hill where he was a morehead scholar. Jim, so glad to have you with us here for our shaft spirit society. Thank you for joining us thank you for having me, donna, always a pleasure to speak to the good folks at the John Locke Foundation. Ive said it before, as someone who has worked many years at a National Think tank, so much policy happens on the state level and John Locke Foundation is really a Gold Standard think tank that has helped to reshape North Carolina and such a positive direction and lot of the strength and resilience right now and sound fiscal ain the midst of a pandemic is really due to the great work of the John Locke Foundation has done. Thank you for having me. Thank you for those comments, really appreciate that beset by the way, people should know you actually live in North Carolina so your book writes about federal policy but you are following state and Public Policy as well. Hopefully we will get your take on whats happening with governor roy cooper and the use of Emergency Powers etc. Here in North Carolina. Jim, ive got to tell you, this book the unelected, you can buy this book now, i think my colleague rence is can be posting in the comments section of our Facebook Page where you can actually get your copy of the unelected. Tell us about the key theme of your book and why you wrote it. The key theme really is that people dont understand just how much government activity that oversees our lives and in some of the stories we will talk about later in the book, tragically has influenced lives of some people and in other cases just given significant headaches. But how much of an apparatus goes forward, no matter how we vote. That doesnt mean that elections dont matter. Whose president matters, whos in the congress matters, state level, governor, General Assembly, here we elect judges and justices and they made matter a lot too. Its not that the elections dont matter but they only capture an incomplete picture. There are couple million federal employees. 50 states, thousands of municipalities, well over a million trial law, private lawyers that influence us through the litigation system. All of these different pieces, we have heard attacks some of the partisan attacks on the deep state and these sorts of things. I stay away from that sort of partisan view and just look at it more tell us topically and somatically and look at what the government is doing that really departs from our fundamental constitutional design. The constitution clearly had its flaws in the beginning, most notably slavery, but the constitution had two animating principles, there was a notion of limiting the governments to prevent abuse, this is a notion that dates back to john locke, among others. And then the notion of having a publicly Accountable Government that was in some ways active and could get things done but was ultimately accountable to people and these representative democratic principles as well as the sort of limited government Classical Liberal principles animated the constitutional design. Those two principles have been substantially eroded. Its hardly a surprise anyone to look at the incredible roles of government. And talk about it in my final epilogue, just the growth and the size of some of the government abi guess its chapter 14, looking at how much the government has actually grown from those early years where even adjusted for inflation, the first congress, the total of creation of the federal government is only 639,000, even adjusted for inflation thats 10 million. Right now congress cant agree on the next level of covid relief but the gap is between 1 trillion on the r side and 3 trillion on the d side, orders of magnitude of more government than we had in the early years. A lot of people have written about this. I tend to agree with the limited governments tax. I worked in a think tank like john locke abin these sorts of questions, and skeptical Big Government generally although as i noted in my book, there some caveats to that where it makes sense for apart from the original constitutional design. But a lot of people havent paid a lot to attention to and certainly not abis the concept that was lost some of the public accountability. The sort of work that ive done over my many years in the think tank world have dovetailed along all these issues. Working on things like ab looking at the Administrative State and regulation, looking at over criminalization, something i worked on with your legal scholars and others at the John Locke Foundation in North Carolina and other states and corporate government, securities law, they all sort of come back to this Central Point where we see a lot of government being done and a lot of liberty being lost from individuals who are acting without public accountability and in many cases we see significant radical shifts in the legal and regulatory structures that govern our lives without congress ever taken a vote. Without the people we actually elected deciding to do so. Thats the principle pieces of the book. I sort of break it down into four different categories, interrelated but i think important to understand that each of these forces matter and we might perform one of them and it wouldnt necessarily change as much as we might think if we are not cognizant of the fact that all these other players are similarly working to govern us without any sort of public accountability. The first of these are what i call rule makers. This is really the fundamental function of congress all of us who grew up when i did, anybody who grew up in the 70s, 80s, 90s, if they watched abc saturday morning and watch the cartoon shows they would see cool abschoolhouse rock, educational cartoons, among those were my favorites was im just a bill, sitting here on capitol hill. That still describes about how a bill becomes a law but misses a lot of the way that rules actually get enacted. In the criminal law sphere we dont know for sure how many federal crimes there are. Its too voluminous for us to know but the estimate is around 300,000 federal crimes exist. Of those, 98 came into being without an express enactment by congress. With congress it was create a rulemaking agency somewhere in the executive branch and they drafted the roles and Congress Never saw those rules again and those rules can lead people to go to prison to get in trouble. To have real teeth, criminal teeth. The same thing is true across civil law. This is quite a departure from the principal followed by locke among others that sort of animate of the constitution that the lawmakers had to make the law, they could acouldnt delegate the lawmakers and make new lawmaking. Thats what weve done to the growth of abgrowth of this administrator state. Much of this has been an over the past 90 years. By and large we seen a seachange and expansion of this delegation of rulemaking during the last 90 years or so and and it continues to accelerate. We see it both parties are guilty of it. Just recently the Trump Administration centers for Disease Control came out and essentially said there abrogating private mortgage contracts across the entire country. There is certainly a policy case being made saying we dont want to evict a bunch of people in the middle of a pandemic this is the sort of thing congress would have to come to agreement on not something you would have an agency and this was not an independent agency and agency that reports to the president but an agency coming out unilaterally in this sort of rule, there are multiple constitutional questions to be raised by that action but clearly what we have is something far removed from a bill becoming a law as its portrayed in schoolhouse rock. The second sort of force of the second unelected actors that i focus on in the book are what i call the enforcers. This is really important to keep in mind. If we make it too hard to actually create new rules and are paying attention to Enforcement Actions from the executive branch then we could get something that is in some ways more lawless than just regulatory willemaking itself t it to the godfather. This is an offer you cant refuse. You take big business dealing with the federal government, often they have your business totally under their control in the following respect. If you are a military contractor obviously the federal government says you cant sell to the military anymore than you are out of business. If you are Pharmaceutical Company in the federal government says you cant get reimbursed abreally the strong arm of the federal government is often coming into play. The problem though is not just abits a much bigger problem in some respects for the Small Business owners, the family farmers, the individuals because the big businesses have large compliance teams they have a bunch of lawyers with fancy degrees. Studying these rules and regulations and trying to keep the business out of trouble it doesnt mean theyre going to be able to comply perfectly, it does mean the governments gonna be able to strongarm them and create regulations far beyond what was ever authorized as an actual sanction for conduct by congressional statute. But they at least can try to comply. If youre a Small Business owner without a team of lawyers at your disposal are we supposed to comply with 300,000 federal regulatory climes. Theres just no way. This also happens very much on the state level which is why we generally flush and work in close with the John Locke Foundation on this and talking about over criminalizing the states. Some of these same principles i talked in the federal governments also exist on the state level. The enforcement is a little different in the resources are little different. Certainly the federal level usually we see strongarming a astrongarming a big business through regulatory enforcement although not exclusively and certainly in new york are state ags have done a lot to sort of strongarming entire industries and remake the industries sometimes with really bad consequences like abthe rule makers and enforcers are what we talk about the relativey sta these people are not particularly accountable, at some level high level folks go through appointment and confirmation process. Like they are preradicals with no connection whatsoever to the elections we hold but there is a lot of civil source employees underneath and a lot of autonomy and essentially we are in running the checks and balances the Founding Fathers put into the constitution that the early states and the subsequent states joining the republic agree to to try to slow down various legislative and regulatory moves now we sort of run around back in this revelatory state. Let me ask you about the rule makers and enforcers. This really what some people refer to, at least recently, as permanent washington, the people who are there no matter the ministration, no matter the politics, behind the scenes, wielding all sorts of power. Thats basically correct. I dont want to over emphasize that to the extent that a number of the federal agency apparatus is very much responsive to the president ial election cycle. But thats part of the problem. We put so much stock in president ial elections, precisely because the president ial executive branch has so much authority in the same thing is true with judiciary. 21 of the people in the last election told exit pollsters a anot that they didnt believe in judicial review by and large enough that they didnt think judges were important but they were shocked that was the number one issue in electing a president. There is a lot of power that comes into play but can be slowed down and the courts sometimes adopt by and large the review apparatus that the courts have brought to bear on the Administrative State tends to give a hard look, a close look to reversals of regulatory actions. Theres a lot of deference given in the first instance to write new regulations and with the new administration comes in and tries to undo the regulations its often harder for them to undo the old regulations abits backwards but thats the review system we have with the courts. Essentially you are saying it really does matter who you elect for president based on that persons view of the regulatory state and all that. Even though it can go back and forth with these executive orders but it does matter. It does matter. Although, not all the federal government is as responsive to the executive. Chapter 2 of my book goes through this principle where we talk about these independent agencies and, essentially, the courts have allowed independent agencies with sort of cause i legislative powers and a staggered terms of rule makers. Things like the federal Communications Commissions or security and Exchange Commission. While there are president ial appointment in play there are bipartisan commissions for the minority party, in this case its the party that doesnt control the white house, minority of the seats. There are defenses of this, it creates a little more continuity, you dont get the a aits very very different from the basic constitutional design we all learned about in grade schools. These types of bodies wield substantial parties delegated by congress. In the white house cant come in here and say, i want this person off the security and Exchange Commission i dont like their views, what else does not have that power . The elected president doesnt have that power. All of these folks, while they are unelected and, the big problem is you dont get true believers except for those of us who think that government can get too big. You get folks who are committed to environmental reform or folks that are committed to a certain view of securities you get folks that manned the agencies that populate these agencies that have a certain view of the world, most of the Civil Servants underneath the top elected officials tend to skew and a certain direction and tend to have a pretty regulatory skew. Its where you are going to get this deal Regulatory Chamber to develop a career to being in the revelatory agency. You have this sort of problem but then we have in this country, and every country has a legal system, a legal system has to adjudicate disputes, we have a private legal system as well as what we call public legal system. When we talk about criminal law, thats the state prosecuting misconduct and thats of course something under a lot of scrutiny right now. Then there is the civil law which is private parties bring their disputes for the government to resolve. Be they disputes over property, be they disputes over contracts, or be they disputes over what lawyers call tort. Which is the accident law, injury law, its not necessarily predicated on a preexisting contraction relationship, although a lot of cases wouldve once been contractual now fall under tort. The products we buy there is a contractual relationship, a fail that goes into place, you voluntarily buy it but a lot of the tort laws rules govern those those lawsuits. Is this where Class Action Lawsuit comes in . Classaction lawsuit is a variant of the ordinary tort lawsuit and a relatively recent creation. The third part of the book talks about the litigators and this is what the litigators mean, it means these folks who are litigating private disputes, a lot of folks i think reflectively who are skeptical of government power, libertarian or Classical Liberals, say this is much better than the Administrative State. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isnt. Make no mistake, this is still state action. Nobody is a defendant in court by choice. Someone is a defendant in court because another person sues him or her, sues the business, its only the state monopoly on force that enables the plaintiff to recover. If the legal system worked well and was in low cost way to resolve disputes and we just made it basically about accidents, that would be one thing. Its important to realize while this is deeply rooted, the jury trial itself is rooted and ab in the original conception it was a very very narrow area of law that sue for these damages for accidents. Very difficult to get into court, very particularized pleadings, in the early days neither could testify in court so these sorts of cases if you assumed any risk, you werent going to collect, if you are negligent yourself, you werent going to collect. Although these rules got scaledback over time, then we developed the modern plaintiffs bar. Through the use of fee mechanisms. Virtually every other country in the world certainly the European Countries and other than some asian exceptions, if you bring the lawsuit in court and you lose you have to reimburse the other sides fee. But thats not the way our system works. You get in fact if you defend your lawsuit successfully, you can still lose. The first example i use in chapter 7 is of a woman who wanted to renovate the Historic Hotel in california put a lot of money into it, like a friend of a friend or stay there and that individual got a plaintiffs lawyer to file a disability lawsuit, she hadnt gotten everything up to disability code yet. It was basically one of the sort of shakedown lawsuits, given 18,000 they will go away, she said i havent done anything wrong, im applying, she won her case but then she lost more than 100,000 winning her case. Which is why you get these shakedown lawsuits in the first place. Class action is a piece of that and thats really where you can sort of add a bunch of cases together. One of the most famous security classaction securities set i have the best law practice in the world i dont have clients. Thats kind of how it works. The lawyer files a lawsuit with any particular named plaintiff. [audio lost] it could be thousands or millions within the case, no one is monitoring these attorneys and its the attorneys on one side selling the business and reaching a settlement and they virtually always settle. This was quite recently invented in the 19th century. And the federal rule first created federal procedural rules for litigation abso the dean developed the new rules, the interesting thing a United States where someone files suit without any proof and you can turn over all your emails and sit down with depositions, thats an american role an american invention, then in the 1960s they kept the committee around, this time led by harvard law professor and his young protcgc from columbia and literally crafted the modern classaction role where you are in the class as a plaintiff unless you affirmatively opt out. The lawyers create the class they might send you something in the mail they may posted on the internet and if you dont say keep me out, your end, they created it on the back of the professors car writing the ferry over there Marthas Vineyard on a manual typewriter. It never existed before these law professors drafted it. We have these crazy shakedown classaction lawsuits. There is a defense for classaction role the rules tend to be skewed on behalf of those ringing the state power to bear. Thats the sort of third layer of in addition to rule makers and enforcers of the unelected and then briefly, ive run out of time, we have what i call the new antifederalists. This is an important one too because most of us who support limited government and Classical Liberal principles instinctively say we are pro states life, against the big federal government and want to devolve stings down to the state. In the ordinary case thats good but state legislatures have every incentive to get the policy package at their state because people can vote with their feet and businesses and capital can vote as well from one space to the other. If california raises its taxes or new york raises taxes and North Carolina doesnt, businesses and people can move to a North Carolina. If the regulatory state in one state is too big, same thing. Similarly, its not just abif a state doesnt provide services if the schools are horrible or what have you, thats can affect where businesses and people locate as well. It creates this implicit market style pressure through federal enforcers. That doesnt always work. And litigation its a classic case similar federal pressures are in play, if doctors get sued a lot, doctors can relocate to other states and hospitals can invest elsewhere rather than your state. You will ultimately pay the price for that we have situations where International Commercial lawsuit can be filed anywhere under the current doctor in the courts adopted. As long as its in the stream of commerce. North carolina can attract the business based on tax and Regulatory Regime but cant protect against the lawsuit coming from Madison County illinois or the other places that the american tort reform a aand you get sued there. We also see with this new antifederalism are these elected officials local and state elected officials dictating policy for everyone else. The mayor of new york coming out and trying to change Climate Change policy, which is clearly an international question with the federal nexus. But trying to do it from the city hall in new york or San Francisco we see these sorts of cases, we saw this with the tobacco lawsuits first where the litigation gets formed out to plaintiffs attorneys on behalf of state attorneys general who often get a lot of campaign contributions, they turn around and hire. We see the National Policy being driven by state and local officials and nobody in raleigh or charlotte or greensboro voted for the people in new york city and San Francisco or albany and sacramento and these elected officials from other states are trying to drive national policies. I call this the new antifederal, abeven when the federal regulators get it right, the states actors can come in here and try to dictate National Commercial regulation for their state and local purchase. We been talking with James Copland here of the Manhattan Institute about the four key areas he reviews in his new book its called the unelected how an unaccountable elite is governing america. They are paying close attention to the cdc. Much more than any of us ever paid attention to the cdc before covid19. But talk about the power. In fact John Mccormick over at National Review just a few days ago wrote a peace to headline the cdc power grab. I think one question here is really relevant to what you are talking about in your book. If the executive branch can unilaterally suspend evictions limit the spread of coronavirus, is there anything it cant do . So jim with this Administrative State, what cant the Administrative State do . Well, there are still some guardrails around what congress can do. But it is an extremely broad power. Basically him to the auspices of the Commerce Clause Interest Rate commerce, the courts have permitted congress to do most of what it once. The violence against women act or thats not really commercial behavior. Guns in school, thats not really commercial behavior. In support majority tessler said its got to involve some sort of commerce. But theyve got to go pretty fa far. As a challenge to the federal drug laws. Someone was convicted under federal law of growing marijuana in his backyard. I was not selling it i was growing it. Obviously he had buy some seeds and arguably it could affect the sort of drug trade itself et cetera. The court sort of let it go. The president from the new deal era looking it over with the same basic logic. Theyre using their own props for their own uses on their own farm in the federal government said no, he got to follow our agricultural regulatory scheme even though youre not selling it. The Supreme Court let that go. Pretty broad rule here. I do think there are two conceptual issues here. The contractual issue itself. The freedom of contract is read much more narrower than the courts. This is a pretty big infringement on property rights. And so you will have some litigation premise on that. The bigger one hears the non delegation doctrine. Sue and john locke. Guest its the original exponents of this in terms of writing it down. He did not invent the concept. It was something that had been fought over the centuries. I go to some this history in the book. But john locke, wrote the legislative power to make laws and not make legislators. So locke and montesquieu and William Blackstone who is sort of the great chronicler of the laws of england at the time, the constitution of the ignited states. He did not develop this principle saying you cannot delegate the lawmaking power. This is what we were talking about the rule makers when they lost some of that. So one question is a statutory question. Is this delegation to the cdc, is what the cdc claiming an accurate reading of what congress delegated by statute . Even as congress delegated that brought of power, with that constitutional. And what other court has basically not come back with the nondelegation principal since 1935 . They basically signed off on the rest of the new deal when Franklin Roosevelt administration and have not come back with these principles notwithstanding with some justice on the courts would like to. They have sort of cabined somewhat the ability of the executive branch to sort of make law that should reside with congress. The basic principle here that if it is a big Public Policy question, Congress Needs to resolve it. They probably have not used it as much as they should. But in areas like regulating tobacco in North Carolina the food and Drug Administration tried to claim this power even though congress debated it past a lot of bills and had not expressly said to the fda you can regulate tobacco as a drug. The Supreme Court said no its a major question. Congress has discussed this. If congress is going to do it they have to decide for congress. Weve seen that again in some environmental areas as well. Without major question comes into play. I think that could come into play here and create a problem. Again, how long this is going to last . Litigation takes a long time. And so, to some degree they have the vaccine out by the end of the year. And lawyers do it all the time, ive seen it when i was a clerk of the Second Circuit in private practice or law from its take a strategy is probably a Winning Strategy for this value and delay. The whole premise here is delay. Its why the formal rulemaking is not were all the power is. So in a focus on things like enforcement as well. The question here isnt necessarily will the cdc ultimately win the lawsuit . Will a large real estate actor went to cross executive branch of the executive government . They may not even if theyre in the right. Sue and thats very interesting lets play that out a little bi bit. I dont think this is a good idea for the cdc or any agency to be essentially spending or breaking a contract between two parties. So its taken up the chain. Lets it makes it to the United States Supreme Court. Based on the makeup of the court now, we have justices who are willing to say you know what, you cant delegate that kind of power for you cant go that far. Does that mean that future appointments to the u. S. Supreme court could be critical which way this goes . My guess would be you might get a majority saying sink the delegation. We saw the term before last with the Supreme Court 84 four split pretty wesley five three split but visitors majority of justices i may see becky did not want to do in this case heard i did argued before Brett Kavanaugh joined the cour court. I think it is unfortunate we often look at stuff in partisan terms. Thing is often unfair. Where the four democratic justices dont uses its a relic of the past. Im had justice writing a lengthy sort of discussion of the history of the nondelegation doctrine dating back to the constitutional era and the precedents there underlay and say this is an important principle. This is of a do with the major questions doctrine this is a rigid constitutional vagueness they fall under this and we ought to bring this doctrine back into the discussion. It looks like three justices, one said lets do that. One may be in than for that said nope, let congress delegate. On so its probably a five four case. I think alito would sign onboard to a certain type of opinion there. My guess is Rick Kavanaugh because he is a big proponent of the major question on the d. C. Court of appeals priest becky you know jim you mentioned executive orders. We have seen former president obama use them. You mentioned doctor and the executive order. President trump coming in and trying to do away with that. And he faced a challenge in court. He seems to you or maybe not, tell me what you think. His executive the most powerful branch of the government right now . I think unambiguously. Its not the case in the early republic clearly not on in the powerful branch. One of the early justices wrote his writings on the constitution it was pretty clear congress has the power here it started going in the other direction. Hamilton wrote about this in the federalist papers, the reason why he called the court the least dangerous branch, and thought have the sword of the perks. It has a military that has a Standard Army thats nothing like our founders could have conceived. Its one of the areas i talked about in the introduction of the book i think you do have to live with a bit of a bigger government. When i can have muskets to defend ourselves against this sort of International Threat to be faced today with modern technology. There some form of Standard Army today. Congress still has the purse. The executive branch can move things around a little bit. Donald trump try to do that a little bit with the wall he did that and august trying to move some money around for covid relief at the parties just cant get together in washington on this. They did quickly, chewed trillion dollar bill they were able to come together and do something. Now neither side wants to concede this close to the election. And so if got a lot of businesses potentially going under. In some of those businesses are going under that might be able to thrive better being denied the opportunity based on various state and local actions. Certainly something we see her North Carolina. Absolutely. Before we get to North Carolina wooded to just talk to about something i think is very special and important about your book. Jims book is called the unelected, how unaccountable elitist government as governing america. Youre interested in getting the book check out the Comment Section of the Facebook Page of find the link right there. Jimmy do a good job of starting your chapters with the world world situation. Kind of putting a face on what it is youre talking about. One of the stories really struck me. I remember at the time hearing the story but you really brought it home. Like it help our viewers understand about this. The name unser will bobby unser found himself in a very strange and dangerous situation at one point. He came up against the power of the states. Tell us what happened. Bobby unser 13 indianapolis 500, just a racing champion. Ill unser bobby unser big racing family historically. And unsurprisingly in his retirement he still likes driving vehicles. And among those are snowmobiles. Hes got a ranch out west. He drives his snowmobile around in the snow in the winter month months. And one day he was going out with someone who did not have the same experience on snowmobiles. Off the land into this federal land wandering about. There was a blizzard in he was not when he would been able to predict from the Weather Channel or something. There is a storm blowing it was ground blizzard where the wind itself is whipping up the snow to such a high degree but they got pot in his blizzard, got off course and got stranded prayed they banded their mode there are snowmobiles, walked 20 miles got hypothermia were lucky to survive it. After words he goes over to the authorities and said oh it got to retrieve my snowmobile. It turns out that in this blizzard unser and his friend gone into an area of protected forest that snowmobiles were not allowed to drive in. Now congress had bowed on this either it was a regulatory structure would be forced to service where they develop various regulations to govern the federal lands. Congress give them Broad Authority. And unser said i didnt know i was stuck in a blizzard i was under duress i did not know this is an area i was not able to go. I was trying to survive in the middle of a blizzard. Notwithstanding that, they said no you are a criminal were going to take it to court. He argued that as long as he could pretty ultimately lost the case because the criminal provision did not have a criminal intent requirement. He did not have to be aware that he was doug anything wrong. He did not have to have malicious will. And of course the mistake of law, not knowing its illegal was not a defense under our system. So these principles kind of makes sense. They kind it makes sense on their back on those crimes, the crimes that we know are bad. The common law crime, murder, assault, rape, burglary, robbery. Arguing as these types of crimes are bad. There really bad conduct in you cant said know it was a crime to hit someone over the head of the two by four. You cannot raise that defense under law. But now, most of our crimes most once people are in prison for. Moser called malm prohibitive. Anyone who watches legally braun got a description of this and creepy law professors class. Theres bad because they are prohibited. People arent necessarily going to know where the markers are for what the federal forest area you can and cant go in. A lot of Small Business owners get caught up in this for they did not fill out the right form are they didnt register the right way none of these are intuitively wrong conduct they can create criminal as well as civil liability. So theres a small fine, he spent a lot more on lawyers than he had to pay on the fine. But he had enough money to do that. Sue and that is why your description is why the John Locke Foundation and you at the Manhattan Institute have been concentrating so much on over criminalization. Going to ask my colleague, renee go ahead and post in the Comment Section some of his work in North Carolina. In fact shes already done that she is headed the on the conversation. Speaking of North Carolina list take advantage of your legal background and the fact you are a North Carolina resident. You live in new bern even though with the Manhattan Institute one of the most renowned National Think tanks in the united state states. Okay, so tell us what you think about the covid situation and the use of the emergency power by governor roy cooper, and dr. Mandy cohen director of health and human services. Sweetie let me separate the policy response and that the legalities. Im not an epidemiologist or a doctor. So i dont feel perfectly qualified to say this is what it should or shouldnt be. I do feel quite confident in saying that the use of Emergency Powers for months by the governor, in my mind clinically her and run with the statutory delegation of the governor is deeply, deeply troubling. So North Carolina is every state does delegate certain Emergency Powers. We are near the coast where i live, of a hurricane bearing down you do not want to get the legislators to rally. We have a Citizen Legislature still here. Theyre not a fulltime congres congress. So very important to act quickly in emergency situations. We were under a terrorist attack or what have you. When you have some Emergency Authority in those situations. But that cant be an open ended ability for the governor and only the governor to broadly regulate the state. Roy cooper is not unique in this. Although i think hes one of the more extreme exemplars of using emergency power. Basically telling people he cant open your business, you cant open your home. See cant leave her home and hurricane. And there is a history of certain types of quarantine. We talk about the covid situation going back to the yellow fever epidemic. Were George Washington with the cabinet out of philadelphia. Alexander hamilton caught yellow fever in baltimore new york unset people from philadelphia cant come here is carried by mosquitoes not people. Not sure that did much. Theres certain extraordinary powers. The actual delegation here i think probably was constitutional from the General Assembly in the sense that is a shortterm fix. The shutdowns governor chosen to do here. The Senate Majority of the estate. Not just delegating everything to a king. This is the sort of court principle, talk about this in the book. John locke was not inventing these principles, this is what they were fighting about in england. So charles the first was the great sort of legal scholar and parliamentarian passed a petition of right circumscribing royal power. The dissolved parliament and ruled without in the period called the personal rule for 11 years. Later this was called the 11 year tierney for a reason. Well be in office for 11 years. We are now several months without the council estate. The governor is denying the most basic right to open your business very fundamental freedoms of individuals. And this isnt a situation where want to emphasize quarantine someone whos tested positive for covid. Theyre pretty Broad Authority to do that. If they test positive with a Communicable Disease to quarantine them as a long standing exception toward general liberty principles that of been well understood. Its not as if someone with a Communicable Disease can go out of the house that thats easily communicated. Lb wanted thing. But people tested positive for covid and deceit cant open the business because of general ris risk. The constitution states have Broader Authority than the federal government here. The federal government at least in principle has delegated powers with the state has broad Public Police power. But clearly we should not be delegating this to the governor. Its really disheartening to me to it see it. I dont know which way the polls go i dont know maybe people were fine with this. But really, really worries me. After things go back to normal much more clearly marked down the limits of this executive emergency gemina remaining moments was the future what those who believe theres too much power delegated at the federal level for the next steps to bring that in maybe its a situation we could rain again . One of my early reviewer said its not very radical in his solutions i think are potentially radical. Were not going to do is get back to a 10 milliondollar federal government. Were not going to get back to a 1788 government. But i do think we can push the courts can do that. I also think the legislature can do that. Can come in here and do things. Its a very complicated question i cant really answer in three minutes. The totality of my ideas that im going to be putting out for different reports of the next year end a hazard flushing out these ideas that i outlined in chapter 14 i didnt want to bore people with a hundred pages of policy detail. Were delegating the agencies, but before its criminal have to get a vote with the legislature. Or you could say we organ to delegate some authority. Going to come back to us. And if we do not affirmatively vote on is going to sunset. You only get a temporary move to reaction. The more we do that and prevent sort of the permanent layering of the Administrative State, the better. At a lot of these rules, the procedural rules, when it comes to the litigators you are not going to get back to what lawyers call caveat, let the buyer beware. Blows up and takes my arm off the fact that i bought the computer to go but that far back. As a lot of things to prevent the shakedown games with the class action rules. With standards and discovery rules the fee shifting between lawyers. Theres a lot of things we could do to make it so we are actually litigating real entries and not ones that are concocted by the attorneys at the shakedown like the villages city suit against kathie neal who led her to abandon a noble effort to restore Historic Property or own john sanders has been writing for several years about efforts to do that thanks to the General Assembly if you look at that progress is one of the areas we Research Team and im happy to say there has been some progress at the state level here, thanks to the leadership of the General Assembly. Jim the book is really fascinating. We wish you the very best with it. Again its called the unelected hout unaccountable elite is governing america. It is great. I would say its easy to read i wouldnt say its simplistic. Its very meaty information. I also do appreciate you put a face on a lot of this with examples of people who have come into contact with the Administrative State and have not done well. At least one case you write about a tragic ending to someone with a very difficult situation. Jim, thank you so much. We appreciate your time, jim copeland is at the Manhattan Institute. Please check out his latest book the unelected prethink jimmy appreciate your joining us. Heres a look at some books being published this week. An american crisis, new York Governor Andrew Cuomo offers leadership lessons that he has learned or responding to the covid19 pandemic. Rick gates expressed his experience as Deputy Campaign chairman for the 2016 trump president ial campaign. And later as a cooperating witness during the muller investigation in wicked game. And in upswing, political scientist Robert Putnam recalls how america change felling the gilded age. And how those lessons apply today. Also being published this week, and cultural warlords italia reports online communities of white supremacist. Former White House Press secretary for the Trump Administration sean spicer argues that president trumps first term has been successful. And he should be reelected in leading america. In gambling with armageddon, martin sure and provides a history of the cold war with the focus on the cuban missile crisis. And in the luckiest man, mark salter coauthor with john mccain on several books remembers the late senator. Find these titles this coming week wherever books are sold and watch for many of the authors in the near future on book tv, on cspan2. Tonight at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on after words, former cia director john brennan speaks about his life and career in his book undaunted, my fight against americas enemies at home and abroad. Hes interviewed by near Times National security reported julian barnes. Some people said it gone too far. Especially for someone who has held a traditional non partisan posts like cia director. Have you ever felt like youve gone too far . Is not just the question of policy differences. Although i have policy differences with trump in the Trump Administration in terms of what theyve done. That was fine. And i would not be speaking out if it was just differences. It is his dishonesty. It is his corruption, it is his abuse of the office of the presidency. Watch book tv, this weekend on cspan2. Soon i thank you for joining us for this evenings events. My name is bree hogan on the Sales Manager here in portland, oregon. Before beginning want to remind you that you can keep up with all of our Virtual Events by visiting our website. Many one of the Upcoming Events were looking forward to is in conversation with barry johnson. About roberts new book