November 19th, 2008

No need for panic.

The right thing to do with all those BushCo “midnight regulations,” if they can’t be stopped by administrative action, is to repeal them by statute, returning the Code of Federal Regulations to the status quo ante. That doen’t require all the formalities of a new rulemaking. Yes, that law would be subject to filibuster, but I doubt the Senate Republicans will be unanimous in backing the least popular President since polling started against someone whose approval rating just hit 70.

Update A reader reminds me that disapproval resolutions under the Congressional Review Act are “privileged motions” which cannot be blocked by filibusters or other procedural shenanigans. What I don’t know is whether a single resolution could deep-six a whole list of regulations, or whether the rule is “one resolution, one regulation.” But that’s merely a technical problem. It seems to me that if we have the votes, we should go ahead and vote.

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