For years, conservatives have railed against what they call the "administrative state." But let's be clear: When they speak of the "administrative state," they're talking about agencies tasked with protecting the public from corporations that seek profits at the expense of the health, safety, and pocketbooks of average Americans. Substitute "corporate legal movement" for the "conservative legal movement" and you see who's really mobilizing against these protections, and why.
I spent four years as policy director at the Federal Trade Commission, advising the commissioners on how best to protect the public from corporate excesses. I spent four more years as secretary of labor, protecting American workers from the depredations of big American corporations. Most large corporations I dealt with obeyed laws and regulations designed to protect the public, but they spent huge money trying to prevent such laws and regulations from being created in the first place, and expended additional efforts contesting them through the courts.
Last week, the made it much harder to protect Americans from corporate misconduct for the FTC, the Labor Department, and dozens of other agencies, ranging from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Food and Drug Administration, Securities and Exchange Commission, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and National Highway and Safety Administration. On Thursday, the six Republican-appointed justices eliminate.
