“Hamburger argues persuasively that America has overlaid its constitutional system with a form of governance that is both alien and dangerous.” —Law and Politics Book Review While the federal government traditionally could constrain liberty only through acts of Congress and the courts, the executive branch has increasingly come to control Americans through its own administrative rules and adjudication, thus raising disturbing questions about the effect of this sort of state power on American government and society. With Is Administrative Law Unlawful?, Philip Hamburger answers this question in the affirmative, offering a revisionist account of administrative law. Rather than accepting it as a novel power necessitated by modern society, he locates its origins in the medieval and early modern English tradition of royal prerogative. Then he traces resistance to administrative law from the Middle Ages to the present. Medieval parliaments periodically tried to confine the Crown to governing through regular law, but the most effective response was the seventeenth-century development of English constitutional law, which concluded that the government could rule only through the law of the land and the courts, not through administrative edicts. Although the US Constitution pursued this conclusion even more vigorously, administrative power reemerged in the Progressive and New Deal Eras. Since then, Hamburger argues, administrative law has returned American government and society to precisely the sort of consolidated or absolute power that the US Constitution—and constitutions in general—were designed to prevent. With a clear yet many-layered argument that draws on history, law, and legal thought, Is Administrative Law Unlawful? reveals administrative law to be not a benign, natural outgrowth of contemporary government but a pernicious—and profoundly unlawful—return to dangerous pre-constitutional absolutism.

It is essential to cover California administrative law in an administrative law course in California. First, the clients of California lawyers are much more likely to have disputes with California state and local agencies than with federal agencies. Second, California administrative law is very different from federal law. In virtually every instance, these differences lie in the direction of protecting private business and individual interests rather than favoring the agencies. California Administrative Law is designed as a supplement to be used in the basic administrative law course. It could also be used as the text for an advanced course or seminar in California administrative law.

Administrative Law: The Sources and Limits of Government Agency Power explains the sources of administrative agency authority in the United States, how agencies make rules, the rights of clients and citizens in agency hearings, and agency interaction with other branches of government. This concise text examines the everyday challenges of administrative responsibilities and provides students with a way to understand and manage the complicated mission that is governance. Written by leading scholar Daniel Feldman, the book avoids technical legal language, but at the same time provides solid coverage of legal principles and exemplar studies, which allows students to gain a clear understanding of a complicated and critical aspect of governance.

This book provides an in-depth treatment of the basic principles that govern federal administrative action. The Third Edition retains the prior editions' strong doctrinal orientation, straightforward organization and presentation, historical depth, and emphasis on the detailed connections among the various doctrines that govern the federal administrative state. The organization has been revised to enhance the sense of connection among doctrinal categories: materials on scope of review now immediately follow materials on statutory and regulatory procedures in order to highlight the close relationship between procedural and substantive law. The materials have been updated and sharpened, but the well-received structure and focus of the book have not been substantially altered.