More from the OpEd ...

... During its first few weeks, the Trump Administration has unleashed a flurry of measures to radically reshape the federal government. Many of these moves are overtly unlawful. This paper identifies the legal problems with many of the most prominent actions: freezing funding, amending or repealing rules, and denying citizenship to children born in the United States.[2] ...

Amending and Repealing Rules Without Following Statutorily Mandated Procedures

Since 1946, Congress has sought to improve the quality of administrative rules by requiring federal agencies to seek public comments when they promulgate, amend, or repeal rules. For most rule-making affecting the general public, this mandate appears in the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).[20] For rules the Office of Personnel Management makes, a separate statute requires compliance with the APA.[21]

The Biden Administration followed the APA to promulgate rules on many of its top priorities, both in regulations protecting the general public and in rules protecting career civil servants from political coercion or discrimination. On some issues, it was unable to finish soliciting and responding to public comments and therefore abandoned making policy in those areas.

The new Administration, however, is repeatedly disregarding its statutory duty to seek public comment before it regulates. For example, the President directed the Office of Personnel Management to disregard a duly promulgated regulation giving federal employees the right to remain in their current classification if the Administration reclassified them into positions where they would lack security of tenure.[22] This is significant because the same executive order shifts large numbers of federal workers out of the non-political competitive service into positions where they may be fired at will. ...