Conservative policymakers interested in helping President Trump get rid of overly burdensome regulations might consider suing him. Christopher Bedford of the Daily Caller explains why one state-level official is making that recommendation.
Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley has a plan for helping the new administration: Sue the government.
The government needs to move quickly, he told a large gathering of wealthy conservative and libertarian donors gathered in California, to send power back to the states and deregulate the economy. The problem is how slowly Washington, D.C. moves, and how the administration is tied up in bureaucracy. But if states, which know which regulations affect them hardest, sue, that would give the feds the power to simply settle and withdraw the reg.
“If a state would bring a suit against a regulation, it gives the federal government the opportunity to withdraw that regulation.”
This, he told donors and reporters, “will give the government the ability to move quickly on deregulation.”
Hawley was joined onstage by Govs. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Bruce Rauner of Illinois, and Doug Ducey of Arizona. The panel, moderated by CNN’s Hot Air editor Mary Katharine Ham, was held on the second day of a regular meeting of donor organized by billionaire libertarian philanthropist and industrialist Charles Koch.
“I like President [George W.] Bush but… look, they screwed it up,” Rauner told attendees, echoing a common center-right gripe that Bush did not do enough to decentralize government. “Send power back to the states.”
“When [Trump] picked [former Indiana Gov.] Mike Pence as his vice president, he told us a lot about what [power] he’s going to be pushing [back to the states],” Ducey said. “We have a Trump administration and Department of Justice that would like to get rid of broad swaths of [regulation].”
