Judicial Review of Administrative Discretion

An enduring question for democratic government is how much power or administrative discretion should be afforded to unelected bureaucracies. Clayton compares how Supreme Court Justices Breyer and Scalia have addressed the topic of administrative discretion through various administrative law opinions to show how their contrasting methods of legal reasoning and statutory interpretation have enabled and constrained regulatory power. His research identifies themes of Breyer's and Scalia's jurisprudence and reveals the extent to which they defer to agency decisions varies and contradicts both Justices' stated positions on judicial review, legal reasoning, and statutory interpretation to some degree.