Jack Beermann Appointed to Administrative Conference of the US
Beermann to contribute to Conference’s mission of “improving fairness and efficiency of administrative procedure” as public member.
This summer, Professor of Law and Harry Elwood Warren Scholar Jack Beermann was appointed to the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) as one of 13 new public members for the organization.
The ACUS is an independent federal agency that seeks to improve regulatory and administrative processes through consensus-driven applied research. “It basically helps the whole government run more smoothly,” Beerman says.
This isn’t the first time Beermann has worked with the ACUS. In 2012, he consulted on a project on midnight rulemaking, a situation in which outgoing administrations enact last-minute rules before leaving office. Beermann wrote the report on the issue that led the Conference to approve recommendations.
According to an appointment announcement released in August by the Conference, the new public members and senior fellows will “contribute immeasurably to the Conference’s important mission of improving the fairness and efficiency of administrative procedure for the benefit of the American people.”
His work as a member the conference will begin in December, when Beermann will attend a plenary session in Washington, DC. During the session, consultants and committees will present reports proposing recommendations for ways in which governments can improve their administrative function. The full conference will then vote to accept, reject, or amend each recommendation.“It’s a deliberative body,” he says, likening the system to that of Congressional committees.
Beermann is a scholar of administrative law and the author or coauthor of four books on the subject. His appointment will grant him the opportunity to apply his expertise in legal doctrine as a member of the Committee on Adjudication, which focuses on procedural issues and agency case management.
As a participant of the Committee on Adjudication, Beermann says he will offer the “legal and constitutional perspective on what agencies are doing, why they can do it, and what they should do.” Other members of the committee will offer a “practical perspective” on “the workings of agencies,” he notes.
“Each research project the Conference is doing is assigned to a committee,” Beermann says. The committee “participates in the process of researching issues and formulating recommendations.”
As a member of the Conference, Beermann says he is looking forward to “learning from the different people,” including “excellent academics, some really accomplished practitioners, and also some terrific, dedicated public servants, people in the different federal agencies.”
“The opportunity to learn about the issues facing the government and learn from these different people’s experiences is what I really value most about it,” he says. “They [ACUS] really have just fabulous people involved.”
Beermann says he is “honored” by the appointment. His primary goal is to contribute to the work of the organization, acknowledging that there is a large commitment associated with big projects.
Asked what he hoped to accomplish as a public member of ACUS, Beermann replied, “really, anything that I can do to help is what I want to accomplish. It’s a little-known jewel in the crown of the federal government.”
Reported by Kaya Williams (COM’20)
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