Near the very end of President George W. Bush's second term in January 2009, economist Veronique de Rugy challenged the assertion by then-President-elect Barack Obama that the two-term Republican had "take[n] a hands-off approach to regulation." De Rugy lamented that the Bush administration, in fact, took a relatively heavy-handed approach to regulation.

A federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) is supposed to govern how regulations are developed and implemented. The APA requires providing notice to the public of the content of regulations at several steps during the regulatory process and giving the public an opportunity to participate in the regulatory process. This is intended to allow scrutiny of regulatory actions and prevent secret negotiations among regulators behind closed doors.

Last week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee held an additional hearing about the proposed implementation regulations for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). As noted before, the proposed regulations go well beyond the law passed by Congress as the Department of Education (DOEd) continues seeking to meddle in local schools. The testimony of the witnesses highlights the need for public input pushing back on the federal government’s proposed regulations, which include a potential back door route to reimpose Common Core mandates on the states.

Last month's proposed rules on school accountability are yet another reminder that it’s time for federal bureaucrats at the Department of Education to get their hands out of our education system. In its latest power grab, the department seeks to enact top-down measures that would remove authority from the hands of teachers, school districts, and state government. The regulation would impose Education Department-mandated accountability measures promulgating federal government oversight over student and school achievement.

In a significant victory for basic law and order, a federal court in Wyoming Tuesday affirmed a basic constitutional concept: that the executive branch must comply with laws passed by Congress. Such is the power and unaccountability of the regulatory state that this counts as news.

Perhaps the cocktails preceding yesterday's welcome dinner at the American Constitution Society's annual convention are to blame, but when Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren addressed the dinner, they appeared to be suffering from memory problems. As they spoke about the Senate's handling of President Obama's judicial nominees and Donald Trump's remarks concerning a Mexican-American judge, their memory lapses were too numerous to discuss in a single post. But here are several examples:

Last month, the Senate voted 56-41 to rescind the Department of Labor’s “Fiduciary Rule” using the Congressional Review Act. This was after a House vote of 234-183 to repeal the regulation. Under the Congressional Review Act, the House and the Senate reserve the right to jointly overrule unnecessary or burdensome acts of regulatory overreach. Today, as promised, President Obama has blocked Congress' efforts to deregulate. This is the 10th veto of the Obama presidency.

Yesterday's proposed rules on school accountability are yet another reminder that it’s time for federal bureaucrats at the Department of Education to get their hands out of our education system. In its latest power-grab, the department seeks to enact top-down measures that would remove authority from the hands of teachers, school districts, and state government. The regulation would impose Education Department-mandated accountability measures promulgating federal government oversight over student and school achievement.