Last evening I had the good fortune of being invited and attending the annual reception of Public Citizen. During the course of the event a number of discussions centered around the Old Washington, when we accorded those who differed with our position the respect they deserved. Notwithstanding our occasional differences on federal regulatory policy I recounted the enormous impact the organization had on public policy.
Most noteworthy was the Public Citizen’s work to convince the Supreme Court to overturn the one-house veto of regulations in the Chadha Decision. The decision was of far reaching impact because during my tenure as a career federal employee the one-house veto of regulations vested Congressional committee staff with an enormous power to influence the content of federal rulemakings. The intervention of Public Citizen brought this toxic practice to an end.
Editor
