Chapter 11 Exercises — The Bureaucracy in Action

These exercises ask you to put the chapter's institutional vocabulary to work on real material — actual Federal Register rules, actual workforce data, actual cases. Most of them will require an internet connection and 30 to 90 minutes. Several involve looking up information specific to your district or state.

Exercise 11.1 — Trace a Federal Register rule from proposed to final

Pick any economically significant rule issued by a federal agency in the last three years. Good places to start: regulations.gov (search by agency), the Federal Register itself (federalregister.gov), or news coverage of major rule-makings. Examples that have generated substantial documentation include the EPA's vehicle-emission standards, FDA pharmaceutical-pricing rules, OSHA workplace-safety rules, FCC broadband-mapping rules, Treasury IRA tax-credit rules, and SEC climate-disclosure rules.

For your selected rule, document:

  1. The statutory authority the agency cited — which Act of Congress, which section.
  2. The notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) — when it was published, what the agency said it was trying to accomplish.
  3. The public comment period — how long it lasted, roughly how many comments were submitted (regulations.gov displays the count).
  4. Three substantive comments from different perspectives — at least one from industry, one from a non-industry advocacy organization, and one from a state government or federal officeholder. Summarize each comment in a paragraph.
  5. The final rule — when it was published, how the preamble responded to the comments you read, what changes (if any) the agency made between proposed and final.
  6. Any legal challenge to the rule — was it litigated? On what grounds? What's the current status?

Write up your findings in 600 to 1,000 words. The point is not to advocate for or against the rule, but to demonstrate that you can navigate the APA process as it actually plays out. End your write-up with one paragraph on whether the process, as you observed it, produced what you'd consider a fair outcome — and steel-man the opposing answer.

Exercise 11.2 — Identify the federal employer presence in your district

Open OPM's FedScope tool (fedscope.opm.gov) or one of the visualizations built on top of it. Search your congressional district or, if district-level data is not available, the metropolitan area or county that contains your district.

For your area, compile:

  1. The total number of federal civilian employees.
  2. The five agencies with the largest local presence.
  3. The local distribution of federal contractor work (the General Services Administration's award database at sam.gov can help).
  4. Any major federal facilities — courthouses, military bases, VA medical centers, NPS sites, USPS mail-processing centers, IRS service centers, federal prisons.

Then identify your representative's recent vote on a federal-workforce-related issue. Possibilities: appropriations bills, debt-ceiling legislation, agency-restructuring authorizations, the various Schedule F debates, Department-of-Government-Efficiency-related measures.

Write 400 to 700 words on whether your representative's position aligns with the local federal-employment interests in your district. (Note: representatives can take many positions defensibly. If your representative voted to cut federal workforce while having a large federal-employee constituency, that's not automatically inconsistent — they might believe other priorities outweigh local employment, or they might believe particular cuts are warranted regardless of local impact. Steel-man the alignment claim and the misalignment claim both.)

Exercise 11.3 — Analyze a Loper Bright aftermath case

Find a federal court decision issued after July 2024 that explicitly cites Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo in evaluating an agency's statutory interpretation. The Federalist Society's regulatory tracker, the Pacific Legal Foundation's case database, and law-firm administrative-law newsletters all maintain growing lists of these. CourtListener (courtlistener.com) is a free resource for opinion text.

For your selected case, identify:

  1. The agency action at issue — what rule, guidance document, or enforcement decision was being challenged.
  2. The statutory ambiguity — which statutory term or provision was unclear.
  3. The agency's proposed interpretation and the challenger's preferred interpretation.
  4. The court's analytical approach post-Loper Bright — did the court use traditional tools of statutory interpretation? Did it cite Skidmore deference (which survives) for any factual or expertise-based aspects? Did the court reach a different result than it would have under pre-Loper Bright Chevron deference?
  5. The outcome — did the agency win or lose?

Write 500 to 800 words. Focus on whether Loper Bright genuinely changed the case's analytical structure or whether the court would have reached the same outcome under Chevron. Some early aftermath cases turn out to be ones where Chevron was already not dispositive; others involve the kind of close interpretive call where Chevron would have been outcome-determinative. Be careful to identify which kind of case you've found.

Exercise 11.4 — Steel-man Schedule F

Write two short essays of 400 to 600 words each:

Essay A. Imagine you are the senior policy advisor to a President who genuinely believes the federal bureaucracy has become unresponsive to electoral mandates and that career employees in policy-making positions are systematically obstructing the administration's program. Make the strongest, most principled argument for Schedule F or its functional equivalent. Address the legitimate critique that this risks reverting to pre-Pendleton spoils dynamics. Address the concern that "policy-determining" categories can be defined so broadly as to encompass technical expert positions. Identify what limits or safeguards would preserve the legitimate concern about democratic responsiveness while preventing the abuses civil-service reformers feared.

Essay B. Imagine you are the executive director of an organization committed to civil-service merit and protection. Make the strongest, most principled argument against Schedule F. Address the legitimate critique that the current system makes it difficult for elected Presidents to implement their agendas through agencies whose career staff lean systematically in one direction. Address the concern that career-protection rules can be used to insulate poor performers from accountability. Identify what reforms could increase democratic responsiveness without reverting to the pre-Pendleton system.

Both essays should be persuasive and respectful of the position they oppose. The exercise is not to determine "the right answer." It is to demonstrate that you can argue both sides at full strength — the steel-manning discipline this textbook centers.

Exercise 11.5 — Map the independent-agency landscape

Pick five independent regulatory commissions from this list: FCC, FTC, FEC, NLRB, SEC, CPSC, NRC, CFTC, FDIC, NCUA, FERC, STB, USPS Postal Regulatory Commission, EEOC, NTSB.

For each, document:

  1. The number of commissioners and their term lengths.
  2. The current partisan composition (most multimember commissions have rules limiting same-party majorities — typically 3-2 with the President's party holding the chair).
  3. One major rule or decision the commission has issued in the last three years.
  4. Any current litigation challenging the commission's structure or authority on Seila-style or Humphrey's-style grounds.

Then in 300 to 500 words, identify which (if any) of your five commissions you think most needs to be insulated from short-term presidential control, and why. Steel-man the opposing argument that all five should be brought under direct presidential control.

Exercise 11.6 — Review a major-questions case

Read the majority opinion in either West Virginia v. EPA (2022), Biden v. Nebraska (2023), or NFIB v. OSHA (2022). Then read the principal dissent.

Write 500 to 800 words on:

  1. What the majority identifies as the "major question."
  2. What the majority requires for clear congressional authorization.
  3. The dissent's strongest argument that no major-questions analysis is warranted, or that the statute provides clear enough authority.
  4. Your assessment of which side has the better textualist reading. (You may also discuss the broader doctrinal merits, but begin with the textual analysis.)

Note: this exercise rewards careful reading. The strongest version of each side's argument is in the actual opinions, not in the news coverage of them.

Exercise 11.7 — Implementation case study

Pick one of these recent implementations to research:

  • The CHIPS and Science Act (2022) semiconductor-fabrication grants — Department of Commerce administration.
  • The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (2021) electric-vehicle charging program — joint Department of Transportation / Department of Energy administration.
  • The IRA (2022) Direct Pay credits for tribal governments and nonprofits — Treasury / IRS administration.
  • The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act's Opportunity Zones — Treasury / IRS administration.
  • One of the Trump 2.0 administration's rule rescissions of an Obama- or Biden-era regulation.

Document the implementation timeline: when was the statute enacted, when did the agency begin work, when were proposed rules issued, when did final rules issue, when did funds begin flowing to recipients (if applicable), what implementation problems have been documented in GAO reports or congressional oversight hearings.

Write 600 to 900 words. The focus is implementation pace and quality, not policy merits.

Exercise 11.8 — Compare three FOIA experiences

Either through your own request or through reporting from organizations like MuckRock, the Knight First Amendment Institute, or the Sunlight Foundation, identify three FOIA case studies — one where the system worked reasonably (request honored within statutory timelines, responsive documents produced), one where it worked poorly (excessive delay, broad redactions, or withholding), and one ambiguous case.

Write 500 to 800 words on what made the difference. Was it the agency? The complexity of the request? The political sensitivity of the records? The specific FOIA officer? The requesting party's litigation posture?

The point of the exercise is to develop your own judgment about how the transparency-versus-deliberation tension actually plays out in practice — not to confirm a prior view.