Majority Congressional Vote Can Strip Coercive Federal Guidance Powers

 BIDEN'S PARTING GIFT: A ROADMAP TO DISMANTLE THE DEEP STATE

WSJ link here 

In a rush to cement power before Trump's return, Biden's DOJ made a critical mistake. 

Their January 17th rule attempting to preserve agency "guidance" power has inadvertently exposed the administrative state's Achilles' heel. Congress can block an 11th-hour power grab and stop it permanently with a simple majority vote.

Through "guidance," unelected bureaucrats have been imposing de facto regulations—linking school lunches to gender policies and threatening administrators over disciplinary practices. 

But in trying to protect this power from Trump, they've made it vulnerable to the Congressional Review Act.

"The implications are massive: Congress can now permanently strip these agencies of their coercive "guidance" powers with a simple majority vote. Once struck down, similar rules can't return without new legislation. Biden's bureaucrats just handed Trump and Congress the blueprint for their own undoing.

Three days before President Trump’s second inauguration, Joe Biden’s Justice Department unwittingly handed him an opportunity to curb its abuse of federal power. The department has been using guidance—a form of agency communication that is, by law, supposed to clarify regulations, not make new ones—to coerce its enforcement targets. In its haste to enshrine this power in the federal code, the DOJ opened it to nullification under the Congressional Review Act. Lawmakers need to act quickly.

It’s no secret that the Biden administration abused its power of guidance. In 2021 the DOJ introduced an interim rule rescinding Trump-era restrictions on guidance, which prevented federal agencies from using guidance to impose de facto binding obligations on individuals or entities. Because the DOJ is the enforcement arm for many federal agencies, its rules determine the coercive power these agencies wield."

Another self-inflicted wound by the Biden administration. The Biden DOJ's "guidance" feels like Idiocracy. Rule by the dumbest. The deep state’s grip is slipping, and Trump’s return is turning their own playbook against them. But will Speaker Johnson really follow through to dismantle the Deep State?

This last-minute power grab is not quite 1984, but it sure feels like they were trying to make it so.