Regulatory Rulemaking
You’ve learned in your high school civics course – or perhaps, from Schoolhouse Rock – how a bill becomes a law. But once Congress passes a law or allocates funding for a specific reason, what happens next? How does a Congressionally-mandated decision translate from a piece of paper discussed, debated, and agreed to on Capitol Hill into an enforceable nationwide policy that creates meaningful change within American communities?
To look at it another way, when presidential candidates run for office, they create a campaign platform that includes different goals, ideas, or initiatives. If a candidate runs on a platform of improving the public school system, securing the border, and rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure, how do these initiatives move from the debate stage into an actionable policy after the new president takes office? The new president will delegate some of their authority to the agencies. Therefore, the new Secretary of Education, Homeland Security, and Transportation will need to begin their tenure to see what regulations are in place, what is within their authority to eliminate, change, build upon, or create, and what they need Congress to do from a legislative or budgetary standpoint to move the president’s agenda forward.
