ACUS Honors Late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:  Harry M. Seidman
202.480.2085
hseidman@acus.gov

ACUS Honors Late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

Washington, DC, June 18, 2019 – The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) today announced that it has named the room where its presidentially appointed Council meets the “Antonin Scalia Council Room.” The naming honors the important contributions to the agency of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, ACUS’s third Chairman (1972–1974).

Justice Scalia led ACUS during its formative years. He contributed immeasurably to enhancing  its stature as an agency uniquely positioned to help other agencies improve the fairness, efficiency, and overall quality of their regulatory and other administrative procedures.

“His contributions continued well beyond his tenure as Chairman,” said Matthew Lee Wiener, ACUS’s Acting Chairman, Vice Chairman, and Executive Director. “They included his congressional testimony years later in support of the reauthorization and funding of the agency.  No one made the case more persuasively and enthusiastically than Justice Scalia.”

Ronald Cass, a longtime member of ACUS’s Council and close friend of Justice Scalia, remarked that “Antonin Scalia was not only a profoundly consequential Supreme Court justice—he also was a leading scholar and a deeply influential jurist in the field of administrative law. He took special pride in his chairmanship of ACUS and in its ongoing work. It is fitting that the Council room now bears his name.”

Lee Liberman Otis, the Chair of ACUS’s Judicial Review Committee, who took then-Professor Scalia’s administrative law course at the University of Chicago and later clerked for him on the Supreme Court, added: “Justice Scalia had an unparalleled understanding of the importance of administrative law and its relationship to the structural Constitution. It's wonderful that future ACUS members will deliberate in a conference room bearing his name.”

 

About ACUS

ACUS is an independent federal agency dedicated to improving the administrative process through consensus-driven applied research and providing nonpartisan expert advice and recommendations for federal agency procedures. Its membership is composed of senior federal officials, academics, and other experts from the private sector. Except for the Chairman, all ACUS Members are unpaid.

ACUS is committed to promoting effective public participation and efficiency in the rulemaking process by leveraging interactive technologies and encouraging open communication with the public as well as making improvements to the regulatory process by reducing unnecessary litigation, and improving the use of science and the effectiveness of applicable laws. 

Learn more about ACUS at www.acus.gov.