Dear Vice President-Elect Pence:
It has come to our attention that a number of Departments and independent agencies are working furiously behind closed doors to bring significant, legally tenuous litigation against American business interests before January 20, 2017. Doing so will saddle the Trump Administration with having to litigate cases based on job crushing liberal legal theories. Such “midnight litigation,” particularly litigation that does not concern imminent threats to health or safety, must receive the strictest of scrutiny from the transition, and we urge the new Administration in the strongest possible terms not to treat such litigation with deference.
We have long been concerned about “midnight regulation” – regulations promulgated in the waning days of a lame duck administration. Because of this concern, Congress enacted the Congressional Review Act, which provides Congress procedural tools to disapprove expeditiously these last ditch midnight regulations. Congress, however, has no authority over litigation brought by the Executive Branch, and it will be incumbent upon the Trump Administration to decide whether to continue to pursue such cases.
President-elect Trump promised to “make American great again” and successfully argued that a rigged system has stymied growth, competitiveness and opportunity. This is due in no small measure to the Obama Administration’s war on business, which was again made apparent only days ago with the President’s executive action to ban offshore oil drilling in areas of the Artic and Atlantic Oceans. The mountains of regulations promulgated by the current Administration are a key reason economic growth has been dismally low. Litigation is another form of executive action that can have similar devastating impacts on American jobs and competitiveness and should be reviewed in the same manner that the Transition is reviewing regulations.
Should the Obama Administration bring non-routine, last minute, legally unorthodox midnight litigation, your Administration should not hesitate to withdraw immediately from that litigation. In such circumstances, the new Administration should not be constrained by notions of deference and should not support suspect legal theories that could have devastating economic effects for decades to come.
We appreciate the difficult work ahead of you and wish you the best as you continue to prepare to undo the damage of the last eight years.
Sincerely,
George Landrith
President
Frontiers of Freedom
Horace Cooper
Senior Fellow
Heartland Institute
Grover Norquist
President
Americans for Tax Reform
The Honorable J. Kenneth Blackwell
Chairman
Constitutional Congress, Inc.
Richard A. Viguerie
Chairman
ConservativeHQ.com
Morton Blackwell
Chairman
The Weyrich Lunch
Phil Kerpen
President
American Commitment
Jim Martin
President
60 Plus
Lew Uhler
President
National Tax Limitation Committee
Judson Phillips
Founder
Tea Party Patriots
David Williams
President
Taxpayers Protection Alliance
Seton Motely
President
Less Government
C. Preston Noell III
President
Tradition, Family, Property, Inc.
Scott Vanatter
President
The Last Best Hope on Earth Institute
Dee Hodges
President
Maryland Taxpayers Association
Brent Gardner
Chief Government Affairs Officer
Americans for Prosperity
Willes K. Lee
President
National Federation of Republican Assemblies
Mark Thomas
Founder
Freedom & Prosperity Caucus
John Cooper
President
Defending America Foundation
Susan Taylor
President
Strengthening America for All
William A. Estrada, Esq.,
Director of Federal Relations
Home School Legal Defense Association
Mat Staver, Esq.
Founder & Chairman
Liberty Counsel
Lorenzo Montanari
Executive Director
Property Rights Alliance
Katie McAuliffe
Executive Director
Digital Liberty
Nicholas Willis
President
Americans for Liberty & Security
Michael J. Bowen
CEO
Coalition for a Strong America
Clyde Wayne Crews
Vice President for Policy
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Charles Sauer
President
Market Institute
Norm Singleton
President
Campaign for Liberty