(April 16, 2024): On behalf of Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF), Vice President of Litigation Braden Boucek participated in Federalist Society’s twelfth annual Executive Branch Review Conference. Every year, Federalist Society hosts this conference to address how the executive branch is fulfilling—or failing to fulfill—its constitutional duties. This year’s theme was the Constitution and Regulatory Overreach.
Participating in a panel titled, “Is the Whole of Government Greater than the Sum of its Parts?” Boucek addressed the Biden Administration’s “whole of government” approach to implementing policies, in which executive agencies have used every tool available—from rulemaking, to guidance documents, to Dear Colleague letters—to push the Biden Administration’s policy objectives.
One of the most alarming trends is the Biden Administration’s approach to “equity” and “equitable outcomes.” Agencies, such as the United States Department of Agriculture, have leaned into the administration’s equity agenda by discriminating against farmers of certain races or sexes. Since President Biden took office, SLF has filed two lawsuits on behalf of farmers against USDA over discriminatory loan forgiveness and disaster relief programs.
Boucek stated, “It started with one word: equity. But it ultimately ends with just another box on a bureaucratic form. In this way, equality has been devoured by the whole of government’s enthusiastic appetite for equitable outcomes. . . . Never before has the federal government so enthusiastically thrown American values overboard and devoted the full might of the American government to a contrary policy without congressional backing.”
Watch the full discussion at The Federalist Society.