Draining the swamp

Andrew C. McCarthy is a former federal prosecutor.

The most impressive part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ rollout was his discussion of the administrative state and the need to push back against governance by abusive, unaccountable bureaucrats.

DeSantis demonstrated impressive command of the Constitution’s structure: Law is supposed to be made by Congress, which answers to the voters, but legislative power has been steadily usurped by executive agencies, resulting in regulatory creep that has eroded property rights and liberty generally.

In Florida, DeSantis was a model of standing athwart suffocating bureaucrats, even as thenPresident Donald Trump deferred to them in the COVID crisis.

We desperately need that in Washington.

DeSantis also had a good grasp on the trajectory of Supreme Court jurisprudence in this area — predicting that the justices would cut back on legal doctrines that endow administrative agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, with too much power.

Sure enough, the morning after the governor’s announcement of his candidacy, the court issued a critical ruling that reins in the EPA’s regulatory authority under the Clean Water Act — just as it did last year with respect to the Clean Air Act.

Finally, DeSantis did not mince words about the imperative of addressing the FBI’s dizzying array of abuses in recent years.

Personally, though many disagree, I do not believe FBI Director Christopher Wray is one of the more culpable players in that saga; but it is Wray’s job to fix the problems, and the problems persist — he’s failed in that sense.

DeSantis made clear that, as president, he’d appoint a new director who would hopefully have eight years under DeSantis and a strong attorney general to make big, necessary changes.