Brief of Amicus Curiae Professor Steven L. Schooner in Support of Petitioners\u27 Petition for Certiorari in King v. United States (U.S. Supreme Court)

This is an amicus brief in support of a U.S. Supreme Court petition for certiorari in King v. United States (No. 25-856), in which GW Law School\u27s GW Law’s Administrative Law, Issues, and Appeals Clinic represented government contracts expert, GW Law Professor Steven L. Schooner). Petitioners—retired UPS employees William King, Stephen Dardzinski, and the Estate of Anthony Gugliuzza (on behalf of a class of retirees and pension beneficiaries)—challenge the Federal Circuit’s novel “underlying assets” test (created in reviewing a matter initially decided in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims), which withholds per se Takings Clause protection for vested rights to payment unless the claimant also owns the assets used to pay. The brief explains how that rule unnecessarily departs from Supreme Court precedent and deepens a pre-existing circuit split. It also warns that the rule invites retroactive abrogation of contractual obligations and, in turn, could force contractors into an arbitrary regulatory-takings framework that yields only de minimis relief. This brief was prepared by the team of GW Law students Eric Frank, Giovanna Milano, Matt Novotny, Tegan Oliver, and Kaci Waguespack, under the supervision of Professor Aram Gavoor, through GW Law School’s Administrative Law, Issues, and Appeals Clinic

Brief of Amici Curiae Professors Steven L. Schooner and Gregory C. Sisk in Support of Petitioners\u27 Combined Petition for Panel Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc in Syneren Technologies Corp., et al, v. United States (U.S. Federal Circuit), April 6, 2026.

This is an amicus brief in support of a petition for rehearing (and rehearing en banc) in Syneren Technologies Corp., et al, v. United States (No. 2024-1424). Amici are law professors interested in ensuring that bedrock principles of administrative law, including Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) standards, are applied to ensure that federal agencies act with integrity, accountability, and engage in fair and regular processes that do not subject contractors to arbitrary and capricious government action. The brief advocates for U.S. Federal Circuit en banc rehearing on the issue of whether a federal agency can unilaterally, and without leave of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (“COFC”), change the administrative record during ongoing bid protest litigation over that record. The brief also encourages the Court to revisit unnecessarily broad pronouncements made by the panel as to the inapplicability of foundational principles of administrative law to government procurement decisions. Among other things, the brief discusses the Federal Circuit\u27s embrace of the relevant aspects of Chenery and Regents in bid protest litigation for the important administrative law principle that judicial review of agency action is limited to the grounds that the agency invoked at the time it took the action. The brief was prepared by Travis Mullaney

Restorative Restitution

How to best meet the needs of crime victims while also furthering the imperative of decarceration has long vexed advocates and scholars alike. This dilemma comes into sharp focus when one examines two developments in criminal procedure that, until now, have been analyzed separately: victim restitution and restorative justice. Criminal restitution, the monetary payments ordered from defendants to victims, often fails both groups. Because most defendants are indigent, restitution obligations lengthen defendants’ involvement with the criminal legal system without delivering meaningful compensation to victims, making restitution more symbolic than restorative. At the same time, interest in restorative justice has surged as part of a broader reckoning with the failures of the criminal legal system and search for non- retributive responses to crime. Yet, restorative justice remains underutilized post-conviction. This Article interweaves these two strands, proposing restorative justice as a novel solution to the failures of criminal restitution. By situating the growing body of literature about criminal restitution alongside that on victims’ rights and restorative justice, it argues that restorative practices can reframe redress in ways that move beyond monetary compensation, while championing decarceration. While not a panacea for all failures of the criminal legal system, restorative justice theory offers a necessary reframing that provides a meaningful path towards the accountability, restoration, and decarceration that are lacking in the current restitution regime

The Federalism Canons as Ordinary Interpretation

Scholars remain generally skeptical of substantive canons of statutory interpretation even as courts continue to employ such canons in important cases. Unlike semantic canons, which help judges discern the best meaning of statutory text in context, substantive canons provide tiebreakers when the text is unclear or require special clarity in order for the text to perform certain functions. Among the substantive canons, the so-called “federalism canons” have been singled out for special scrutiny. The federalism canons are a family of canons that require courts to avoid interpreting an act of Congress to divest states of certain sovereign rights or powers—including their preexisting rights to sovereign immunity, to structure their own governments, and to exercise jurisdiction over transitory actions—unless the act does so in clear terms or by unavoidable implication. Such canons, critics charge, are incompatible with textualism because judges simply invented them as a way to promote judicially favored values (such as federalism) in disregard of the natural meaning of statutory texts. This charge, however, is based on a false premise. The federalism canons are not a novel judicial creation. They are specific applications of well-established rules of interpretation older than the Constitution itself. These rules instruct courts not to read a legislative act to divest a government of a right or power unless the terms of the act do so clearly or by unavoidable implication. Understood against this background, the traditional federalism canons are fully consistent with mainstream textualism. Like other long-standing interpretive conventions, these canons reflect background context that is an essential part of ordinary interpretation. In applying the federalism canons, courts do not violate—but uphold—their constitutional role as faithful agents of Congress. Properly understood, judicial adherence to such canons reinforces the Constitution’s allocation of powers both between the political branches and the courts, and between the federal government and the states

The GSA’s Draft AI Clause Is Governance by Sledgehammer

The General Services Administration\u27s proposed contract clause, GSAR 552.239-7001, attempts to embed AI governance into federal procurement through a single default instrument applied across GSA\u27s commercial buying channels. The clause addresses real gaps in federal AI acquisition, including inadequate transparency, weak exit rights, insufficient testing authority, opaque supply chains, and unchecked vendor dependency. But it responds by aggregating buyer protections, operational control, sourcing mandates, and politically derived performance conditions into one overburdened clause. This essay examines what the draft gets right, where it overreaches, and why the federal government\u27s rapid shift from an AI governance vacuum to a sweeping, politically charged contract clause is not the corrective the procurement system needs

Transportation Law’s Congestion Problem

Transportation law has a congestion problem: our federalist system of government allows federal and state actors to stymie innovative, locally driven projects that aim to reduce driving. This problem is illustrated in the decades-long legal battles over New York City’s plan to impose “congestion pricing” to toll drivers entering certain parts of Manhattan. Overcoming grandstanding elected officials, lawsuits resting on state and federal supremacy, and even a federal legislative override, congestion pricing was finally launched in January 2025. New Yorkers and suburbanites alike almost immediately started benefiting from cleaner air, faster commutes, safer roads, and increased economic activity and productivity—plus boatloads of money for transit improvements. Just six weeks later, however, the Trump administration Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced he was unilaterally rescinding federal approval for the program, once again throwing it into legal limbo. Through the lens of congestion pricing and its unique characteristics, this Essay illustrates the relatively limited power of local and regional authorities to advance innovative transportation initiatives through the federal and state permitting gauntlet. Part I relates the congestion-pricing backstory in New York City from its origins in the late nineteenth century, to federal and state officials’ unwelcome intervention at key points, to its approval last year. Part II covers the latest attempt to roll back congestion pricing and the pending case of Metropolitan Transportation Authority v. Duffy, a federal lawsuit filed against Secretary Duffy by the regional body that operates the New York City congestion pricing program. Part III argues that new legal approaches that safeguard local interests are necessary. It identifies several judicial and congressional measures that may afford local governments more latitude to plan and carry out their transportation priorities and that may offer innovative, decarbonizing projects a higher priority in permitting

The Unacceptable Risks of Uninsured Nonbank Stablecoins: Written Testimony Presented to the UK House of Lords\u27 Financial Services Regulation Committee

This written testimony was submitted to the Financial Services Regulation Committee of the United Kingdom House of Lords, in response to that Committee’s “Call for evidence” on the “Growth and proposed regulation of stablecoins in the UK,” https://committees.parliament.uk/call-for-evidence/3845/. This testimony provides an overview of the global stablecoin market and the current leading uses of stablecoins. The testimony also describes the unacceptable dangers that uninsured nonbank stablecoins pose to financial stability, economic welfare, consumer protection, monetary policy, regulatory compliance, and law enforcement. The testimony presents the following policy recommendations: (1) Stablecoins should be regulated in the same way as bank deposits. Only regulated banks should be allowed to issue or distribute stablecoins. Stablecoins should be required to satisfy the same prudential standards and provide the same consumer safeguards – including deposit insurance – as bank deposits. (2) Stablecoins should be issued and recorded exclusively on permissioned distributed ledgers that are controlled and administered by one or more designated banks. The designated banks should have full responsibility and accountability for ensuring that their stablecoins and their distributed ledgers fulfill all legal and contractual obligations. (3) To ensure compliance with AML/BSA/KYC requirements, stablecoin holders should be prohibited from holding their stablecoins in “unhosted” private digital wallets. (4) Stablecoin reserves should be invested solely in central bank reserves or in government securities with a weighted average maturity of 20 days or less. (5) If – contrary to the foregoing recommendations – nonbanks are allowed to issue stablecoins, those issuers, crypto exchanges, other crypto trading platforms, and their affiliates and business partners should be prohibited from paying interest, rewards, or any other financial inducements to stablecoin holders for owning stablecoins or keeping their stablecoins at designated locations. The author also presented oral testimony (via Zoom) to the Committee, available at https://committees.parliament.uk/event/26299/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/

Deploying The “Trade Bazooka”: How The Anti-Coercion Instrument Reshapes EU Public Procurement

As trade disputes continue to batter the relationship between the U.S. and its partners in the European Union, a new countermeasure by the EU—the Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI)—has emerged as a serious threat to trade flows, including in public procurement. Although formally framed as a trade-defense mechanism, the ACI is a legal instrument capable of addressing a broad range of economic coercion. Notably, although the ACI is presented as a means of deterrence and de-escalation, the ACI authorizes countermeasures that extend well beyond tariffs, and can severely restrict foreign firms’ access to EU public procurement markets. This article provides an historical overview of the ACI, explains how it operates, and postulates what its implementation could mean for public procurement. With special attention to the geopolitical shifts which shaped the ACI, the article reviews a new operational landscape for transatlantic procurement markets that may prove vulnerable to clashes among allies

FEATURE COMMENT: Governance as a “Blocker”: How the Pentagon’s New AI Strategy Trades Oversight for Speed

The Department of Defense\u27s January 2026 AI Strategy memorandum presents governance and speed as a zero-sum tradeoff, labeling core oversight mechanisms such as ATOs, test and evaluation, and contracting processes as blockers to be waived through a newly established Barrier Removal Board. By doing so, the memo converts governance from a baseline into a negotiable exception. It also redefines Responsible AI in ways that depart from the Department\u27s prior lifecycle-assurance framework, mandates any lawful use contract language that shifts risk management responsibility to the government, and elevates undefined criteria like model objectivity to primary procurement standards, without providing contracting officers a methodology for evaluating compliance. These changes unfold as the acquisition workforce is hollowed out through retirements, buyouts, and reductions in force, reducing the institutional capacity needed to exercise the very discretion the memo demands. The Feature Comment argues that the resulting gap between waiver authority and oversight capacity is not a policy choice but a procurement integrity risk, one that will compound as the acquisition workforce shrinks and institutional oversight erodes

Governing AI Without Agencies: Self-regulatory Organizations and the Federal Backstop

Artificial intelligence is accelerating American innovation and strategic advantage. The governance task is to provide predictable compliance baselines that support scale and competitiveness while remaining workable under executive branch policy, statutory baselines, and the rules that now govern the administrative state. Congress remains slow and factional, and agencies face rising procedural and remedial constraints. Recent Supreme Court doctrine has reduced the administrative state’s interpretive and enforcement leverage. Regulated entities can challenge agency rules when those rules newly impose concrete harm, litigate statutory meaning without Chevron-style mandatory deference to agency statutory interpretations with limited exceptions, and invoke strengthened procedural safeguards in agency enforcement proceedings. Meanwhile, executive branch AI policy is variable across presidential administrations, and states are producing a patchwork of AI mandates. This Article argues that these institutional conditions will make soft law, especially industry self-regulation through structured self-regulatory organizations, a primary mechanism of near-term United States AI governance. It develops a framework of self-regulatory optionality, mapping governance architectures from voluntary codes and standards bodies to organizations that promulgate enforceable rulebooks, conduct audits, and impose meaningful sanctions through membership, certification, and market access levers. Drawing lessons from established self- regulatory ecosystems, the Article identifies practical constraints on private governance, with antitrust as the central limiting doctrine, and it emphasizes design choices that increase credibility, including transparent procedures, due process protections, and carefully bounded information sharing. A frontier AI case study explains why credible self-regulation can be economically rational rather than merely aspirational. Finally, the Article describes how federal actors can reinforce effective self-regulation through procurement-linked benchmarks and related cooperation mechanisms, and how later codification can support federal preemption where state regulation becomes conflicting or excessive