Discretionary Decisionmaking in the Regulatory Agencies: A Conceptual Framework

Authors

Daniel J. Gifford, University of Minnesota Law SchoolFollow

Publication

Southern California Law Review

Volume

57

Page

101

Year

1983

Abstract

For years, Professor Kenneth Culp Davis has directed the professional public's attention to the prevalence of what he believes to be insufficiently confined administrative discretion. 1 Davis has found powers of unduly wide latitude in agencies and administrators, such as tax collectors, 2 police officers, 3 welfare administrators, 4 and independent agencies supervising business behavior. 5 In general, Davis recommends confining the discretionary powers of agencies and officials more narrowly than they have been done in the past. He suggests that where discretion cannot practically be so confined, it should be "checked" or "structured." 6 Thus, Davis urges that "one officer should check another, as a protection against arbitrariness." 7 By structuring, he means that agencies should justify their decisions by relating them publicly to other decisions, rules, standards, principles, or policy statements. 8

Comments

Reprinted with the permission of the Southern California Law Review.

Recommended Citation

Daniel J. Gifford, Discretionary Decisionmaking in the Regulatory Agencies: A Conceptual Framework, 57 S. Cal. L. Rev. 101 (1983), available at https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/faculty_articles/336.