ADMINISTRATIVE LAW IN THE STATES: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SYMPOSIUM

Five States-Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin-and five distinct approaches to administrative law, each explained by a distinguished justice from each State's high court. Perhaps there should be a round-robin tournament to pick the best one. Or perhaps Adam White, the symposium's able organizer in chief, might judge the justices, declaring a winner after reading each justice's submission and hearing them present their cases. Or perhaps I-federal judges have trouble resisting the temptation to pick winners - should decide who wins.But maybe winning is not the right way to think about it. As these timely and thoughtful essays confirm, state courts are all over the map when it comes to their approaches to administrative law and to today's most pressing issues: the permissible scope of explicit delegations of legislative power and the propriety of implied delegations of interpretive power. Sure, state courts sometimes identify winning insights suitable for export to other States and eventually even to the federal courts. Sure too, state courts may serve as a forum for trial-and-error approaches to new challenges, say the proper approach to administrative law during a pandemic. But as often as not, more often than not in truth, the state courts show variation, perhaps because variation is often due in a country this large and filled with so many different, sometimes competing, demands. If there can be a culture and cuisine of place, there can be an administrative law of place.But who would know? While state administrative law historically has revealed many distinct approaches and insights, much of the attention on the topic for too long has gone to the federal side of things. Our obsession with federal law inclines us to notice changes in administrative law most of all through decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Hubble Telescope for assessing American law. That lens reveals federal decisions cutting back on judicial deference to agency interpretations of law-the Chevron doctrine-and warning Congress that the Court may enforce the nondelegation doctrine more rigorously in the future. But that singular focus often misses key innovations in American administrative law where they first occur-in the States-then misses the lessons that the state experiences have to offer.What was once invariably true about administrative law has become less true. Today's symposium confirms a promising trend. For decades, state administrative law languished in aca