When President Jimmy Carter lost his bid for reëlection, in November, 1980, he had lots of unfinished business that he did not intend to leave that way. Carter’s Administration spent the next several weeks generating regulations at an unprecedented rate, until, in its last month in office, it published more than ten thousand pages of new rules. These rules, which, like most issued by federal agencies, needed no congressional approval, touched on everything from crash tests for cars to access to medical records, and a phrase was coined to describe them. They became known as ‘midnight regulations, after the ‘midnight judges appointed by John Adams in the final hours of his Presidency. Since Jimmy Carter, every President has complained about midnight regulations and, four or eight years later, every President has issued them. On a percentage basis, George Bush senior holds the record: his Administration issued a greater proportion of its rules during the midnight period-generally defined as the last three months in office-than any other President’s. In absolute terms, though, Bill Clinton takes the gold: his Administration, during its midnight phase, published more than twenty-six thousand pages’ worth of rules in the Federal Register. (According to the National […]