Tracking Major Rules in the Courts 


Presidents enact large parts of their agendas through federal agencies' rules, but these are often challenged in court. This project explores how often major rules are challenged in federal court and how they’ve fared in litigation across time.

This study covers all 1,870 major rules issued from 1996, when the Congressional Review Act (CRA) was enacted, through the end of the Trump Administration. We also provide results on initial challenges to the Biden Administration’s major rules. The CRA’s enactment provided the starting point because it created the “major rules” category. We coded each major rule for several variables, including the administration and agency that issued the rule. Using legal databases, we then determined how many of those major rules were challenged in court and how they fared. Our full academic article provides more detail on the methodology.