The Administrative Procedure Act: The Beginnings

THE Virginia Law Review celebrates fortieth anniversary of birth of federal Administrative Procedure Act. For myself, I would prefer to celebrate anniversary of death of proposals that preceded it. The story begins in May 1933, when American Bar Association created a Special Committee on Administrative Law under chairmanship of Louis G. Caldwell, a highly respected Washington lawyer who had practiced ably in telecommunications field. Within four months, scarcely enough time to allow committee's membership to do more than contemplate their own navels, committee was reportedly convinced that function then lodged in administrators' hands should be transferred to independent tribunal or, alternatively, that officials' decisions should be completely reviewable on facts as well as on law by a tribunal marked by judicial independence.' The Special Committee's first formal report and proposal of legislation came in 1934. It was aimed at coping with the evils notoriously prevalent among administrative tribunals, which committee thought would be achieved by creating a federal administrative court with branches and appellate division, or, failing that, an appropriate number of independent tribunals unencumbered by legislative and executive functions.2 Thus began a continuing practice of prescribing a cure-all for shortcomings, real or imagined, of administrative agencies. That shortcomings did exist is incontrovertible, and some of them were amenable to statutory correction-as occurred, for example, when Federal Register Act of 1935 required that documents having general applicability and legal effect or prescribing a penalty be