My name is Daniel Greenberg. I am a licensed attorney and a senior legal fellow at the Cato Institute. I write to comment on a proposed rule, “Review of State Bar Complaints and Allegations Against Department of Justice Attorneys.” This rule was proposed by the Department of Justice on March 5, 2026. The rule’s docket number is OAG199.

I am familiar with the sort of regulation that is the focus of this proposed rule. For over three years, I served as senior policy advisor in the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL), and my chief duty there was to advise the Secretary and my colleagues on the nature and consequences of occupational regulation. I have written and published studies through both USDOL and in law reviews about the nature and consequences of occupational legislation. While at USDOL, I testified before legislative committees in many different states about matters related to occupational licensing. Before that, I was a state legislator in the Arkansas General Assembly, where I wrote and passed (among other things) legislation that reformed occupational regulations as well as other kinds of regulations. I also served as the Chair of that state’s Alcohol Beverage and Control Commission, and during that time I helped to write regulations pertaining to trade in intoxicating substances into law.

I write this comment to argue that the proposed rule is defective in at least five respects.

  1. The proposed rule’s language is overly vague, because it fails to explain with reasonable precision the nature of the federal compulsion over state authorities that it would establish.