The Deep[ly Necessary] State (with K. Sabeel Rahman)

How to Save a Country

If you’ve never heard of OIRA, you aren’t alone. But while small, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is a mighty federal agency, with a vital role in reviewing and implementing executive branch regulations.

It’s also a popular target for some on the right. When conservatives target the administrative state and paint executive powers or civil service as overreaching, agencies like OIRA are what they’re disparaging.

What would the US look like without the administrative state? And what can progressives do to protect it? This week, Felicia and Michael ask those questions (and many more) of OIRA’s recent leader, K. Sabeel Rahman, who served in the agency from 2021 to early 2023.

Sabeel is the co-founder and co-chair of the Law and Political Economy Project, the former president of the think tank Demos, and the author of the books Democracy against Domination and Civic Power: Rebuilding American Democracy in an Era of Crisis (co-authored by Hollie Russon Gilman).

As Sabeel tells Michael and Felicia, OIRA is indispensable in that rebuilding.

“Of course we want our government to be responsive and accountable to the public,” Sabeel says. “But I would actually argue that the way we do that is through the regulatory process, through having policymakers in government who are apolitical, neutral civil servants whose whole mission is to serve the public, not to serve any one party.”

And later, the trio discuss OIRA’s efforts to make government services more accessible and reflect on the too-close-for-comfort debt ceiling battle.

Presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding for this podcast was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders.

You can find transcripts and related resources for every episode at howtosaveacountry.org.