On April 1, 2021, U.S. Representative John Larson (D-Conn.) introduced a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to block a rule made by the Social Security Administration (SSA) in November 2020.
The rule, published in the Federal Register on November 16, 2020, aims to clarify when administrative appeals judges on the Social Security Administration Appeals Council may hold hearings and issue decisions.
The Congressional Review Act gives Congress a chance to review and reject any new regulatory rules created by federal administrative agencies. Both houses of Congress have to pass a resolution disapproving the SSA rule and President Biden would then have to sign that resolution into law to block the rule. Since the law’s creation in 1996, Congress has used the CRA to repeal 17 out of the over 90,767 rules published in the Federal Register during that time.
The SSA rule went into effect on December 16, 2020. A recent edition of the Congressional Record clarified that Congress has 60 days from February 3, 2021, to use the CRA to block regulatory activity taken near the end of the Trump administration. Rules published by the Trump administration after August 21, 2020 fall within the CRA lookback window.
Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) cosponsored the resolution.
To learn more about the Congressional Review Act and its use, see here. Want to go further? Sign up today for our Learning Journey on the Congressional Review Act.
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