Columbia Law Professor Pops Champagne to Celebrate Supreme Court Rulings

A Columbia Law School professor brought out a bottle of champagne during a panel discussion Friday, saying he was in a “celebratory mood” over recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings limiting federal agency powers.

Professor Philip Hamburger, who founded the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), which aims to limit agency powers, was greeted with gasps and laughter as he popped the cork in Washington, D.C.

Hamburger was speaking at a panel on administrative law at the Federalist Society’s annual convention in the capital after a number of decisions, including the effective overturning of the Chevron doctrine in June. He said the U.S. had seen “the rise and rise of the administrative state” over the past few decades.

“We now can see the tipping point when it starts to fall and fall. Won’t that be jolly,” he said. “Of course this is just the beginning. As Churchill said, ‘This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning’ and that puts me in a celebratory mood.”

Hamburger then pulled out a bottle of bubbly and popped the cork, handing out glasses before saying he wanted them “to overflow.”

He then toasted a list of recent Supreme Court rulings that have limited the power of federal agencies, including Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce which overturned precedent that forced courts to defer to agency interpretation of regulations.

“All of you who seek a revival of constitutional freedoms, bravo,” Hamburger added.

The professor has been at New York City’s Columbia Law School since 2006 and has written books and papers exploring the issue of administrative law and its constitutionality.

Newsweek reached out to the school for comment via email Friday afternoon.

As recently as Thursday, Hamburger’s NCLA was continuing its fight, filing an amicus brief urging the court to overturn the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority’s “unfettered regulatory enforcement power over the horseracing industry.”

The NCLA argues that the president of the United States should have these powers, not federal agencies.

“The Supreme Court should settle whether Congress can give private organizations governmental power to enforce the law against private citizens,” Sheng Li, litigation counsel at the NCLA, said in a press release Thursday.

Newsweek approached the NCLA for comment Friday afternoon via email.

The drive for the dismantling of federal agencies and their powers is being seen elsewhere, with President-elect Donald Trump promising to review federal overreach through his new Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

Ramaswamy, who ran to be the Republican Party’s presidential candidate in the 2024 election, said last week that departments could be downsized and suggested some could be moved out of Washington, D.C., and Virginia.