There are deep tensions between the rule of law and the rise of the modern administrative state. In all too many settings administrative agencies intervene when they should stay their hand, which is true about much of what transpires in the Federal Communications Commission and National Labor Relations Board. In other cases, the Environmental Protection Agency blocks common-law and equitable remedies that should be routinely allowed. These ad hoc motions put ever greater strains on the rule of law, which leads me to this somber assessment—that much of the work of the administrative state is at cross-purposes with both sound public policy and the rule of law.