Deep Dive Episode 40 – Kisor v. Wilkie
On Wednesday, March 27th, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Kisor v. Wilkie. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in Kisor to decide whether to overrule Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., 325 U.S. 410 (1945), and Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452 (1997). Seminole Rock and Auer are often cited for the proposition that when an administrative agency promulgates a regulation and the regulation is ambiguous, a reviewing court must give “controlling weight” to the agency’s interpretation of the regulation unless the interpretation is plainly erroneous or is inconsistent with the regulation. A number of the Court’s members have cast doubt on the soundness of the Seminole Rock/Auer deference doctrine in recent years. Many observers believe that the doctrine’s days are numbered.
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President, Harned Strategies LLC
Karen Harned is President at Harned Strategies LLC. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Legal Center, a post she held from 2002-2022. Prior to joining the Legal Center, Ms. Harned was an attorney at a Washington, D.C. law firm specializing in food and drug law, where she represented several small and large businesses and their respective trade associations before Congress and federal agencies. She also served as Assistant Press Secretary to U.S. Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma from August of 1989 to March of 1993. Ms. Harned received her B.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1989 and her J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center in 1995. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia.
As Executive Director of the NFIB Small Business Legal Center, Ms. Harned commented regularly on small business cases before federal and state courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. She has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, NBC Nightly News, CNN, CNBC and MSNBC, as well as National Public Radio, CBS Radio, and radio outlets across the country. Her opinion editorials and articles regarding healthcare, lawsuit abuse, regulation, and other issues important to small business have been published in newspapers and other publications nationwide.
Ms. Harned has testified before Congress on the small business impact of regulation and the civil justice system. Additionally, she has conducted numerous webinars and legal compliance seminars for small business owners across the country on issues relating to employment law, including unionization and immigration.
Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Judge Stephen Alexander Vaden was appointed as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on July 7, 2025. Alongside Secretary Brooke L. Rollins, Deputy Secretary Vaden leads the Department’s operations and implements policies that support America’s food and farm systems. A native of Union City, Tennessee, Deputy Secretary Vaden brings expertise in agricultural policy, law, and rural development. Previously, he served as a judge on the U.S. Court of International Trade and as General Counsel of USDA. Throughout Deputy Secretary Vaden’s time as General Counsel, he led successful Supreme Court litigation, advanced regulatory reform, and supported the implementation of the 2018 Farm Bill. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and Vanderbilt University. A public servant with strong agricultural roots, Deputy Secretary Vaden is committed to revitalizing rural America and ensuring an abundant, affordable, and safe U.S. food supply.
Andrew Varcoe was formerly a partner at Boyden Gray & Associates in Washington, D.C. From 2014 to 2017, Mr. Varcoe was Deputy General Counsel at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), the trade association for the biotechnology industry. He previously served as an attorney in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Washington, D.C., and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. While at USDA, he briefed, argued, and mediated cases in the federal courts of appeals and helped manage USDA’s and its agencies’ nationwide appellate litigation docket, working closely with trial and appellate lawyers at the U.S. Department of Justice. Before joining USDA, Mr. Varcoe was an associate and then counsel at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP (previously Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering). Mr. Varcoe served as a law clerk to Justice Francis X. Spina of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (from 1999 to 2000), and to Judge Edith H. Jones of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (from 2001 to 2002).
Mr. Varcoe received his J.D. cum laude in 1999 from Harvard Law School, where he was a research assistant to Professor Martha Minow and an editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Mr. Varcoe graduated with honors in 1995 from the University of Chicago, where he was Student Ombudsperson (a mediator, reporting to the President of the University, who investigated and resolved student grievances) and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
In 2018 and 2019, Mr. Varcoe served as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s Environmental Law and Property Rights Practice Group.