
Education
1973 JD Harvard Law School
1970 AB Columbia College (Economics)
Bio
Dan Feldman teaches Oversight & Investigation, Ethics & Accountability, and Administrative Law. In 2019 the MPA faculty elected him as Program Director for its Inspection & Oversight track. He was first elected to the New York State Assembly in 1980, and served as a member of the Legislature from 1981 through 1998, writing over 140 state laws, including New York’s Megan’s Law and Organized Crime Control Act. As Correction Committee chair for twelve years, he led some of the first efforts to repeal the Rockefeller drug laws. For six years thereafter, as a senior member of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s staff, he exposed HUD’s 203k mortgage loan guarantee scandal and led the investigation of UnumProvident’s disability insurance scam. Until his full-time appointment at John Jay, he worked as Special Counsel for Law & Policy to New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. Feldman's fourth book, Tales from the Sausage Factory: Making Laws in New York State, with co-author Gerald Benjamin, was published by SUNY Press in 2010, and his fifth book, The Art of the Watchdog: Fighting Fraud, Waste, Abuse and Corruption in Government, with co-author David Eichenthal, also by SUNY Press, in 2013. His most recent book, Administrative Law: The Sources and Limits of Government Agency Power, was published by Sage/CQ Press in 2016. He also wrote numerous scholarly articles, and served as Perspective and Commentary Editor for Public Administration Review from 2013 through 2017. His current research involves government oversight, administrative theory, and legal philosophy.
JJC Affiliations
Course Taught
PAD 731, PAD 739, PAD 740, PAD 741, PAD 758
Languages spoken/fluent in
Scholarly Work
Books
ADMINISTRATIVE LAW: THE SOURCES AND LIMITS OF GOVERNMENT AGENCY POWER, Sage/CQ Press, Thousand Oaks, California 2016.
THE ART OF THE WATCHDOG: FIGHTING FRAUD, WASTE, ABUSE AND CORRUPTION IN GOVERNMENT, SUNY Press, with co-author David Eichenthal, Albany, N.Y., 2014.
TALES FROM THE SAUSAGE FACTORY: MAKING LAWS IN NEW YORK STATE, SUNY Press, with co-author Gerald Benjamin, Albany, N.Y., 2010
NEW YORK CRIMINAL LAW, West Publishing Company, Inc., St. Paul, Minn., 1996, legislative editor and co-author
THE LOGIC OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT, William Morrow & Co., Inc., N.Y., 1990
REFORMING GOVERNMENT, William Morrow & Co., Inc., New York, 1981
Chapters
The New York State Office of the Attorney General, in New York State Government Handbook, Gerald Benjamin, ed., Oxford University Press, New York, 2012
New York’s Born-Again Money Laundering Statute, 224 New York Law Journal, with Kevin Suttlehan, Oct.31, 2000, 4. Reprinted as Chapter 8 of New Responsibilities & Obligations Under the Money Laundering & Financial Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, Practising Law Institute, New York, 2002
Realpolitik, or The First Machine to Beat is the Mimeograph, Up Against New York, William Morrow & Co., New York, 1970
Journal editing
Perspective and Commentary Editor, Public Administration Review, 7/2013-
Member, Editorial Board, Public Administration Review, 1992-2000, 1/2013-6/2103
Guest editor, Government, Law & Policy Journal, Volume 13, Number 2 (Winter 2011) and Volume 14 Number 1 (Spring 2012)
Articles
The Inspector General: Political Culture and Constraints on Effective Oversight, 19(6) Public Integrity 593-606, Nov./Dec. 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10999922.2017.1309187; http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1123-2216
The Legitimacy of United States Government Agency Power, 75(1) Public Administration Review, pp. 75-84, January/February 2015, DOI: 10.1111/puar.12279.
Progressive Policy and Legislation in New York State, Continued: The Last Four Decades, 16(2) Government, Law and Policy Journal, pp. 4-9, Winter 2014
Public Value Governance or Real Democracy (Commentary), 74(4) Public Administration Review 504-5, July/August 2014, DOI: 10.1111/puar.12250.
Who Guards the Guardians? 35 Legislative Gazette 5, Number 15, December 6, 2011 (Albany, New York),
Tough Love – Tightening Administrative Hearing Procedures To Get Better Substantive Justice, 25 The NAPPA Report 7, November/December 2011 (published by National Association of Public Pension Attorneys, Sacramento, California), with Deborah Richards
State Law Encourages Insurers to Cheat, 237 New York Law Journal, January 10, 2007, 2 (annotated letter)
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Preemption, 231 New York Law Journal, with Mark Fleischer, April 6, 2005, 4
Legislating or Litigating Public Policy Change: Gunmaker Tort Liability, 12 Va. J. of Social Policy and the Law 140 (Fall 2004)
Conflict Diamonds, International Trade Regulation, and the Nature of Law, 24 U. Pa. J. of Internat’l Economic Law 835 (Winter 2003-4)
Not Quite High Noon for Gunmakers, But It’s Coming: Why Hamilton Still Means Negligence Liability in Their Future, 67 Brooklyn L. Rev. 293 (Winter 2001)
New York’s Born-Again Money Laundering Statute, 224 New York Law Journal, with Kevin Suttlehan, Oct.31, 2000, 4. Reprinted as Chapter 8 of New Responsibilities & Obligations Under the Money Laundering & Financial Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, Practising Law Institute, New York, 2002
The “Scarlet Letter Laws” of the 1990's: A Response to Critics, 60 Albany L. Rev. 1081, June 1997
20 Years of Prison Expansion: A Failing National Strategy, 53 Public Admin. Rev. 561, Nov./Dec. 1993
Imprisoners’ Dilemma, 14 The American Prospect 106, Summer 1993
Public Administration and the Constitution, Introduction to Forum, 53 Public Admin. Rev.237, May/June 1993
J.S. Mill and the Middle Road for American Constitutional Jurisprudence, 20Perspectives on Pol. Sci. 197, Fall 1991
Constitutional Dimensions of the Iran-contra Affair, 2 Int’l. J. of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 381, Fall 1988
Ethical Analysis in Public Policymaking, 15 Policy Studies J. 441, March 1987
Principled Compromise, 6 Crim. Justice Ethics 50, Winter/Spring 1987
Teaching Law, 37 News for Teachers of Pol. Sci. 1, Spring 1983
Book review, 77 Amer. Pol. Sci. Rev. 216, 1983
Games of Skill, 8 Political Methodology 59, 1982
Reformers as Legislative Watchdogs, 10 The Bureaucrat 49, 1981
Combating Waste in Government, 6 Policy Analysis 467, Fall 1980
Administrative Agencies and the Rites of Due Process, 7 Fordham Urban L. J. 229, 1978-79
Honors and Awards
Elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, 2016
Williston Prize, Harvard Law School, 1971
New York City Urban Fellowship, 1969-1970
Research Summary
1) oversight principles and cases in the United States
2) philosophical foundations of Lon Fuller's jurisprudential approach