The WSJ has a story today that suggests that indeed it does.I'm not so sure, and I've been looking into the situation.  Looking at the plain numbers doesn't account for selection effects - one reason the agency might take a case to an ALJ is because they've already settled it, and it's inexpensive to put the settlement on record before an in-house judge.  So we should probably strip settled cases out of the analysis.  But there's no question that the SEC is ramping up ALJ enforcement, and that it usually wins there.

Hence the recent spate of arguments that ALJs are unconstitutional.  I'll have more to say on that, too, but it's worth remembering the "part of the furniture" theory of constitutional law as a first order reason to conclude that a government program is probably okay.  If something has been around forever, and is important, it's probably constitutional.  The Supreme Court has probably decided hundreds of cases that began with ALJ proceedings.  You can expect it, and other Article III judges, to assume that the institution of the SEC ALJ should survive.

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