As Justice Gorsuch rails against federal rules, some profiled in his new book embrace more measured view

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is using a new book to lament what he sees as an explosion of government rules he fears is having serious consequences for the “lives and liberties of every American.”

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is using a new book to lament what he sees as an explosion of government rules he fears is having serious consequences for the “lives and liberties of every American.” But some of the people the conservative justice portrayed in the book as victims have a more nuanced view of the regulations that ensnared them, saying they understood the underlying need for the rules. For instance, Gorsuch describes an out-of-control federal bureaucracy that went after Marty Hahne, a Missouri magician who became a cause célèbre for anti-regulation advocates a decade ago when the US Department of Agriculture required him to draft an emergency disaster plan for Casey, a rabbit he pulled out of a hat at his shows. But Hahne was exempted from that requirement six years ago, following a bipartisan uproar over his story. As he drove to a magic show in Minnesota last week, Hahne told CNN he recognized that the regulation was a needed response to thousands of animals that were abandoned when Hurricane Katrina made landfall in 2005. “Nobody wants to see a pet get abandoned,” Hahne said. “I certainly see no problem with a circus needing to know what to do when a tornado hits their tent,” Hahne said. The US Department of Agriculture regulation Gorsuch skewers in his book was probably “well intentioned,” Hahne said, “but just maybe the implementation of it was a little excessive.”