Reagan’s Lesson for Trump: Listen to the Lawyers

By Cass R. Sunstein, Bloomberg View

The last time progressives were this alarmed about a presidential transition, there were just two Star Wars movies, “Dallas” was themost-watchedshow on TV, and Ronald Reagan, dismissed by many as an actor and an extremist, was about to become commander-in-chief.

At the time, I was a young lawyer in the Department of Justice, fortunate enough to witness important aspects of Reagan’s first year up close. Reagan and his team did two exceedingly smart things early on, providing a remarkably stable foundation for the first term of his transformative presidency.

First, they ...