Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-14-05242/USCOURTS-caDC-14-05242-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Financial Services Institute, Inc.
Amicus Curiae for Petitioner
Free Speech For People
Amicus Curiae for Respondent
Letitia James
Amicus Curiae for Respondent
New York Republican State Committee
Appellant
Securities and Exchange Commission
Appellee
Tennessee Republican Party
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 23, 2015 Decided August 25, 2015

No. 14-1194

NEW YORK REPUBLICAN STATE COMMITTEE AND TENNESSEE 

REPUBLICAN PARTY,

PETITIONERS

v.

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION,

RESPONDENT

Consolidated with 14-5242

On Petition For Review and Appeal of a Final Order

of the Securities and Exchange Commission

(No. 1:14-cv-01345)

Jason B. Torchinsky argued the cause for petitioners. 

With him on the briefs were H. Christopher Bartolomucci, 

Erin E. Murphy, and Brian J. Field.

Allen Dickerson was on the brief for amicus curiae 

Financial Services Institute, Inc. in support of appellants.

Jeffrey A. Berger, Senior Litigation Counsel, Securities 

and Exchange Commission, argued the cause for respondent. 

With him on the brief were Michael A. Conley, Deputy 

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General Counsel, Jacob H. Stillman, Solicitor, and Jacob R. 

Loshin, Attorney. Thomas J. Karr, Assistant Attorney 

General, entered an appearance.

Ronald A. Fein was on the brief for amicus curiae Free 

Speech For People in support of respondent.

Muhammad Umair Khan was on the brief for amicus 

curiae Letitia James, New York City Public Advocate, and 

Trustee of the New York City Employees= Retirement System 

in support of appellee/respondent. 

J. Gerald Hebert, Lawrence M. Noble, Fred Wertheimer, 

and Donald J. Simon were on the brief for amici curiae The 

Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 in support of 

respondent-appellee. 

Before: TATEL and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and 

EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD.

PILLARD, Circuit Judge: The New York Republican 

State Committee and the Tennessee Republican Party (“the 

plaintiffs”) sued the Securities and Exchange Commission to 

invalidate a four-year-old rule, promulgated under the 

Investment Advisers Act of 1940, regulating campaign 

contributions by investment advisers. The district court 

dismissed the suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, 

concluding that courts of appeals have exclusive jurisdiction 

to hear challenges to rules under the Act. The plaintiffs 

appealed that decision and concurrently filed a petition asking 

this court for direct review. We consolidated and expedited 

the cases. We hold that courts of appeals have exclusive 

jurisdiction to hear challenges to rules promulgated under the 

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Investment Advisers Act. We therefore affirm the district 

court’s decision. We also hold that such challenges must be 

brought in this court within sixty days of promulgation of the 

rule, and there are no grounds for an exception in this case: 

The law governing where to file was clear during the 

limitations period, and the length of time the statute affords 

for pre-enforcement review is adequate. We therefore dismiss 

the petition as time-barred.

I.

“The Investment Advisers Act of 1940 was the last in a 

series of Acts designed to eliminate certain abuses in the 

securities industry, abuses which were found to have 

contributed to the stock market crash of 1929 and the 

depression of the 1930’s.” SEC v. Capital Gains Research 

Bureau, Inc., 375 U.S. 180, 186 (1963). The Act is the 

linchpin of the federal regulation of financial advisers and 

money managers. In enacting the Investment Advisers Act, 

“Congress intended . . . to establish federal fiduciary 

standards for investment advisers.” Santa Fe Indus., Inc. v. 

Green, 430 U.S. 462, 471 n.11 (1977); see also Transamerica 

Mortg. Advisors Inc. v. Lewis, 444 U.S. 11, 16-17 (1979). 

Most individuals and firms that provide paid advice about the 

value of securities or the advisability of investing in, 

purchasing, or selling them are considered to be investment 

advisers subject to the standards of conduct set forth in the 

Act. See 15 U.S.C. § 80b-2(a)(11).

Under the Act, the Commission has the authority to 

promulgate “rules and regulations . . . reasonably designed to 

prevent such acts, practices, and courses of business as are 

fraudulent, deceptive, or manipulative.” Id. § 80b-6(4); see 

also id. § 80b-11(a). Congress also provided for judicial 

review of orders the Commission issues pursuant to the Act. 

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According to the relevant provision, “[a]ny person or party 

aggrieved by an order issued by the Commission” pursuant to

the Act “may obtain a review of such order in” an appropriate 

court of appeals by filing a petition with that court “within 

sixty days after the entry of such order.” Id. § 80b-13(a).

In 2010, the Commission promulgated a rule limiting

investment advisers’ campaign contributions to certain 

government officials. Such contributions are not banned, but 

they now come at a cost. If an investment adviser or certain 

of its employees contributes to the political campaign of a 

government official with the power to influence the adviser’s 

hiring by a government client, the adviser must wait two years 

before it may provide services for compensation to that 

government client. See Political Contributions by Certain 

Investment Advisers, 75 Fed. Reg. 41,018 (July 14, 2010)

(codified in part at 17 C.F.R. § 275.206(4)-5).

In August 2014, the plaintiffs sued the Commission in 

federal district court seeking an order declaring that the rule, 

as applied to federal campaign contributions, exceeds the 

Commission’s statutory authority, violates the Administrative 

Procedure Act, and violates the First Amendment. They also 

sought an order enjoining the Commission from enforcing the 

rule with respect to federal campaign contributions. The 

district court dismissed the suit for lack of subject matter 

jurisdiction. New York Republican State Comm. v. SEC, 70 F. 

Supp. 3d 362, 364 (D.D.C. 2014). The plaintiffs appealed the 

district court’s decision, and filed a parallel petition for 

review of the rule directly in this court.

II.

The plaintiffs urge us either to reverse the decision of the 

district court or to grant their petition and exercise

jurisdiction. First, they claim that the Investment Advisers 

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Act’s review provision does not apply to their challenge 

because the text of the provision contemplates only review of 

the Commission’s orders and says nothing of its rules. In the 

alternative, the plaintiffs argue that we should grant their 

petition for review even though it was not timely filed. They 

urge us to disregard the sixty day deadline in the Investment 

Advisers Act’s review provision because, they contend, the 

law governing where and when they were supposed to file 

was so unclear that they were justified in filing late. Finally, 

they maintain that the statute’s sixty-day period for mounting 

challenges to rules is unlawfully short. To afford plaintiffs a 

meaningful opportunity for pre-enforcement review, they 

contend, we should either disregard the statute’s time 

limitation or recognize residual jurisdiction to bring their 

claims in the district court under the Administrative Procedure 

Act.

For the reasons that follow, we affirm the order of the 

district court and dismiss the petition. Precedent dictates the 

outcome of this case. For nearly four decades, it has been 

blackletter administrative law that, absent countervailing 

indicia of congressional intent, statutory provisions for direct 

review of orders encompass challenges to rules. Moreover, if 

the plaintiffs were uncertain about where and when to file 

their suit, our precedent gives precise instructions about what 

to do. The proper course for the plaintiffs to protect their 

rights was to file a petition with this court within sixty days of 

the rule’s issuance, not to wait four years to test their claim. 

There is no basis for excusing the plaintiffs’ failure timely to

petition this court for review. The plaintiffs’ final argument, 

that Congress cannot place a sixty-day limit on access to 

pre-enforcement relief, is similarly foreclosed.

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A.

According to the plaintiffs, they appropriately and timely 

filed their suit in district court. They contend that the

Investment Advisers Act’s provision stating that parties 

“aggrieved by an order issued by the Commission . . . may 

obtain a review of such order in” an appropriate court of 

appeals, 15 U.S.C. § 80b-13(a), does not apply to them

because it speaks only to review of “an order” and is silent 

about challenges to rules. Therefore, they say, the statute 

remitted them to filing in the district court under the 

Administrative Procedure Act’s catch-all review provisions

authorizing judicial review of final agency action when no 

other adequate relief is available. See 5 U.S.C. §§ 702-04. 

Because the Administrative Procedure Act was their route to 

review, the plaintiffs argue, they had six years rather than 

sixty days to sue under the default federal statute of 

limitations applicable to suits against the United States. See 

28 U.S.C. § 2401. We reject that argument because

longstanding precedent dictates that the word “order” in the 

Investment Advisers Act encompasses rules.

Our decision in Investment Company Institute v. Board of 

Governors of the Federal Reserve System controls this case. 

In Investment Company we explained that “the purposes 

underlying” a provision in the Bank Holding Company Act of 

1956, similar to the provision at issue in this case, would 

“best be served if ‘order’ [were] interpreted to mean any 

agency action capable of review on the basis of the 

administrative record.” 551 F.2d 1270, 1278 (D.C. Cir. 

1977). The review provision at issue in Investment Company

stated that “[a]ny party aggrieved by an order of the” Federal 

Reserve Board could “obtain a review of such order in” an 

appropriate court of appeals “within thirty days after the entry 

of the Board’s order.” Id. at 1273 n.3 (quoting 

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12 U.S.C. § 1848 (1970)). We held that the provision’s 

reference to orders vested the courts of appeals with exclusive 

jurisdiction to hear challenges to rules as well as orders. See 

id. at 1278.

Investment Company resolved longstanding uncertainty 

about the correct interpretation of statutes that provide for 

direct review of orders, but not rules. Id. at 1272. The 

Investment Company court confronted an unsettled legal 

landscape. Courts facing various administrative actions with 

distinct administrative records under diverse statutes had 

arrived at inconsistent conclusions regarding whether 

particular agency actions constituted “order[s]” for purposes 

of their direct review provisions. Id. at 1276-78. The court 

noted that the circuit in an earlier case, United Gas Pipe Line 

Co. v. Fed. Power Comm’n, 181 F.2d 796 (D.C. Cir. 1950), 

had attempted to create a presumption that orders did not 

encompass rules. The Investment Company court concluded 

that United Gas had been undermined by contrary circuit 

precedent and was in tension with several decisions by the 

Supreme Court that had read “order” in special-review 

provisions to encompass rules. Investment Company, 551 

F.2d at 1276 (citing United States v. Storer Broad. Co., 351 

U.S. 192 (1956)); see also David P. Currie & Frank I. 

Goodman, Judicial Review of Federal Administrative Action, 

75 Colum. L. Rev. 1, 39-41 (1975).

The court thus concluded that United Gas was no longer 

controlling law, and established the contrary presumption

that, absent contrary congressional intent, a statutory review 

provision creating a right of direct judicial review in the court 

of appeals of an administrative “order” authorizes such review 

of any agency action that is otherwise susceptible of review 

on the basis of the administrative record alone. Investment 

Company, 551 F.2d at 1278. Courts of appeals should have 

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exclusive jurisdiction in such circumstances, the court held, to 

eliminate “unnecessary duplication and conflicting litigation, 

as well as the confusion inherent in the prospect of different 

records and standards of review.” Id. at 1279 (internal 

quotation marks omitted).

The Investment Company court explained the many 

sensible justifications for its holding. In rulemakings, in 

which there is no need for judicial development of an 

evidentiary record, there is no gain from vesting jurisdiction 

in district courts. Id. at 1276-77. Direct review in the court of 

appeals has the advantage of both eliminating the 

“unnecessary delay and expense” attending litigation in two 

courts and abolishing the “undesirable bifurcation of the 

reviewing function between the district courts [for rules] and 

the courts of appeals [for orders].” Id. at 1276. The court 

also addressed the textual objection to interpreting “order” to 

encompass rules by noting that “the word ‘order’ has several 

frequently utilized meanings which vary in scope, and it is 

therefore not surprising that different sections of the same 

statute might use the word in different ways.” Id. at 1278.

That Investment Company presumption is now a tenet of 

administrative practice and is hornbook administrative law. 

See 3 Richard J. Pierce, Jr., Administrative Law 

Treatise § 18.2, at 1682-83 (5th ed. 2010); 33 Charles Alan 

Wright & Charles H. Koch, Federal Practice and 

Procedure § 8299, at 34-35 (2006) (explaining that the 

presumption expressed in Investment Company is “pretty 

much settled” and “has remained unchanged” since its 

adoption). Innumerable litigants have relied on it to 

determine where and when to file challenges to agency rules 

across a broad spectrum of statutes promulgated by numerous 

agencies. We have, for example, applied it when reviewing 

rules promulgated by the Securities and Exchange 

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Commission, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the 

Department of Transportation implementing statutes ranging 

from the Securities Act to the National Parks Overflights Act. 

See Nat’l Fed’n of Blind v. U.S. Dep’t of 

Transp., --- F.Supp.3d ----, No. 14-CV-85, 2015 WL 349156, 

at *3 (D.D.C. Jan. 28, 2015) (collecting cases); New York 

Republican State Comm., 70 F. Supp. 3d at 371 (collecting 

cases); Resp. Br. 19 n.5 (collecting cases). 

We have even applied the presumption—that statutory

authorization of direct federal judicial review of agency 

“order[s]” encompasses rules—to the Investment Advisers 

Act. See Fin. Planning Ass’n v. SEC, 482 F.3d 481 (D.C. Cir. 

2007); Goldstein v. SEC, 451 F.3d 873 (D.C. Cir. 2006). We 

may not have remarked on the jurisdictional question in those 

cases, but our willingness to exercise jurisdiction without 

comment is consistent with the recognized controlling force 

of Investment Company. Goldstein v. SEC is especially 

pertinent here because, in that case, the plaintiffs 

simultaneously sued in the district court and petitioned this 

court for direct review, and cited to Investment Company in 

their opening brief as the basis for our jurisdiction. See New 

York Republican State Comm., 70 F. Supp. 3d at 371 & n.7

(discussing Goldstein). We exercised original appellate 

jurisdiction and the parties voluntarily dismissed the district 

court proceeding. Id. Thus, the plaintiffs’ argument that 

Investment Company is a new rule, and is somehow narrow or 

limited to its facts, is inconsistent with both practice and 

precedent.

The presumption in Investment Company decides this 

case. The Investment Advisers Act authorizes judicial review 

in a provision closely analogous to the one examined in 

Investment Company. Compare 12 U.S.C. § 1848 with 

15 U.S.C. § 80b-13(a). Both statutory schemes authorize the 

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agency to proceed by “order” or “regulation.” 

12 U.S.C. § 1843(c)(8); 15 U.S.C. § 80b-11(a). Both provide 

that any party “aggrieved by an order issued by the” agency 

“may obtain review of such order” in an appropriate court of 

appeals. 12 U.S.C. § 1848; 15 U.S.C. § 80b-13(a). The

plaintiffs have pointed to no evidence showing that Congress 

intended to withdraw from the courts of appeals our 

jurisdiction to hear challenges to rules promulgated under the 

Act. We therefore have exclusive jurisdiction over this case.

The plaintiffs’ arguments against following Investment 

Company here are not persuasive. Plaintiffs contend that, in 

the decades since we decided Investment Company, our cases 

have systematically eroded its foundations. They maintain

that our Administrative Procedure Act decisions have in other 

contexts reasserted a distinction between “orders” and “rules” 

that should govern our interpretation of special statutory

review provisions. The plaintiffs contend, for example, that 

we should apply the “definitions” section of the 

Administrative Procedure Act broadly to hold that the word

“order” in the Investment Advisers Act’s review provision

cannot mean “rule.” See 5 U.S.C § 551(5)-(7). We decline 

that invitation for the reasons given in Investment Company

itself, which expressly considered the APA’s narrow 

definition of “order” to mean a disposition “in a matter other 

than rulemaking.” 551 F.2d at 1278. Our court explained that 

the word “order” is a word of many meanings, and it makes 

sense to read it broadly in the context of direct review 

provisions unless a statute has separate review provisions for 

“rules” and “orders.” The multi-purpose Administrative 

Procedure Act’s definitions distinguishing between a “rule” 

and an “order” are directed generally at that Act. They 

expressly apply only to “this subchapter” (i.e. the 

Administrative Procedure Act itself). See id. Those 

general-purpose definitions are not a compelling reason to 

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ignore this court’s precedent specific to direct appellate 

review provisions in statutes like the Investment Advisers 

Act, enacted before the Administrative Procedure Act, when 

rulemaking was not yet a common method of agency decision 

making. The adequacy-of-record and judicial-efficiency 

rationales that animated our decision in Investment Company

remain persuasive today.

The plaintiffs point to three decisions that they believe 

show that the Investment Company presumption is not 

controlling, but each is materially distinct from this case. In 

Watts v. SEC, we looked to the Administrative Procedure Act 

to help us to determine whether an instruction from the 

Commission to its employees not to respond to a testimonial 

subpoena was an “order” for purposes of the direct-review 

provision of the Exchange Act of 1934. 482 F.3d 501, 504-06 

(D.C. Cir. 2007). The question in Watts was whether such an 

instruction was reviewable agency action, or only “an 

ordinary litigation decision.” Id.at 506. Use of the 

Administrative Procedure Act there to determine whether the 

agency acted in its sovereign lawmaking capacity or as a 

litigant has no bearing on this case.

In National Mining Association v. Department of Labor, 

the government argued no court could exercise 

pre-enforcement review of regulations administering the 

Black Lung Benefits Act. 292 F.3d 849, 856 (D.C. Cir. 2002) 

(per curiam). We disagreed, holding that district courts could 

exercise jurisdiction over such challenges under the 

Administrative Procedure Act. Id. at 859. But the statutory 

scheme in National Mining Association was structured very 

differently from the one at issue in this case. The direct 

review provision there did not encompass orders issued by the 

agency, but rather a specific adjudicatory body within it—a 

“Benefits Review Board”—that had no authority to issue 

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rules. 33 U.S.C. § 921(c); see also 30 U.S.C. § 932(a), 936(a) 

(vesting rulemaking authority in the Secretary of Labor). The 

act made “rather clear” that “Congress used the term ‘order’ 

to refer to an adjudicatory compensation order, not the 

promulgation of a regulation.” Nat’l Mining Ass’n, 292 F.3d 

at 856-57 (citing 33 U.S.C. § 921(b), (e)).

The direct review provision in National Mining 

Association was limited to a particular kind of order issued by 

a particular kind of body within the agency and therefore did 

not impliedly grant the court of appeals authority to review 

the agency’s rules. We thus concluded that “Congress was 

silent on how review of regulations was to be accomplished,”

id. at 856, and so held that the Administrative Procedure Act

provided the proper avenue to relief. National Mining treats 

the Black Lung Benefits Act like a statute lacking any direct 

review provision governing challenges to the actions of the 

agency, rather than like a statute akin to the Investment 

Advisers Act, in which Congress included such a provision 

and the question is how broadly Congress intended that 

provision to be read.

Lastly, in American Petroleum Institute v. SEC, we found 

that Congress had evinced its intention to depart from the 

Investment Company rule. 714 F.3d 1329 (D.C. Cir. 2013). 

Congress had (1) amended the statute’s direct review 

provision on multiple occasions in the years after Investment 

Company, thereby indicating congressional interest in the 

precise wording of its text, and (2) provided explicitly for 

review of rules enacted pursuant to some parts of the statute 

and not others. Id. at 1332-35. Those specific indicia of 

intent to depart from Investment Company are absent from the 

Investment Advisers Act.

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The plaintiffs also argue that Investment Company was 

wrongly decided and therefore should be limited to its facts. 

To the extent the plaintiffs ask that we overturn an earlier 

decision because we disagree with it, that we cannot do. We 

are obliged to follow the law of the circuit, see LaShawn A. v. 

Barry, 87 F.3d 1389, 1395 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (en banc), and

Investment Company is the law of the circuit. We are bound 

to follow it.

To the extent the plaintiffs ask us not to overrule 

Investment Company, but to read it narrowly based on what 

they contend is its undesirability, we decline to do so. The 

Supreme Court has tacitly approved of the practical course we 

charted in Investment Company. Almost a decade later, the 

Court announced an analogous presumption. See Florida 

Power & Light Co. v. Lorion, 470 U.S. 729, 744-45 (1985). 

The Court held that, absent a “firm indication” of a contrary 

intention, when a direct review provision’s applicability to an 

agency action is “ambiguous,” we presume that Congress 

intended to locate jurisdiction in the courts of appeals. Id. at 

737, 745; Nat’l Auto. Dealers Ass’n v. FTC, 670 F.3d 268, 

270 (D.C. Cir. 2012). In so doing, the Court cited Investment 

Company approvingly and echoed its logic. Lorion, 470 U.S. 

at 742-45.

Finally, Investment Company’s interpretation of the word 

“order” to encompass rules is not a strained one. That term is 

ubiquitous in the law, and has meant somewhat different 

things in widely varying contexts. The Investment Company

presumption reflects a pragmatic interpretation sensitive to 

developments in administrative law that could not have been

foreseen by the Congress that enacted the Investment 

Advisers Act. When Congress enacted the Act in 1940, the 

courts generally declined to engage in pre-enforcement 

review of agency rules because such challenges were thought 

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unripe. Nicholas Bagley, The Puzzling Presumption of 

Reviewability, 127 Harv. L. Rev. 1285, 1337-38 (2014). 

Drafters of review provisions thus were not typically 

considering those challenges.

In sum, Investment Company dictates the outcome of this 

case. We therefore hold that the word “order” in the 

Investment Advisers Act recognizes the exclusive jurisdiction

of the courts of appeals to hear challenges to rules

promulgated thereunder.

B.

Plaintiffs argue in the alternative that we should grant 

their petition for direct review. The Investment Advisers Act 

requires that challenges be brought within sixty days, 

15 U.S.C. § 80b-13(a), but plaintiffs filed their petition four 

years after the rule they oppose went into effect. Unless 

plaintiffs can identify a reason to excuse their late filing, their 

petition is time-barred.

We should excuse their untimely filing, plaintiffs 

contend, because they lacked fair notice that they were 

required to petition directly in this court, so were justifiably 

unaware that they would be subject to the Investment 

Advisers Act’s sixty-day limitations period rather than the 

Administrative Procedure Act’s six-year period. Plaintiffs 

cite no case in which we have excused an untimely filing for 

lack of fair notice based on a party’s erroneous identification 

of the relevant forum and limitations period.

Even if we construe plaintiffs’ argument as a request for 

equitable tolling, they have not shown any ground entitling 

them to such relief. As a threshold matter, in appropriate 

circumstances the review provision in the Investment 

Advisers may be equitably tolled. We may equitably toll a

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statutory deadline unless Congress has shown its intent to 

withdraw our jurisdiction once a deadline is missed. See 

Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 515-16 (2006); 

Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin v. United States, 614 

F.3d 519, 523-25 (D.C. Cir. 2010). There is no evidence that 

Congress sought to treat the sixty-day deadline in the 

Investment Advisers Act as a jurisdictional bar. The deadline 

is thus capable of equitable tolling.

But there is no basis for equitable tolling in this case. 

Equitable tolling is available to a party “only if he shows ‘(1) 

that he has been pursuing his rights diligently, and (2) that 

some extraordinary circumstance stood in his way’ and 

prevented timely filing.” Holland v. Florida, 560 U.S. 631, 

649 (2010). The plaintiffs have not shown that they were 

diligent or faced an extraordinary obstacle to filing their 

claims. Investment Company explains that “[i]f any doubt as 

to the proper forum exists, careful counsel should file suit in 

both the court of appeals and the district court or . . . bring 

suit only in the court of appeals.” 551 F.2d at 1280; see id. at

1282. Plaintiffs have not explained why they failed timely to

file such a protective petition, other than to assert that they 

thought the controlling law was unclear. The Investment 

Company presumption is not new and should not have caught 

plaintiffs unawares. It is routinely cited in our cases and 

explained in major treatises. See, e.g., Weaver v. Fed. Motor 

Carrier Safety Admin., 744 F.3d 142, 147 (D.C. Cir. 2014) 

(quoting Investment Company, 551 F.2d at 1277); 3 Pierce, 

supra, § 18.2, at 1682-83; Wright & Koch, supra, § 8299, at 

35. Legions of litigants have timely filed their petitions for 

review of rules adopted by the Commission and other 

agencies with similar direct-review provisions. A litigant’s 

own “tactical mistakes” and “inauspicious legal judgments” 

do not amount to an “extraordinary obstacle” sufficient to 

warrant equitable tolling. Menominee Indian Tribe of 

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Wisconsin v. United States, 764 F.3d 51, 58, 62 (D.C. Cir. 

2014), cert. granted, No. 14-510, 2015 WL 2473530 (U.S. 

June 30, 2015). We hold that the plaintiffs’ petition is 

time-barred.

C.

The plaintiffs’ final argument is that a sixty-day deadline 

for bringing pre-enforcement challenges to agency rules is 

either unconstitutional or of sufficiently doubtful 

constitutionality as to demand a saving construction. They

argue that we should either (1) exercise jurisdiction and 

disregard the sixty-day period for filing petitions in this court

because it is too short to comport with due process, or (2)

hold that the district court has jurisdiction under the

Constitution or the Administrative Procedure Act because the 

Investment Advisers Act’s review provision offers inadequate 

relief.

The plaintiffs’ arguments are foreclosed on all fronts. To 

the degree the plaintiffs argue that the Advisers Act’s 

sixty-day deadline is so short it amounts to a facial denial of 

due process, we are unpersuaded. A limitations period is only 

too short if “the time allowed [to file a claim] is manifestly so 

insufficient that the statute becomes a denial of justice.” 

Wilson v. Iseminger, 185 U.S. 55, 63 (1902). That standard

can be applied only in the context of a concrete claim. See id.

Faced with typical pre-enforcement challenges to agency 

action, we have on many occasions strictly enforced 

congressionally-imposed short limitations periods across a 

range of regulatory statutes. See, e.g., JEM Broad. Co. v. 

FCC, 22 F.3d 320, 325-26 (D.C. Cir. 1994); Raton Gas 

Transmission Co. v. FERC, 852 F.2d 612, 614-16 (D.C. Cir. 

1988); Eagle-Picher Indus., Inc. v. EPA, 759 F.2d 905, 

911-12 (D.C. Cir. 1985). We find no ground for holding that 

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the Investment Advisers Act’s sixty-day period for seeking 

judicial review violates the plaintiffs’ due process rights, 

whether on its face or as applied here.

If we understand plaintiffs to press the narrower point 

that the statutory time limitation unlawfully cuts off access to

pre-enforcement review of their First Amendment claim, we 

still cannot agree. There is, to be sure, a strong presumption 

of judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act,

see Bowen v. Michigan Acad. of Family Physicians, 476 U.S. 

667, 670 (1986), and the courts’ willingness to permit 

pre-enforcement review is “at its peak” when claims are 

rooted in the First Amendment, Unity08 v. FEC, 596 F.3d 

861, 865 (D.C. Cir. 2010). We recognize the importance of 

the right to bring pre-enforcement First Amendment claims. 

For many decades, the courts have shown special solicitude to 

pre-enforcement challenges brought under the First 

Amendment, relaxing standing requirements and fashioning 

doctrines, such as overbreadth and vagueness, meant to avoid

the chilling effects that come from unnecessarily expansive 

proscriptions on speech. See Reno v. Am. Civil Liberties 

Union, 521 U.S. 844, 870-74 (1997); Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 

413 U.S. 601, 611-15 (1973); Martin Tractor Co. v. Fed. 

Election Comm’n, 627 F.2d 375, 380-81 (D.C. Cir. 1980). 

The Supreme Court has also warned that delay in decision of 

First Amendment claims typically exacerbates speech-related 

harm. See, e.g., Freedman v. State of Md., 380 U.S. 51, 57-59 

(1965).

Congress did not, however, withdraw pre-enforcement 

review in this case, but merely set a particular procedure and 

time period in which to do so. The plaintiffs had access to 

that procedure and did not take advantage of it. Agencies, no 

less than private litigants, have interests in finality and 

certainty. See JEM Broad. Co., 22 F.3d at 325. Finality of 

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regulations serves the public interest insofar as people cannot 

reliably order their affairs in accordance with regulations that 

remain for long periods under the cloud of categorical legal 

attack. See Investment Company, 551 F.2d at 1280.

We also reject the plaintiffs’ argument that we should 

locate a residuum of jurisdiction in the district courts to hear 

their First Amendment claims. Our precedent dictates that the 

existence of the special statutory review provision divests 

district courts of jurisdiction to hear pre-enforcement 

challenges, even of constitutional claims, unless the relief 

provided by the statutory review provision is “totally 

precluded” or “realistically inadequate.” See Coal River 

Energy, LLC v. Jewell, 751 F.3d 659, 663-64 (D.C. Cir. 

2014). Thus, unless the Investment Advisers Act’s review 

provision is shown to be an unavailable or inadequate remedy

for the plaintiffs’ First Amendment challenges, it is the 

exclusive mechanism by which such claims may be brought. 

We have no basis here on which to conclude either that the 

statutory review provision is an inadequate remedy or that the 

application of its sixty-day limitations period in the 

circumstances before us is so harsh as to operate as a denial of 

justice. See Iseminger, 185 U.S. at 63; Coal River Energy, 

751 F.3d at 664; see also Bowen v. Massachusetts, 487 U.S. 

879, 901 (1988) (providing for APA review in district court 

when Congress’s specific remedy is too “doubtful and 

limited”).

Congress has provided an additional avenue to 

pre-enforcement review of the plaintiffs’ First Amendment 

claims. The Administrative Procedure Act gives “an 

interested person the right to petition for the issuance, 

amendment, or repeal of a rule.” 5 U.S.C. § 553(e). The 

Commission similarly provides by regulation that “any 

person” may petition for the amendment or repeal of any 

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Commission rule. 17 C.F.R. § 201.192(a). If the 

Commission denies an individual’s petition, she may then 

petition this court for review of the Commission’s decision to 

deny the petition. See, e.g., Timpinaro v. SEC, 2 F.3d 453, 

460-61 (D.C. Cir. 1993) (reviewing Commission’s denial of a 

petition to repeal a rule under the Exchange Act). Thus, in 

this case, the plaintiffs might still seek pre-enforcement 

review after they have made their First Amendment case to 

the Commission. They are not required to violate the 

regulation and risk prosecution to test their First Amendment 

rights.

We thus hold that the review provision in the Investment 

Advisers Act provides adequate relief for constitutional and 

nonconstitutional challenges to rules promulgated under the 

Act, and therefore is the exclusive means for doing so.

* * *

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the decision of the 

district court and dismiss the petition for review.

So ordered.

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