When George Mason University changed the name of its law school last year to honor Antonin Scalia, the late conservative Supreme Court justice, the tribute rankled many liberal faculty members and students. That the naming was tied to a multi-million dollar donation from the conservative Charles Koch Foundation only heightened concerns. One outspoken advocate for the name change was Neomi Rao, an associate law professor who had come to know Mr. Scalia while serving as a clerk for Clarence Thomas, another conservative member of the court. Ms. Rao, a Republican, publicly celebrated the legacy of Mr. Scalia and praised the Koch donation as “game changing” for the law school. But quietly, Ms. Rao also worked to win over liberal critics. In a public relations coup, she helped secure an endorsement for the name change from Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the Supreme Court’s most liberal justices and a longtime friend of Mr. Scalia. Justice Ginsburg described the school’s renaming as “altogether fitting.” Ms. Rao’s ability to work both sides of the ideological divide, emblematic of her career in academia and government, is about to be tested anew. On Monday, the Senate is expected to approve Ms. Rao’s nomination to lead an obscure but powerful White House agency called the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs — placing her at the heart of President Trump’s politically contentious agenda to overhaul government rules and regulations.

The office, created during the Carter administration, approves government data collections and determines whether agencies have sufficiently addressed problems during rule-making. In the end, the administrator accepts regulations or sends them back to be reworked, a decision that can expedite rules or effectively neutralize them by imposing extensive delays. Ms. Rao, 44, who has served in all three branches of the federal government, brings to the position knowledge of Washington, a lengthy Republican contacts list and scholarly credentials from the ideologically charged field of regulatory study. She is the founder of the Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason, which is affiliated with the law school and has been a beneficiary of the donation from the Charles Koch Foundation. Ms. Rao started the center two years ago at a time of growing scholarly intrigue about the regulatory process and the authority of federal agencies to set and enforce rules, a section of the law that rose to prominence during the New Deal era. Regulatory decisions under President Barack Obama, who was among the most prolific authors of major regulations in presidential history, heightened the interest among conservative academics, who questioned whether agencies had overstepped their constitutional bounds. Ms. Rao was an easy pick for Republicans for the White House role, but she also won the backing of a bipartisan group of eight former administrators of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. “I have a lot of concerns about what this administration is going to do in regulatory areas,” said one of them, John Spotila, who led the office during the Clinton administration. But, he said, “I don’t start with the conviction that Neomi is bad, and anybody Trump picks is going to be horrible and we are doomed.” He added, “Maybe Neomi will surprise us.” Even before Ms. Rao begins, the regulatory rollback is well underway. Mr. Trump has issued a series of executive orders mandating a reduction of regulatory burdens on everyone from bankers and energy companies to small businesses and farmers. Federal agencies have been busy too: The Environmental Protection Agency is already taking steps to undo more than 30 environmental rules.

More From The New York Times: