The Supreme Court is Moving Forward With Laws to Limit the POWER of the Administrative State

Supreme Court Wants to LIMIT Administrative STATE

Following the Supreme Court ruling that limited the jurisdiction of federal agencies in court cases, Senate Republicans are initiating a new “major” endeavor to further limit the powers of the “administrative state.”

 

A group of East Coast fishermen sued a federal agency that required them to pay $700 for daily “at sea monitors,” and the Supreme Court decided last month that the government’s rule exceeded the boundaries Congress established for the federal agency.

 

By doing this, the high court overturned the Chevron doctrine, a legal theory that dates back to the 1980s and states that, in cases where federal regulation is contested, courts should accept the agency’s reasonable interpretation of whether Congress gave it the right to issue the rule, provided that Congress has not specifically addressed the issue. “A critical blow to the disastrous Chevron deference standard and represents an opportunity for Congress to retake legislative power from agencies and dismantle the administrative state,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling. Schmitt and eleven other Republican lawmakers unveiled new legislation on Thursday, claiming it will “retake legislative authority away from administrative agencies” and return it to Congress. In addition, Schmitt is leading a group of eighteen colleagues in a working group to examine additional measures Congress might take to reduce administrative power.

Schmitt claims that this bill, the Separation of Powers Restoration Act (SOPRA), stacks the legal deck against small parties and in favor of big government by putting what is known as a de novo standard of review within the Administrative Procedure Act. This would prevent the judiciary from upholding any unconstitutional agency deference standards.

 

Schmitt claims that the new bill would put American citizens and businesses on an equal footing in court with administrative agencies, whether they are contesting the legality of agency action or are caught in the middle of a regulatory enforcement action. Courts would evaluate the merits of the case without applying a deference standard to either side.

 

This Congress, a similar bill was approved earlier along party lines. There are currently 11 cosponsors of the Senate version.

 

Furthermore, a larger coalition of Republican senators is writing letters to 101 executive agencies that, since 2000, have released more than fifty final rules.