SUPREME COURT SHIELDS Executive Branch from Litigation
This term, the Supreme Court hammered home a long-standing legal theory that has essentially shielded executive branch agencies from litigation. Experts now predict that the next president and Congress will have little option but to collaborate more closely and wean themselves off of the “faceless leviathan” of federal agencies.
A group of fishermen filed a David vs. Goliath lawsuit against a government agency that required them to pay $700 for “at sea monitors,” claiming the rule exceeded the authority Congress granted the federal agency.
The Chevron doctrine, a legal theory developed in the 1980s states that if a federal regulation is challenged, the courts should defer to the agency’s interpretation of whether Congress had granted it authority to issue the rule, provided that the agency’s interpretation is reasonable and Congress had not directly addressed the question, was overturned last month when the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of the fishermen.
Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the majority, stating that judges without relevant experience would now have the ability to decide cases involving the regulation of food, medicine, the environment, and other matters if Chevron is eliminated. However, Republicans and conservatives applauded the judgment, claiming Chevron gave the government too much authority to dominate through bureaucratic red tape.
“The ruling in Looper Bright v. Raimondo by the Supreme Court is a significant victory for the common man and a setback for the federal government.” Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, stated, “Joe Biden has allowed the faceless behemoth of three letter agencies to flourish. Instead, power should belong to the people and the people they elect.”
Vice President of Legal Strategy at Stand Together Casey Mattox told Fox News Digital, “I think what this decision should mean is that our elected leaders in Congress should be the ones making the laws that impact Americans’ everyday lives, and not unelected bureaucrats in cubicles in Washington, D.C.”
“Instead of just making abrupt changes in policy every four to eight years, it should require the president to collaborate with Congress. That hasn’t done America any good,” he claimed.
“Congress should not be passing the buck to unelected people to make the decisions,” said Mattox. “And so, I think essentially what the decision to overturn Chevron means is that when Congress is passing laws, it needs to actually get the expertise it needs and then be politically accountable for the decisions it’s making.” Congress will now be obligated to draft laws with less ambiguity and more precise language as a result of the removal of Chevron.
One of the negative effects of the Chevron concept, according to John Vecchion, the attorney for the New Civil Liberties Alliance, which defended a few of the fishermen in the case, is that it encourages Congress—Republicans and Democrats alike—to avoid making semantic concessions when drafting legislation that is eventually signed into law.
