In the biggest judicial power grab since 1803, the Supreme Court today overruled Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a 1984 case that instructed the judiciary to defer to the president and the president’s experts in executive agencies when determining how best to enforce laws passed by Congress. In so doing, the court gave itself nearly unlimited power over the administrative state and its regulatory agencies.
Now, if you’re not a lawyer, that probably sounds bad, but mainly in a technical sense. Regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission issue influential but deeply complicated rules, so it makes sense that somebody should have final authority over whether and how to enforce those rules. Since we have already made the disastrous decision to allow the Supreme Court to tell us who gets to be president and what women can be forced to do with their bodies, it might not sound like that big of a leap to also let the court decide how much lead can leak into our drinking water or which predators are allowed to sell mortgages.
The thing is: The US Constitution, flawed though it is, has already answered the question of who gets to decide how to enforce our laws. The Constitution says, quite
— source thenation.com | Elie Mystal | Jun 28, 2024