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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   29851 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024

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Chevron conflicts with the APA's command that the court "decide all relevant questions of law" and "interpret statutory provisions," in commanding that courts are bound to give deference to agencies.

To me, this was always the only issue. I mean yes, separation of powers, but also just plain reading of statutes.

Courts can't abdicate responsibility to interpret law unless Congress has set up some alternate arrangement, and in many cases the Constitution itself defines what cases the Courts MUST hear, which cases they MAY hear, and to what extent Congress can create alternative setups (such as immigration courts) that pull the duty of statutory interpretation away from the Article III Courts.

I wonder how SCOTUS would handle it if Congress explicitly went in and changed the APA to more-or-less codify the Chevron Deference standard?

But even Chevron (for all its ills, and I repeat that I think it was wrong) said that if the statute is unambiguous upon a plain reading that's the end of the inquiry.

This was my immediate first question. What if Congress looks at what happens, writes a new bill fixing or superseding the APA that more or less is designed to re-establish what was until recently the status quo with better language reflecting those tradeoffs? Would the SC still have a fundamental, role-of-the-courts problem with that new bill? Or did enough of the case depend on the APA that the SC would sit back and go, nope, looks like everything is fine, proceed as before!

From what I gather, everyone but Thomas would be on board, right? This would make me feel a fair amount better in that Congress can easily (ha!) change it up if this creates a massive nightmare backlog of legal cases for judges as I expect.

What if Congress looks at what happens, writes a new bill fixing or superseding the APA that more or less is designed to re-establish what was until recently the status quo with better language reflecting those tradeoffs?

I think this would run into the non-delegation doctrine. Congress can grant more authority to agencies in any specific case that would have been covered by Chevron, but if they try to make a law which says that if Congress doesn't say otherwise, the agencies get to make rules in general, the court seems likely to balk.

I wonder how SCOTUS would handle it if Congress explicitly went in and change the APA to more-or-less codify the Chevron Deference standard?

Some members might reject it anyway (e.g. Thomas), but it would hold sway with enough to stay law, I imagine.

The Constitution very much grants Congress the power to establish lower courts with special functions, and define the rules those courts operate under.

I suspect that even Thomas might accept an unambiguous law which clearly delineates that the review of Administrative Judge rulings should be based on assuming the are valid on their face, unless contradicted by superior law.

But under the very strictest separation of powers examination, perhaps Congress isn't allowed to give up that much control over the creation of law, without an Amendment?

I think given how much power Congress has already given up to the executive without issue, it'd be hard to argue against this one. Then again, the devil is in the details.

I think some justices think that what's already been done is unconstitutional (for example, giving rulemaking authority). Yes, this is radical.

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