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Chevron being overturned doesn’t in any way prevent a court from deciding that the statute authorizes a regulation. It just prevents the agency from saying “you

Chevron being overturned doesn’t in any way prevent a court from deciding that the statute authorizes a regulation. It just prevents the agency from saying “you have to defer to our reasonable interpretation.” But yeah, the conservative Supreme Court indeed may very much not like the Pennsylvania court’s interpretation that the necessary statutory authority does exist.

ubertaco 2y ago
I mean, the problem with the current supreme court is that their decision-making process -- as demonstrated in the Trump immunity case (where the ruling was in direct contradiction to established law) -- is not a question of what the law says, but what the conservatives on the court (or their deep-pocketed bribers) want.
- poikroequ 2y ago
  Precisely. When there's a will, there's a way. They'll find some way to interpret the laws and the constitution that fits their agenda.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Which part of the presidential majority opinion did you take issue with? I found it grappled with some weighty issues and made a defensible position, that I expect will be refined when/if the case returns to the Supreme Court.
    - banana_feather 2y ago
      The framers understood the concept of immunity, and in at least one instance explicitly granted it in the constitution. They did not mention anything about immunity for the chief executive. The line of argument about "bold and decisive action" is complete bullshit. The OLC has told previous presidents, in writing, that they are not immune from prosecution and that knowledge did not fatally impede their judgment. The president also has a fleet of lawyers at their disposal, and the DoJ conceded in oral argument that if the president obtained an opinion from the attorney general that a given act was indeed legal, the president would have immunity for that act via estoppel by entrapment. The opinion does almost nothing to establish what is and is not an official act for the purposes of this new immunity. This has become a hallmark of the Roberts court; making a power grab by writing an opinion that rests on laughably malleable language ("major questions", "deeply rooted in tradition", "official acts"). You can just wait until your friends appeal the cases that didn't go your way, grant cert because of course you get to pick your own dock, and laugh all the way to the bank. The cherry on top is the part prohibiting even the introduction of evidence relating to official acts. If the president openly takes a cartoon burlap sack of money in exchange for a pardon, the standard set out in the opinion is that you cannot introduce any evidence pertaining to the grant of the pardon, because the pardon power is a core constitutional authority of the executive. The entire opinion is ahistorical, poorly reasoned, and profoundly unwise.
      - ethbr1 2y ago
        > The opinion does almost nothing to establish what is and is not an official act for the purposes of this new immunity. This has become a hallmark of the Roberts court... That was the part I found most wise. Given the polarization of the issue, avoiding commiting anything to specific and tossing it back to lower courts seemed a decent middle ground. If/when it comes back up and the specifics are declared, then I'll decide. My opinion is that Roberts may be waiting for Thomas to retire, and is trying to tread water by throwing the more staunchly conservatives temporary bones, lest they etch bad precedent into stone.
- wernercd 2y ago
  The problem with that is - as demonstrated by the RvW over turning - is that it's not what the law says - since there was never law backing RvW. It's what THIS court says vs what PREVIOUS courts said. The good lawyers giveth... the good lawyers taketh away. Judicial activism overturned by judicial activism. The trump immunity case put forth what has always been - Presidents aren't charged without being impeached first. Something the left was trying to change. because lets be real... others - ie: Clinton lying under oath. Obama bombing countries. Bush. etc. All have done "criminal" things. The only difference is both sides of elites don't like Trump so the left decided to try and treat him differently. Which got rejected as it should be. and besides that... "direct contradiction to established law" is a direct contradiction to what actually happened. The left was trying to wrangle laws into directions not intended to be overly broad - like they are doing to jail "J6" people.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    To be fair, January 6 people could also be prosecuted on lesser charges (trespassing, assault), but DoJ wanted a bigger charge they could apply to everyone.
  - piva00 2y ago
    > The trump immunity case put forth what has always been - Presidents aren't charged without being impeached first. In this case it means that the president is above the law as long as they have support of the Congress? That... Doesn't sound like a good thing.
    - pintxo 2y ago
      I'd have thought that lots of countries have immunity for representatives / members of the executive which can only be revoked by a vote in the legislature. Isn't this quite common? It sounds reasonable to NOT allow just any member of the judiciary to prosecute members of the other branches, which might wreak havoc on the political process?
      - banana_feather 2y ago
linuxftw 2y ago
The court is not conservative, it routinely sides with the federal government. They rarely find things unconstitutional, only that certain actions taken by agencies aren't authorized by the congress. If congress passes more laws, the court would uphold them. If the court even remotely reflected the opinions of actual conservative voters, it would take radically different and drastic actions compared to what has happened.
- pm90 2y ago
  > If the court even remotely reflected the opinions of actual conservative voters, it would take radically different and drastic actions compared to what has happened. It literally has done just that with overturning Roe, Chevron and the ruling on presidential immunity.
  - linuxftw 2y ago
    Conservatives would have ruled that abortion is murder and it would be banned country-wide. Instead, it was handed back to the states, presumably because there's no federal legislation allowing it. Chevron, again, deferred to congress, as I said. Conservatives would have found that agencies have no rule making power whatsoever, and can only implement what is explicitly authorized by congress. There's already an impeachment process for holding the executive branch accountable for official acts. And likely, if there was a statute the congress passed explicitly allowing the President to be charged with crimes, the court probably would have upheld it. Conservatives would have been happy to charge Obama with murder for the targeted drone strike against and American citizen in a country we weren't in a congressionally authorized war against. Generally speaking, conservatives want to strip all immunity and authority from the executive branch. So again, the court is a poor caricature of actual conservative positions.
    - banana_feather 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - jkaplowitz 2y ago

ubertaco 2y ago

I mean, the problem with the current supreme court is that their decision-making process -- as demonstrated in the Trump immunity case (where the ruling was in direct contradiction to established law) -- is not a question of what the law says, but what the conservatives on the court (or their deep-pocketed bribers) want.

poikroequ 2y ago
Precisely. When there's a will, there's a way. They'll find some way to interpret the laws and the constitution that fits their agenda.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Which part of the presidential majority opinion did you take issue with? I found it grappled with some weighty issues and made a defensible position, that I expect will be refined when/if the case returns to the Supreme Court.
  - banana_feather 2y ago
    The framers understood the concept of immunity, and in at least one instance explicitly granted it in the constitution. They did not mention anything about immunity for the chief executive. The line of argument about "bold and decisive action" is complete bullshit. The OLC has told previous presidents, in writing, that they are not immune from prosecution and that knowledge did not fatally impede their judgment. The president also has a fleet of lawyers at their disposal, and the DoJ conceded in oral argument that if the president obtained an opinion from the attorney general that a given act was indeed legal, the president would have immunity for that act via estoppel by entrapment. The opinion does almost nothing to establish what is and is not an official act for the purposes of this new immunity. This has become a hallmark of the Roberts court; making a power grab by writing an opinion that rests on laughably malleable language ("major questions", "deeply rooted in tradition", "official acts"). You can just wait until your friends appeal the cases that didn't go your way, grant cert because of course you get to pick your own dock, and laugh all the way to the bank. The cherry on top is the part prohibiting even the introduction of evidence relating to official acts. If the president openly takes a cartoon burlap sack of money in exchange for a pardon, the standard set out in the opinion is that you cannot introduce any evidence pertaining to the grant of the pardon, because the pardon power is a core constitutional authority of the executive. The entire opinion is ahistorical, poorly reasoned, and profoundly unwise.
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      > The opinion does almost nothing to establish what is and is not an official act for the purposes of this new immunity. This has become a hallmark of the Roberts court... That was the part I found most wise. Given the polarization of the issue, avoiding commiting anything to specific and tossing it back to lower courts seemed a decent middle ground. If/when it comes back up and the specifics are declared, then I'll decide. My opinion is that Roberts may be waiting for Thomas to retire, and is trying to tread water by throwing the more staunchly conservatives temporary bones, lest they etch bad precedent into stone.
wernercd 2y ago
The problem with that is - as demonstrated by the RvW over turning - is that it's not what the law says - since there was never law backing RvW. It's what THIS court says vs what PREVIOUS courts said. The good lawyers giveth... the good lawyers taketh away. Judicial activism overturned by judicial activism. The trump immunity case put forth what has always been - Presidents aren't charged without being impeached first. Something the left was trying to change. because lets be real... others - ie: Clinton lying under oath. Obama bombing countries. Bush. etc. All have done "criminal" things. The only difference is both sides of elites don't like Trump so the left decided to try and treat him differently. Which got rejected as it should be. and besides that... "direct contradiction to established law" is a direct contradiction to what actually happened. The left was trying to wrangle laws into directions not intended to be overly broad - like they are doing to jail "J6" people.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  To be fair, January 6 people could also be prosecuted on lesser charges (trespassing, assault), but DoJ wanted a bigger charge they could apply to everyone.
- piva00 2y ago
  > The trump immunity case put forth what has always been - Presidents aren't charged without being impeached first. In this case it means that the president is above the law as long as they have support of the Congress? That... Doesn't sound like a good thing.
  - pintxo 2y ago
    I'd have thought that lots of countries have immunity for representatives / members of the executive which can only be revoked by a vote in the legislature. Isn't this quite common? It sounds reasonable to NOT allow just any member of the judiciary to prosecute members of the other branches, which might wreak havoc on the political process?
    - banana_feather 2y ago

linuxftw 2y ago

The court is not conservative, it routinely sides with the federal government. They rarely find things unconstitutional, only that certain actions taken by agencies aren't authorized by the congress. If congress passes more laws, the court would uphold them. If the court even remotely reflected the opinions of actual conservative voters, it would take radically different and drastic actions compared to what has happened.

pm90 2y ago
> If the court even remotely reflected the opinions of actual conservative voters, it would take radically different and drastic actions compared to what has happened. It literally has done just that with overturning Roe, Chevron and the ruling on presidential immunity.
- linuxftw 2y ago
  Conservatives would have ruled that abortion is murder and it would be banned country-wide. Instead, it was handed back to the states, presumably because there's no federal legislation allowing it. Chevron, again, deferred to congress, as I said. Conservatives would have found that agencies have no rule making power whatsoever, and can only implement what is explicitly authorized by congress. There's already an impeachment process for holding the executive branch accountable for official acts. And likely, if there was a statute the congress passed explicitly allowing the President to be charged with crimes, the court probably would have upheld it. Conservatives would have been happy to charge Obama with murder for the targeted drone strike against and American citizen in a country we weren't in a congressionally authorized war against. Generally speaking, conservatives want to strip all immunity and authority from the executive branch. So again, the court is a poor caricature of actual conservative positions.
  - banana_feather 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - jkaplowitz 2y ago