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Chevron deference wasn't created by Congress, it was created by SCOTUS to begin with. It was an interpretive rule that essentially said the courts should favor
by AnthonyMouse 2y ago
Chevron deference wasn't created by Congress, it was created by SCOTUS to begin with. It was an interpretive rule that essentially said the courts should favor the interpretation of the executive branch over that of members of the public wanting to challenge it. Under both the previous and current rule, if Congress doesn't like the resulting interpretation they can pass a new bill.
The main difference is that now unelected judges decide how to interpret the law instead of unelected administrative officials. But that's what judges do.
What this is really about is that nobody wants to get blamed for what happens. So Congress passes purposely ambiguous laws and then deflects blame onto the courts for interpreting them one way or the other. The courts didn't like that so they said they'd defer to administrative agencies. It turns out the administrative agencies did like that, because they have almost no direct accountability and the only elected ticket in the executive branch has a term limit and frequently switches parties, so it was easy for them to participate in the revolving door and line their pockets.
Now the courts are going to go back to doing their job, so naturally now they get the blame for Congress passing ambiguous laws again, and the people profiting from the status quo are railing against it as if the courts are doing something wrong instead of doing what they ought to have been doing the whole time.
- xracy 2y ago> Chevron deference wasn't created by Congress Yeah, but they could've overturned it if they didn't like it. > The main difference is that now unelected judges decide how to interpret the law instead of unelected administrative officials. But that's what judges do. This is a huge difference you kinda skip over. Should the policies and regulations of 100s of industries be decided by: 1. People who are only familiar with court proceedings 2. Experts in those industries with experience in those industries One of those things is meaningfully worse, because we're going to get a ton of "armchair experts" on culture war issues who have no idea about what's happening on the ground, and just have their own culture-war opinion that ignores the nuance of the situation.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago> Yeah, but they could've overturned it if they didn't like it. The question is if they could've passed it to begin with. There is nothing in the constitution giving Congress the power to delegate its lawmaking authority to the executive branch, much less deprive the courts of their interpretive role. > Should the policies and regulations of 100s of industries be decided by: > 1. People who are only familiar with court proceedings 2. Experts in those industries with experience in those industries The first one is actually better, because it makes it harder for the industry to capture the decisionmakers. Meanwhile the experts are still in the court, they just have to argue their case before the judge instead of having the parties argue their case before the "experts" with a sack of cash.
- xracy 2y agoThe 1st one is only better if judges are unbiased, but they're not, and we need to stop pretending like they are.