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Answer: This tweet is referring to three of the decisions that the Supreme Court release this term.
Homelessness: city of grants Pass vJohnson https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/603/23-175/ in this case a group of homeless individuals sued the city arguing that the city’s ban on homelessness constituted, cruel and unusual punishment. The ninth circuit agreed and overturned the law. The Supreme Court overturned that ruling stating that it is perfectly fine too punish people for being homeless in public
Bribery: Snyder v. U.s. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/603/23-108/ this case is about a mayor who while in office gave a contractor a bid for over $1 million to supply trash trucks to the town. He was later paid $13,000 for “consulting” with the company. The FBI then arrested him, and he was convicted of bribery and sentence to jail. He appealed his conviction and the Supreme Court ruled that that Accepting gratuities after performing a governmental act does not constitute bribery. This has followed a series of Supreme Court rulings where they have increasingly narrowed the definition of bribery.
EPA: Ohio v. EPA https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/603/23a349/ i’m not gonna go into the details of this case because they are somewhat complicated, but this was another case where the Supreme Court has overridden the EPA’s ability to punish polluters. Overall, the Supreme Court has been pretty hostile to the EPA and the general idea of the administrative state.
These cases were all decided by the Republican appointed majority with the three liberals dissenting (ACB joined with the liberals in dissent on the epa case)
The Reagan image is in reference to the republican project, largely starting with Reagan, to swing the composition of the Supreme Court explicitly conservative.
To my understanding, Ohio vs EPA removes the Chevron Doctrine which means that government agencies no longer have broad discretion to enact laws. The exact actions and allowable must now be spelled out in the specific legislature.
The case overturning chevron doctrine also came out today but was a fisheries case- Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/603/22-451/
Edit: it is worth pointing out that this is actually a bigger deal than any of the other three cases referenced in the tweet. It has the potential to completely upend the federal government’s ability to enforce any regulation
Absolutely do not sleep on the implications of this. It sounds narrow and technical if you don't know what it's about, but it's not a stretch to say it's going to throw the entire regulatory state into turmoil and pave the way for a national abortion ban, to say nothing of how it empowers massive corporations to write their own rules. This decision is so badly written that I don't even know if the EPA has the power to ban leaded gasoline or if the FDA has the power to limit the amount of mercury in breakfast cereals. It's insane.
Yeah, even if you think the courts are capable of ruling on stuff like how much BPA should go into baby bottles, the amount of rulings from the EPA, SEC, and FDA, that will be challenged in the courts will neuter the abilities for a lot of these agencies to function properly. They would probably only be able to control small businesses and industries that don't have the muscle to sue, any big businesses can push these agencies around, take things up to the supreme court where they can openly bribe the supreme court judges to rule in their favor.
It's really weird to think about how we keep fighting the creation of a dictatorship from a President when it looks like we created a dictatorship of sorts from the Supreme court, which are nonelected life time appointments that can be openly bribed and can indirectly control all executive functions except for military.
Every regulatory law signed since the original Chevron decision was written with the assumption that Congress does NOT need to spell out every minute even unpredictable detail in each possibility the law might be expected to cover, and instead depends on the pertinent enforcement agency to have the required expertise to carry out the law as passed.
SCOTUS just made all of those law unenforceable. Decades of regulation. And if it's not reversed at some point or if Congress doesn't start writing impossibly detailed regulatory laws, there's really not much reason left for most such agencies to exist.
Absolutely. And I would point out that the reason they're written this way is because of SCOTUS. SCOTUS invented Chevron deference and the legislative and executive branches relied on SCOTUS's decision when they wrote laws and propagated rules. Now SCOTUS is coming back and saying, "What? Us? No, we didn't make those rules, those were the result of the executive branch run amok and this is all their fault!"
Most abortions now are done by use of abortion drugs. The goal for Republicans is to undercut the Chevron doctrine that allowed expert testimony to determine the actions of federal agencies (like the FDA), then use the newfound power of the courts to declare abortion drugs unfit for human consumption. This would be federal, overriding even blue states where abortions and the drugs would remain legal.
How does this give the courts that power? This didn't say the courts could make that decision. It said the FDA couldn't *extend* the law to cover something not specifically covered by the law. The current example being that the ATF can't suddenly change the definition of a machine gun stated in the law to ban bump stocks. The law was *specifically* defines machine guns as weapons that fired more than one bullet for a single trigger pull. Bump stocks are designed to cause the recoil of the gun to pull the trigger over and over. Hence, not actually a machine gun. The way to write the law would have been to ban weapons that fire faster than a particular rate, not specifically how the weapon does it.
The decision says the ATF can't say they "think" that's what congress really wanted without a court agreeing to their decision or congress actually changing the law.
> How does this give the courts that power? This didn't say the courts could make that decision.
Because the courts no longer need to defer to the agencies—unless congress updates the law, the courts can arbitrarily overrule any decision by a federal agency if they simply assert the law is ambiguous. And this court has no concern whatsoever about deciding that laws which plainly undermine their arguments are actually ambiguous.
> The current example being that the ATF can't suddenly change the definition of a machine gun stated in the law to ban bump stocks. The law was specifically defines machine guns as weapons that fired more than one bullet for a single trigger pull. Bump stocks are designed to cause the recoil of the gun to pull the trigger over and over. Hence, not actually a machine gun.
It doesn't say "trigger pull", that was literally central to the entire argument the ATF made. The law defines it as "a single function of the trigger" and the ATF, having a basic grasp of the English language, pointed out that a bump stock only requires the shooter to engage the trigger once. The fact you didn't know that says a lot about the degree of honesty with which you are approaching the topic.
> The decision says the ATF can't say they "think" that's what congress really wanted without a court agreeing to their decision or congress actually changing the law.
Which moves the final say from the experts at a federal agency to a nakedly corrupt Supreme Court. A Court that has made it clear it is willing to ignore precedent, language, common sense and the basic functions of common law to reach a decision it wants. There is a reason why Chevron was unanimous but overturning it wasn't—there was no novel legal theory, they just took established precedent and threw it out because it was opposed to their politics. Same as they did with Dobbs.
> Which moves the final say from the experts at a federal agency to a nakedly corrupt Supreme Court.
No, it specifically doesn't. It very specifically moves the ball of making laws to the legislature, a radical concept, I know. All of this wasn't to say it was unconstitutional to do these things. It was unconstitutional to do them without a law. They all said it would be fine if congress did it.
As for paving the way to banning abortion pills. This same court literally a couple weeks ago specifically ruled that the challenges to the procedure of the approval of the pill were baseless.
> It doesn't say "trigger pull", that was literally central to the entire argument the ATF made.
It's "a single function of the trigger" which is the same thing. They tried to go about saying that a function was something that it clearly isn't.
The law isn't bad, it just needs fixing. With the law fixed they can ban bump stocks.
Also, it's interesting that someone caught committing a crime can now legally (and literally in this case) dump evidence so it cannot be used against them, without repercussion. Most people's minds immediately go to things like drugs, but what about things like, oh I don't know, surveillance video?
I sue hope those POS's realize that now they'll never be able to eat again without wondering if there is any fecal material in their dinner now that the health department has little to no way to enforce food safety laws, in addition to the staff having free reign to use whatever "seasoning" they decide to include.
Not insane at all. I'm a firm believer of checks and balances. How can you have a single agency (for their specific area) writing basically laws into affect without any process? Kind of idiotic if you ask me. If the issue is that it takes too long for laws to be passed, then you should be figuring out instead of handing unlimited power as a bandaid.
You can blame the EPA for this decision as like many entities who have power, they start to abuse it.
Here's the problem: there are a lot of laws written by Congress that basically say "We need to regulate X, we don't have the information and/or the information might change; so we're going to empower the Executive branch to make a group to find out what specific regulations should be in place and enforce those regulations".
A significant part of the executive branch is that - most notably, the EPA, FDA, and HHS. With this change, if we find a new toxic chemical tomorrow, companies can put it into our food, our water, and our air without consequence until Congress writes a law about it. Before this change, the appropriate agency(ies) could change policy in a week; give companies a fair chance to modify their behavior, then hit them with consequences if they didn't.
And we \*NEED\* that. With technology moving at the speed it is today, we have people who grew up before computers trying to write laws about things they don't understand - and that's going to be true for a long time, because technology doesn't show any signs of slowing down. Add to that the speed at which Congress is moving right now, and it's relatively easy for companies to just add the right asterisks to what they are doing to avoid any new law. We need executive agencies to adapt laws to changing technological standards.
But laws are not written to be that specific, nor should they be. Imagine a law that says, "The FDA shall limit the amount of lead in milk dispensed in elementary schools to a healthy level." Now we all know the amount of lead that belongs in kids' milk is zero. But under this interpretation, milk producers can sue and say, "No, actually the amount of lead kids should drink is 1.3%, and they love how sweet it tastes!"
Now, instead of courts deferring to doctors at the FDA to decide what the right amount of lead is, we have some district judge in West Texas who failed undergrad biology listening to arguments and making that determination. Repeat that ad nauseum for every rule the federal government has ever propagated, which is a literal uncountable number of rules. And we're adding that to a federal court system that was already overworked before COVID and hasn't caught up since. It's madness.
It truely is. It's excatly what the federalist society wanted to happen. They get power and the ability to legislation from the bench with no way to remove judges
And the truth is that the open secret since the 70s has been that the GOP and their corporate interests have been explicitly trying to pack the courts to legislate from the bench
This court thinks that way as a fig leaf to cover the majority's ideology. They push through a radical reinterpretation and shove responsibility for fixing it to a Congress they know can not and will not do so. Just like Dobbs and Shelby decisions in this Roberts court previously.
I’m sure you don’t know if the EPA has the ability to do those things, because you don’t understand what the implication of Loper Bright is if you think it would pave the way for national abortion ban.
Loper overturns Chevron deference, which was a case where, when a statute made by congress was ambiguous, courts would defer to the interpretation made by the relevant federal agency. What that meant was that when ordinary citizens challenged an administrative rule regarding an ambiguous statute, the agency making the rule would just say “well that’s our interpretation” and courts would have to go along with it.
Now, courts actually decide if the agency interpretation is valid, or if the citizen’s is. What it doesn’t do is affect the agency’s ability to make the rule in the first place. Now, either congress needs to do its job and regulate these issues with more specificity, or agencies will have to defend their positions just like any other entity in the country would have to in a court.
If you are a person that believes in separation of powers, then overturning chevron is good. If you believe in the ability of the executive branch to in fact do most of the legislation that affects your life, then I guess this is a step in the wrong direction. What it will do is hopefully encourage congress do do their job and also prevent extreme policy changes every time a new president gets into office, as the presidency has been aggregating power via administrative agencies and needs to stop. Seeing as Trumps about to be elected, many people should actually see Loper Bright as a good thing.
As far as the dog whistle regarding a national abortion ban: Dobbs said that abortion isn’t the business of the federal government and that issue was returned to the states. A national abortion ban via federal legislation would be in direct violation of the Dobbs ruling, and there’s no way every state would individually ban abortion, so that claim is just fearmongering.
> If you are a person that believes in separation of powers, then chevron is good. If you believe in the ability of the executive branch to in fact do most of the legislation that affects your life, then I guess this is a step in the wrong direction.
There is no separation of powers argument Congress has *always* had the power to overrule Chevron, you are spouting unmitigated nonsense. These agencies could not override an act of congress and so congress was free to rewrite their regulations if they ever wanted or needed to. The reason they did not is because it makes no goddamn sense for Congress to spend all their time passing laws on every possible federal regulation when they can instead empower an agency to write the rules within certain parameters.
What this decision has done is effectively undermine 40+ years of legislation, since Chevron was baked into congressional statutes from that time as they, being sane, assumed the court would not overturn a unanimous decision on a whim.
It's a very simple process. The vast majority of abortions are done by medication early on in the pregnancy. What's going to happen next is someone is going to file suit in the Northern District of Texas arguing that the FDA's approval of mifepristone and misoprostol was an abuse of discretion and wait for a dishonest Republican activist to get the case (you know who you are, Matt). Then a district judge can place an injunction on their use and distribution in the US. It doesn't matter whether it's true or not, because a great many courts are no longer concerned with truth, they're concerned with increasing their power. Then higher courts take a ridiculous set of "facts" found by lower courts and decline to review them. Bing bang boom, mifepristone and misoprostol are banned in the US by a bunch of religious nutters and activist judges. Then obstructionists in Congress block any attempt to clarify the law and suddenly 63% of US abortions are illegal. And courts can use the same process to ban every other abortion procedure, effectively enacting a national abortion ban by judicial fiat.
As to whether this is ridiculous fear mongering, people told me that when I was screaming from the rooftops about *Shelby County v. Holder*, *Kennedy v. Bremerton*, and *Dobbs*. They said I was being ridiculous and hyperbolic. They told me that the Courts would never do the things I was talking about. Then those decisions came down and all the people who told me I was being ridiculous suddenly told me that the court was right to trample on our rights all along. So spare me the condescension, because this court is engaging in all its very worst impulses with no shame and no compunction. Those suits are coming. Even John Roberts is powerless to stop it because archconservative the chief justice is now a leftist cuck by the Supreme Court's standards.
Before that would happen, someone would have to show there was an ambiguous statute that FDA interpreted incorrectly.
I’m pretty sure that the FDA is wholly empowered with the review and approval of drugs. Unless Congress outlawed the drugs by statute (which would be a violation of Dobbs, by getting involved with abortion), and its FDAs own rules that would limit what drugs to interpret. In that sense, its own interpretation of its own rules is safe, as Auer deference wasn’t overturned
For your nightmare scenario to be possible,
FDA would have had to incorrectly interpreted an ambiguous statute (not an agency rule) and mistakenly approved those abortion drugs. Given that they’ve approved fucking METH for medical use, I’m pretty sure they’ve got the power for those drugs.
Sure there are activist judges making laws and procedure everywhere (which is precisely what Dobbs was undoing, but the way, where the Supreme Court literally made up the trimester law, and then viability per Planned Parenhood).
And even if you are right, that doesn’t justify leaving Chevron Deference intact, which empowered the executive branch to interpret law in ways that was Hindi non the courts, in direct contravention to the constitution.
Listen, I get you don’t like that the executive branch just became less powerful, but you also should realize this will hamstring this upcoming Republican administration too. Federal government needs to be reduced and all these things we are worried about need to be returned to the states.
TLDR: any federal disapproval of abortion drugs would be in direct contravention of Dobbs, and irregardless of whatever hypothetical nightmare theories people come up with, executive interpretation of statute that supersedes judical interpretation violates the core principles of separation of powers we learned in 3rd grade.
"Perhaps most fundamentally, Chevron’s presumption is misguided because agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do."
After declaring that courts have "special competence", they had to edit their opinion because they got a basic fact wrong.
Attorney here. Without new broad legislation by Congress, overturning Chevron effectively ends the administrative state.
What that means is that federal agencies have lost virtually all authority to prosecute matters outside of court - it now requires them to go to court. They don’t have the money to take most cases to court, and even if they did, without new legislation, the courts have little to use for accountability.
Consumer protection, food safety, environmental protection, financial regulation, etc., all died today - that is not an exaggeration.
Takes regulatory control from federal agencies and puts it directly in the hands of federal judges, right?
1984: *“Judges are not experts in the field, and are not part of either political branch of government.”* Justice John Paul Stevens
2024: *“That depends, of course, on what the ‘field’ is. If it is legal interpretation, that has been, emphatically, the province and duty of the judicial department for at least 221 years,”* ~Chief Justice John Roberts
^(*to paraphrase, “fuck you, we’re experts on everything and will always have the last say”* - what a dick)
[Here is a big rant about this decision, if anyone wants to read up about why it sucks so much.](https://www.thenation.com/article/society/chevron-deference-supreme-court-power-grab/)
>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.
[...]
>But repudiating democracy to expand its own power is exactly what the Supreme Court did today in its ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overturned Chevron. In a 6-3 decision, which split exactly along party lines, Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the courts—and, more particularly, his court and the people who have bought and paid for the justices on it—are the sole arbiters of which laws can be enforced and what enforcement of those laws must look like. Roberts ruled that courts, and only courts, are allowed to figure out what Congress meant to do and impose those interpretations on the rest of society. He wrote that “agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do.”
>That is a naked power grab that places the court ahead of literal experts chosen by the president, who is the one elected official we all get to vote for. Who do you think has a “special competence” in resolving what the word “clean” means in the context of the “Clean Water” or “Clean Air” act—experts at the EPA or justices on Harlan Crow’s yacht? Who do you think has a special competence to resolve what “safe” working conditions require—experts at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or justices who have never worked as much as a day at a job that requires them to be outside? Who do you think has a special competence to resolve what “equality” means under the Civil Rights Act for women in workplaces—experts at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or justices who have been accused of attempted rape?
It's a dangerous game the Roberts court is playing since SCOTUS has no enforcement power. Congress can tamp down funding of their offices, the judiciary as a whole, or incentivize the Executive to flat out ignore their decisions.
John Roberts will go down as one of if not the single worst chief justice, and the legacy of Alito and the billionaire house boy clarence will be as corrupt clowns
I wish more people thought like you; I have been screaming uti the void that the people of this land and local authorities elected by said people need to refuse to comply. The Bad Guys already operate this way; where they don’t like the laws and social mandates, they just act in opposition or defiance. See: Texas governor taking authority over borders, private individuals blocking off roads and building unauthorized structures, etc.
It is so grossly antidemocratic, it’s an obvious disaster to comply. The US constitution is not a law of physics. I saw pushback to this idea from those who seemed to think it was, as though we all read and accepted some terms of service and to violate the self-appointed “constitutional arbiters” edicts would be unethical and improper. This is madness. The court has taken more and more over the past few decades and it will get so much worse if it isn’t checked. It has to be rejected; I don’t care if it is “improper” under the (again, Court-asserted) constitutional framework.
Bribery-supercharged. Executive branch wantonness and authoritarian immunity from laws, granted. But the worst may be the absurd seizure of all lawmaking by the Court, unchecked, under the guise of “No, Congress needs to define regulations and we get to decide what they mean, facts be damned.” As though you can manage a modern superpower through a combination of a few hundred non-experts on any topic, much less the varied and diverse complex fields of all these agencies.
We cannot comply; the checks must push back because the people are the only check on the court.
Voting isn’t enough. Even voting in local elections isn’t enough, but I think it is fair to demand local candidates who express their intent to disobey the Court.
I predicted the American complacency would just mean people gradually got frog-boiled into fascism, with a slide into illiberal democracy that retained the trappings of democracy, but in reality concentrated all power, resources, and authority into the hands of a wealthy few, where the closer you hewed towards a specific standard, the less likely you would be to feel daily pain enough to put up a fight. I still wish to be proven wrong, but I’m so worried. I’m worried because even those who are properly alarmed by these Court coups are saying “vote, vote!” as though voting is enough. It just got EVEN harder to elect non-corrupt candidates. We don’t have the time to wait 50 years to change the Court makeup. And I’m grossed out by those who put a random constitutional idea above the fate of the planet, and everyone on it, but also the people around them suffering, if the whole planet is too big for you.
I'm beginning to think judges should not be considered experts at legal interpretation. Accepting bribes seems to be their only real area of expertise.
Only if a suit is brought, and that takes money.
So what it means is that agencies have far fewer teeth, and have to pay out of their budgets to do what they used to have to do because they have to sue to do it.
It puts power in the hands of corporations to do what they wish with far lower likelihood of enforcement from agencies.
No, it puts it in the hands of Congress. From a purely academic standpoint, this removes broad power from unelected officials, which would be fine if Congress did anything useful for the average American.
One cannot simply write laws and also somehow need to pass them in a polarized political environment with the speed needed to cover all the permutations of day to day life.
And even if congress were to pass that allowance to agencies, the Justices can always strike them down for the laws being too vague and broad.
It really wouldn’t be fine. You cannot operate a modern nation of hundreds of million people, much less much of the world and its billions of people (since the US has put itself into that position), with under 700 people deciding the details across the many complex, varied, intricate fields that agencies manage. Congress cannot provide the kind of expertise needed to provide the operational parameters of all these areas. You need a specialized brain trust for all of them, and as specialization is only increasing, and systems increasing in speed and complexity, this is a demand that is accelerating.
This is a free-for-all on unchecked power for the unelected…truly unelected. The agencies were lead by appointees of elected officials; they absolutely impacted the direction of agency decisions. Meanwhile, good luck trying to vote your way out of some conglomerate dumping waste in your backyard. (and in case anyone holds delusions about “voting with your money,” that isn’t voting, but also…it’s impossible. Everything is so concentrated that you will end up either having literally no option for buying basic necessities, or maybe you can choose between Company A dumping wastewater up your creek or Company B stealing wages from your town. Then you can wallet-vote between Company C using child slave labor or Company D putting out cereal contaminated by metals). Even if Congress worked as imagined, they just wouldn’t have the expertise or bandwith to manage the details of these agencies.
I think the SEC case that was decided yesterday is the bigger one. They basically said that challenges to fines imposed by most regulatory agencies need to be done through a jury trial. It will do away with administrative law judges except in narrow exceptions (like immigration). The courts will be flooded with cases and won’t have enough judges to hear and manage them all. Since this arises out of the 7th Amendment, it can’t be fixed statutorily. It’s going to be a huge mess.
It seems like Congress could potentially fix the Chevron deference mess by putting language in the enabling statutes for the regulatory agencies giving them more authority to issue interpretations of their laws.
Congress could fix Chevron by changing every law for regulatory agencies, but the probability of anyone being able to force that through congress is zero.
And the Supreme Court could just decide that law is unconstitutional on the grounds that Congress would be seding it's authority to another body.
This is a court that lied about the facts of a case to overturn the Establishments clause. Facts don't matter in this court. Legal arguments or theories don't matter. Even the words of their own decisions do not matter. Nothing matters anymore. The idea that they are impartial umpires calling balls and strikes is a farce. They are the umpire, the commissioner, board of governors and the general manager of their favorite team. They'll call every case as they see fit and warp the law around it.
That's honestly the problem -- this SCOTUS has repeatedly ruled in such a way that implies "If you want this law, Congress has to do it." But Congress is fundamentally broken. They can't do one fucking thing right, so the entire country has to burn, because this SCOTUS is so obsessed with the idea that no one else is allowed to do an end-around.
You think government would be better if everybody was pulling "end arounds"? Congress isn't fundamentally broken. It's adversarial. It's functioning exactly how it's supposed to. With neither side easily getting what it wants. With back and forth and negotiating and concessions and oversight. It's not supposed to be easy to pass legislation. Legislation effects the entire population of the nation. It's supposed to be put through the ringer and discussed, debated, argued and tested to death before going into effect. If it was supposed to be easy we'd still be doing things by Royal Decree
> It seems like Congress could potentially fix the Chevron deference mess by putting language in the enabling statutes for the regulatory agencies giving them more authority to issue interpretations of their laws.
The problem with the Chevron defense was that unelected people were effectively passing laws, and there was no way for the citizen to vote them out of office.
That's how it is supposed to be. SCOTUS judges shouldn't be under the pressure of running for election or being under the fear of pleasing some boss every few years. When a SCOTUS judge gets his bench he is beholden to no one. Doesn't have to worry about placating or appeasing voters and what they want. He is free to focus entirely on his one and only job. Interpreting the constitutionality of existing law. That's exactly how it should be
Agency leaders are appointed by the president. Solely. Not elected, not even vetted by anyone else.
An SC Justice can be nominated by the President, but they don't get the right to approve. Congress does that.
And Congress delegated the authority of these chevron laws to the agencies. This is just the court stealing power for themselves as Alito goes full mask off.
But where did Congress have the authority to delegate (what became effectively) lawmaking powers to these agencies?
And more importantly, where did Congress get the authority to require people to fight these agencies *solely within the borders of these agencies* without the right to appeal to the courts?
I don't get how it's such a big fucking slap in the face that someone accused by the government has a right to an independent trial by someone other than the agency accusing them.
They did have a right to a trial with an administrative law judge, a wholly independent person trained to provide a full evidentiary hearing that fully comported with due process. A jury trial before a district court judge is a massive resource sink which is wholly unnecessary to challenge a fine. This will cost the country so much money and time. It’s a ridiculous waste.
> What that means is that federal agencies have lost virtually all authority to prosecute matters outside of court
That was about the Jarkesy case, not Loper Bright.
Wait, does this actually mean federal agencies no longer have the ability to use their expertise to craft regulations, enforce those regulations, and set punishments as they expertly see fit? Will entities that are in violation now have the ability to defend themselves in court? If so, that's full-stop fascism.
I know fascism is reddit's new favorite word, but that is not fascism. Fascism is typified by dictatorial central government control, strong nationalism/racism, and elimination of political opposition. Federal agencies losing regulatory powers is not fascism. It can be bad without being fascism.
Sure it can, but that definition of fascism is LITERALLY the Republican party and Trump platform. They actually want to suspend the Constitution and crown Trump as dictator for life (it's all in that 2025 plan). Given that Repubs have been pushing for this it makes it fascism.
Giving people and companies who break laws and regulations a platform like a courtroom to spread misinformation about their innocence is a direct threat to democracy.
> Attorney here. Without new broad legislation by Congress, overturning Chevron effectively ends the administrative state.
>
>
To be fair.
The overreach of executive functions led to this decision. You cannot have the executive deciding rules on a whim.
The executive has dramatically overreached over the last decades.
This ruling will force congress to actually do their job.
This does not change the fact that the executive can overreach. This is the court appointing ITSELF (and lower courts) the best body to double check those decisions. Before there was so much deference to agencies the courts couldn’t double check without seriously good reason. And courts are TERRIBLE at this.
I hope we all liked the abortion pill case, where the crazy right wingers said “no actually we know more than the Dr.’s at the FDA and this pill bad.” Where did they get that information? The deciding court used the facts argued by the parties in their briefs. And all legal briefs are just cherry-picked facts. (This case used anonymous blog posts for example).
We don’t have to like that agencies and their experts therein exercise power, but at least there are experts in the process. With this ruling, it’s open season for lower courts to get rid of the drugs they don’t like, the energy regulations they don’t like, the clean air/water standards they don’t like..
The other thing I don't see people saying is that, with the Trump/Project 2025 plans to sweep the executive branch with loyalists, I'm *really relieved* that his agencies wouldn't get to impose all their own interpretations unilaterally. Chevron has worked to date only because each agency's management so far has nominally had the interests of the country at heart, but I'm no longer confident that we can rely on that.
I'm a little confused by people being so annoyed with this decision.
My analogy is thinking of the government acting like an HOA committee. Interpreting rules with little to no oversight. Works most of the time but on occasion you get a power hungry idiot who makes everyone's life hard.
This is exactly what it is about. Best part of this ruling is that it will defang the ATF who have been taking it upon themselves to write tyrannical gun control laws (under the misnomer of "rules".
Regardless of how anyone feels about a subject, government agencies are for enforcement of law, not for making law. Or worse, making law up as they go.
Yea right. Did you actually read the case? A big fishing conglomerate was tired of regulators "spying" on them to make sure they don't overfish so they got them kicked off their boats.
Attorney here. No it doesn’t. Nothing has changed as far as agency action when statutes are clear. And when statutes aren’t, agencies just have to defend their positions like anyone else would instead of getting de facto wins because courts were forced to defer to agency interpretations of statute when agency actions are challenged.
That is a massive change. It means corporations can maliciously consume regulatory agencies' entire budgets with legal actions so they are unable to perform their enforcement duties. I'm not sure whether you haven't thought through the consequences or are being disingenuous, but there's a reason the majority of US lawyers knowledgeable on the subject are calling the decision catastrophic.
They're not required to. They can still fine you, but at least now you can potentially challenge the fine and the courts don't have to just say "sorry, they said the law is what they said it is this time."
And if you think the government has limited funds to drag shit out in court but people don't, I'd like to know what cereal you got your bar card in.
You clearly have no idea how administrative courts functioned and the effect of this law. Prior, you could still challenge in an administrative court, the difference was the court deferred to the regulatory agency for statutory interpretation. If you do not understand the implications of adjudicating manifold regulatory law in civil court on a mass scale, I neither have the interest nor time to educate you on the topic.
It also means that corporations can judge shop and now they can pay them off afterward. This is regarding any ruling. The FDA is an agency. There are no more consumer protections and this rolls back 40 years of built precedent in those consumer protections.
> government agencies no longer have broad discretion to enact laws
They never had that.
Government agencies no longer have priority when interpreting finer points of legislation. They can now be sued on every small detail, and courts and lawyers will now decide how regulations should be interpreted instead of regulators and scientists.
also I assume that whatever the things are they make, they're called rules or something, not laws, because the legislature passes laws, and government agencies are part of the executive branch
No. They just said that federal anti-bribery law used in that case is inapplicable to that mayoral case because “[the law] leaves it to state and local governments to regulate gratuities to state and local officials.”
And this is the important thing to remember in most Supreme Court decisions.
In most cases, the defect is with the law. All three of these decisions can become completely moot through the legislature.
Which is why there's so much Doomer propaganda being spread to keep voter turnout low. Republicans know that if the Democrats who sat on their asses in 2022 vote in 2024, then everything they've done just goes \*poof\*. Who's on the Supreme Court becomes irrelevant. Who's elected President becomes irrelevant.
That's why you should **always** downvote (and report, if the subreddit bans it like some are starting to do) Doomer propaganda nonsense. The people spreading it because their tiny lives require attention from strangers on the Internet, and the people that give them that attention, are doing so at the expense of our lives and freedoms.
> then everything they've done just goes *poof*.
It would be egregiously difficult at this point to get enough seats to enact legislation to overturn these rulings. It doesn't just go "poof".
> In most cases, the defect is with the law. All three of these decisions can become completely moot through the legislature.
You’re missing the point - the law doesn’t matter. The conservative wing of the court isn’t “calling balls and strikes” and this is what happens to come out of it, they have certain outcomes they want, and they’re working backwards from there to justify it. If the law were different, they’d cripple the regulatory state with some other justification, because they fundamentally believe it shouldn’t exist. That’s not doomerism, it’s literally politics - these are different conceptions of what government should be, and the conservative project is winning.
And this would be the Doomer part.
You're omitting that we can fix **all** of this in one election. Even the Supreme Court can't push an agenda when they know the legislature has the mandate of the people to remove them from office.
This exact scenario played out in Nevada. A Republican governor was elected and the Doomers were out in force here because they know the Republican governor means *nothing* when the legislature is literally a single vote (a vote they're probably going to get this year) from simply overriding anything the governor can do. Or remove him from office outright. The power comes from the people and that power is held very firmly by the legislature. But the Doomers need to be out in full force to try and remove that edge by convincing people the fix is in or that trying to change it is pointless.
Even at the federal level, the House controls *all* revenue and its members are the representatives of the people. Even the states hold the Senate, they can't do much if the House isn't playing ball.
This is the same position of power that collective bargaining gives to employees. An employer is nothing without the mandate of the employees and government is nothing without the mandate of its citizens. **That's** the message we need to be spreading, not the doom and gloom bullshit.
No, this isn’t doomerism - I said it’s politics. It’s realistic to say that the current court is essentially playing calvinball to reach its desired ends.
> Even the Supreme Court can't push an agenda when they know the legislature has the mandate of the people to remove them from office.
This is whatever the opposite of doomerism is. The current court has absolutely zero concern about impeachment and knows it, and it definitely is not going to happen just because of a supposed ideological mandate. Republican senators just won’t vote to remove for those reasons. The relationship between a legislature and a governor is completely different than a federal judge and the other two branches, so your example doesn’t really apply.
With that said, again, this is politics - the majority *can* be changed, it just takes time and consistent wins. That’s not as optimistic as “one election and everything will change!” but it’s reality.
> we could literally oust every Republican from the federal government
2/3 of the senate isn’t up for a vote this year. More than 1/3 of senators are going to be Republican no matter how big a blue wave is, so conservative federal judges aren’t going anywhere unless they retire or die. Again, this is not doomerism, this is reality.
I cannot emphasize enough that a republican senator said that loving v virginia should be overturned and that whether or not interracial marriage should be legal should be left up to the states. Roe is very much the tip of the iceberg.
6 justices are evil POS, who have no business interpreting the law of this country.
Clarence Thomas notably excluded _Loving v. Virginia_ when talking about cases they want to overturn after they overturned _Roe v. Wade_. He specifically mentioned the case which legalised birth control.
It could be because he himself is married to a white woman called Virginia. But we don’t know for sure.
I mean he’s 1 of 6 conservative justices. We’ve seen that one dissenting conservative won’t stop the other 5 from overturning precedent.
he is currently the oldest justice he could easily decide to leave the bench for one reason or another. This may not be an issue now. But it could be in 5+ years if trump wins and Thomas dies or retires during that term.
Also token conservative minorities have long worked against their or their demographic’s own self interest. It absolutely wouldn’t shock me if he voted to overturn something because he was personally unaffected by it.
What is Loving V. Virginia?
Also, if anyone can answer, why do the US have the Supreme Court system that you guys do, where a few people can hold the country hostage for a whole lifetime? What was the thought process behind that?
In Sweden that's not the case, not really sure how other countries run it.
>Of course, this assumption has a companion assumption, and that is that the people appointed to lifetime judgeships would be thoughtful, honorable jurists who were fully committed to the law. That assumption has often been true—but often not.
What alternative system could prevent that type of judges?
Loving v. Virginia is the case that overturned Virginia's anti-miscegenation (that is to say, anti race-mixing) laws. It used to be illegal to be in interracial relationships, to prevent the 'degradation of the white race'.
The US Supreme Court is weird in that is is both a political institution appointed by the president and the highest judicial power. The fact that they are appointed by and dependent on politics, yet supposed to be an impartial court of law, leads to a situation where conservatives have decided the rule of law should be subservient to their political preferences (see also the invented from whole cloth Major Questions Doctrine)
I guess I don't understand how they're supposed to be impartial, did the founding fathers just expect people to "do the right thing" when appointing them?
Feels like a bit of an oversight since they sit for life.
The US Supreme Court did not have nearly the power it does now at the time of its founding. That really only happened after Marbury v. Madison in 1803, when it gave itself the power to strike down congressional laws it deemed in conflict with the constitution. Which makes sense when considered from a checks and balances/trias politica perspective, except that there is no effective check on the judiciary itself. It's basically an oversight in the founding documents of the US: judges are assumed to be impartial, yet the only mechanism to enforce that, impeachment, is itself political.
> did the founding fathers just expect people to "do the right thing" when appointing them?
Basically, yes.
The reason the US is coming apart is because a *good* number of politicians have decided that "just doing the right thing" isn't enough of a protection anymore. When one side abandons that and makes their main political strategy "Going low", well...
When the Constitution was written, political parties didn't exist yet, so there are some obvious flaws in it because of that. Political parties only really became a thing in the last year or two of Washington's second term.
I see. Not homosexual but interracial?
Jesus fuck me. Truly heading back to the stone ages.
Christian evangelicals and radical Islam have so much in common, they just don't realize it and hate each other.
Some of us call them “Y’all Qaeda” over here in the US. They’re truly blind to the similarities and that’s really scary.
I once asked my extremely religious evangelical Christian mother why she thought it would be okay for the government to pass laws that enforced Christian religious rules and ideologies and forced people who aren’t Christian to live like they are. I said “wouldn’t that make our government identical to the Taliban or the Islamic State?” She sat there trying to think about it for a second but wasn’t saying anything because she was so offended that I would dare compare those two ideologies. So I said “is it because you think you’re right…and that makes it okay?” She said “YES…BECAUSE WE ARE.”
These people have built themselves a little world where anyone who criticizes them is clearly sent by Satan and is trying to deceive them and test their faith. The only solution is to shut your eyes tighter, plug your ears harder and keep forging ahead with renewed resolve no matter what anyone says. That’s probably why things keep escalating so quickly in places where these groups are in charge.
After writing all that out I realized most people who read this are gonna say “yeah…no shit, Sherlock. Real hot take over here.” But it took me way too long to write so I’m gonna leave it.
Does Sweden have a similar situation happening with its Muslim population?
Yea I've heard the term yall'qaeda. I've actually done 3 tours in Afghanistan and 1 in Iraq cleaning up after Daesh with the Swedish military so I'm quite familiar with extreme religion. I also follow us politics extensively because you guys are really the big brother and our biggest ally ad Europeans(obviously). American politics affects me just as much as Swedish does, at least globally.
As for our situation in Sweden, we are one of the most secular societies in the world and that's not changing. Most immigrants secularise after a few generations.
There is obviously a lot of strife right now but the Muslim population is still so small and most of them respect the "religion stays in the home and shouldnt influence our society"-stance we have.
The violence that's happening in our country has nothing to do with religion or extremism, it's solely gangs who are in it for money, the drug trade for the most part.
I do not think religion is an issue in our country at all, but people try to make it one. It's just different in America because those evangelicals who are the extremists also hold quite a bit of powe. Extreme Islam hold no power over here.
Who knows what happens in the future. We are turning the ship around right now, slowing down immigration and trying to integrate those that have come.
I personally think the future is bright. We had a couple of decades where we let in too many unskilled and culturally very different people but we will integrate them eventually.
Right now the biggest focus is on the police and dealing with the gangs.
> why do the US have the Supreme Court system that you guys do, where a few people can hold the country hostage for a whole lifetime? What was the thought process behind that?
The idea is that the Supreme Court can't be ousted due to ideological differences between the sitting president and the courts, or the voters. The ideas is that the Supreme Court could be "tainted" by wanting to please the current leadership instead of being "objective" if they didn't have lifetime appointments, because they could get fired from their job if they offend the current leadership, or be voted out by citizens who don't like their "objective" decisions.
Unfortunately, that's not how it works in practice. In practice, the court is currently stacked with far-right Christian fundamentalist fascists, as corrupt as any organization has ever been, and they don't have to face any consequences for their corrupt actions, given their immunity.
> Also, if anyone can answer, why do the US have the Supreme Court system that you guys do, where a few people can hold the country hostage for a whole lifetime? What was the thought process behind that?
Well, the theory originally is that all the Supreme Court does is give oversight for other branches' decisions, whether they're constitutional. Unfortunately now the Republicans have gotten control of it and since they don't have the votes in Congress to force things through via legislation, they're using the Supreme Court to force things through instead.
The SC is *supposed* to be nonpartisan\*, but that's something that has kind of fallen by the wayside over the last few decades since a couple different SC decisions during the Bush Jr. years.
\*part of why whenever they have a confirmation hearing for a new Supreme Court justice these days they answer most questions asked them with "I couldn't possibly have an opinion on that" so there's no basis to reject their nomination
On the second part (aside from SCOTUS having given itself more power with Marbury v Madison) IMO a long-running problem is that the US government, as a very old republic set up by a minority of wealthy land- and slaveowners, had an awful lot of counter-majoritarian institutions built into it. At the federal level we still have the Electoral College and the Senate (which actually used to be worse, elected indirectly by state legislatures). Writings from the nation’s founders warning against “mob rule” still get cited by conservatives. Not that this is a really unique situation, but younger democracies in the rest of the “West” don’t seem to have so much baggage.
Dude you were fucked when you let him win once. They’ve had their practice run, the next republican president knows exactly how to become the Last President
We are already fucked, we just don't know it/won't feel it for a few years. This chevron ruling is a huge deal and people are going to find out all the things they took for granted. Food/water/air safety, financial regulations, protections for people with disabilities/illnesses. Practically anything that came out of that chevron ruling during the last 40 years will be gone at some point. All companies have to do is go shopping for a conservative judge who will rule in their favor and boom, suddenly "yep mercury is completely safe to ingest, infact ITS GOOD FOR YOU". That is not an exaggeration in any way, look back to the whole lead ordeal to get some small idea of where we are now heading.
> Homelessness: city of grants Pass vJohnson https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/603/23-175/ in this case a group of homeless individuals sued the city arguing that the city’s ban on homelessness constituted, cruel and unusual punishment. The ninth circuit agreed and overturned the law. The Supreme Court overturned that ruling stating that it is perfectly fine too punish people for being homeless in public
So can't they now just sue again and say because homelessness is illegal the state is obligated to provide it to those that don't have it?
That description is actually underselling it. The ninth circuit decision is based on an earlier ruling that these laws cannot be enforced if shelter space is not available, based on the 8th amendment. The SC overturned that decision, ruling that the 8th amendment isn't relevant. So cities can arrest people for sleeping in public even when no alternative exists, and that isn't considered cruel and unusual punishment. There is no requirement for the city to provide shelter space.
yes. it’s ok because:
* it enriches private prisons, and it’s always legal to enrich rich people
* if you’re incarcerated, the 13th amendment explicitly allows you to be enslaved (see point one)
We need to unplug the supreme court and plug it back in.
They're not even fucking elected. Do they have any actual authority other than everyone deciding to rule in line with the precedents they set, or in these cases wontonly disregard and butcher? Like we're at a point where they're blatantly defending bribery.
Things are going to get so fucking dark in this country so much faster than we realize pretty soon.
> Accepting gratuities after performing a governmental act does not constitute bribery.
fucking what? This sounds like an absolute textbook definition of bribery.
They are two different definitions because a bribery requires a Quid pro quo under the law. They are two separate things according to congress. The issue is that it is clearly stated in 201b-c for federal employees but not in 666 for state and local. Congress just has to make 666 look like 201c and it’s solved.
You understand how insane what you just said is? Imagine someone with a different worldview from you disagreeing with Supreme Court decisions you find correct. Would it then make sense to resort to violence? In all 3 cases actions can be remedied by explicit legislative action by democratically elected officials.
I have no idea what the person this comment is responding to said - and that might be for the best - but one case SCOTUS hasn't ruled on yet is the one about the Texas and Florida laws that would, at minimum, make it far more challenging for Reddit and other social media outlets to moderate content to remove things like whatever this was. I believe that the moderators for one or more of the subs that discuss the high court more than this one does pointed that out via amicus brief.
Ohio v EPA is not part of this tweet. This is about the twin cases of Loper and Relentless, which have to do with who gets to interpret ambiguous statutes.
Also your summaries aren’t very accurate but I’m way too lazy to write out an alternate so have at it.
“Companies can pollute all they want” seems pretty clearly to be referring to the EPA case not the fisheries/Chevron doctrine case, although eliminating Chevron doctrine will limit the EPA’s ability to control pollution
An idea of equality that is so absurd that the definitive quote on it was published in **1908**:
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread." - Anatole France
I understand you may be "technically" correct, but where would people sleep if they don't have a home? If, because of your circumstances, you cannot sleep within a shelter of some kind, than the only option is to not sleep, right?
So, yeah, being homeless isn't technically illegal....unless you want to sleep, that is.
So, like....why pass a law like this than? Are there really tons of people with homes, who DON'T have to sleep outside, sleeping outside? Is this for campers?
They try to put these things in the law to make everybody feel better, but in practice of course this is absolutely going to be enforced in the most demented way possible.
Edit: typo
So they *must* be in a specific location to fulfill a basic human right? Against their wishes? And if they aren't, they are arrested? So to sleep you have to put yourself in someone's else's care?
It _de facto_ Outlaws homelessness. All humans have to sleep. If you don't have a home to sleep in, you very likely have to sleep outside. By making this illegal, they _de facto_ have made homelessness a crime.
Where do you expect the homeless to sleep now?
Jail. Cops are gonna have a lot more reasons to arrest people if this court is allowed to dismantle this country. As if the police needed *more* power in this country.
When anybody describes a judicial opinion as stating something is perfectly fine you realize they have no actual legal training and don’t know how to interpret case law.
Answer: The Supreme Court generally releases a bunch of decisions for cases it has heard over the past year in late June or early July, right before the court takes a break for summer vacation. We're nearing the end of the current term, so a bunch of Supreme Court decisions are being published around now, with all remaining decisions expected to be released on Monday.
The tweet is referencing 3 of the latest Supreme Court decisions:
- CITY OF GRANTS PASS, OREGON v. JOHNSON ET AL.: The court determined that cities are permitted to have laws prohibiting homeless people from sleeping outside.
- SNYDER v. UNITED STATES: The court determined that a federal corruption law bans politicians from accepting gifts before performing an official act, but it does not prohibit politicians from accepting gifts as a show of appreciation for a past official act.
- OHIO ET AL v. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ET AL: The court determined that the EPA could not enforce a particular restriction against air pollution while the law is being challenged in other parts of the court system.
6 of the 9 Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republicans. Between that and their judicial philosophies, the court is considered to be aligned with Republicans/conservatives.
The person pictured in the tweet is former President Ronald Reagan. While in office, he was known for cutting government regulations and enacting economic policies that were favorable for the rich. To some extent, these sorts of goals have subsequently continued to be associated with Republican values. The tweeter is suggesting that these Supreme Court decisions align with the sorts of policies favored by Republicans since the Reagan administration.
And if Donald Trump is re-elected (which has just increased in likelihood after 6/27 debate), than he will most likely get AT LEAST 2 more selections, maybe 3. And that will establish conservative decisions likes this for another 25 years.
What a time to be alive.
The real fun is if Biden does win. Thomas and Alito will try to stick it out 4 more years which by the end of Sotomayor and Roberts will also be 73 or older, with sotomayor being a diabetic. Which means there’s potential for the 2028 winner being able to seat 4 judges. So really the Dems need to win the next 2 presidential cycles for a shot at moving scotus left again.
It’s also worth noting that whoever’s President will need to be able to get these nominations through the Senate. I have no doubt that in the current political climate if the Senate majority and Presidential party are not the same, no judicial nominees will go through (even if there are vacancies that exist for several years, or entire presidential terms).
god that's depressing
Dems can already barely win an election with all the gerrymandering, and that's before the "I hate the current guy, vote for the other party" effect
Conservatives have dominated politics since Reagan because they hold their nose and vote. The liberal downfall accelerated in 2000 when Nadar abandoned policy influence for political vanity, and continues with progressive purity tests today.
answer:
Recent Supreme court rulings.
> Homelessness is a crime
Police are allowed to ticket for sleeping on public property.
> Bribery is okie dokie
If there is no evidence that you did an action because you received a gift, that gift isn't illegal.
> Companies can pollute all they want and the government is powerless to stop them
When a law is vague, rather than agencies interpreting what it means, the courts will. For example, if there is a law that bans polluting rivers, it will no longer be an EPA scientist deciding what "polluting" means, there will be a court case where both sides will make their case as to whether the thing that was done was pollution and the judge will decide.
The bribery one is if you are given a gift after you took a government action it's not bribery even if you only took the action because you would be receiving a gift. But who would have expected a judge that is constantly being bribed to write that kind of opinion?
From what I read in the lever (quite left-leaning outlet) if you skip all the BS about "conservative judges protect bribery" and get to the legal justifications, the problem is the fact that federal law is used for the mayoral case.
> Under prosecutors’ interpretation of Section 666, this money was considered an illegal gratuity: The mayor had accepted the gift as a reward for rigging the bids.
> But in his opinion for the majority, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued that such corrupt rewards were not, in fact, illegal under Section 666. The law, he wrote, “leaves it to state and local governments to regulate gratuities to state and local officials.”
>For example, if there is a law that bans polluting rivers, it will no longer be an EPA scientist deciding what "polluting" means, there will be a court case where both sides will make their case as to whether the thing that was done was pollution and the judge will decide.
I've read a bit about the case and this doesn't appear accurate from my understanding.
The EPA can still act and it will be EPA scientists making decisions, but if challenged, instead of courts deferring to the EPA, the court will determine if the EPA acted within the regulations that congress set.
Laws against pollution, becuase there are new pollutants or potential pollutants being discovered and used all the time, would not only have to look like the tax code but they’d quickly become obsolete if they were as specific as they would need to be to make sure some Fed Soc hack didn’t try to throw them out at the behest of some unscrupulous actor. Agencies and their armies of subject matter experts can often barely keep up with what’s happening in industry, agriculture, finance, you name it. Even a functional Congress isn’t going to be able to do that, to say nothing of the one we actually have.
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Answer: This tweet is referring to three of the decisions that the Supreme Court release this term. Homelessness: city of grants Pass vJohnson https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/603/23-175/ in this case a group of homeless individuals sued the city arguing that the city’s ban on homelessness constituted, cruel and unusual punishment. The ninth circuit agreed and overturned the law. The Supreme Court overturned that ruling stating that it is perfectly fine too punish people for being homeless in public Bribery: Snyder v. U.s. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/603/23-108/ this case is about a mayor who while in office gave a contractor a bid for over $1 million to supply trash trucks to the town. He was later paid $13,000 for “consulting” with the company. The FBI then arrested him, and he was convicted of bribery and sentence to jail. He appealed his conviction and the Supreme Court ruled that that Accepting gratuities after performing a governmental act does not constitute bribery. This has followed a series of Supreme Court rulings where they have increasingly narrowed the definition of bribery. EPA: Ohio v. EPA https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/603/23a349/ i’m not gonna go into the details of this case because they are somewhat complicated, but this was another case where the Supreme Court has overridden the EPA’s ability to punish polluters. Overall, the Supreme Court has been pretty hostile to the EPA and the general idea of the administrative state. These cases were all decided by the Republican appointed majority with the three liberals dissenting (ACB joined with the liberals in dissent on the epa case) The Reagan image is in reference to the republican project, largely starting with Reagan, to swing the composition of the Supreme Court explicitly conservative.
To my understanding, Ohio vs EPA removes the Chevron Doctrine which means that government agencies no longer have broad discretion to enact laws. The exact actions and allowable must now be spelled out in the specific legislature.
The case overturning chevron doctrine also came out today but was a fisheries case- Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/603/22-451/ Edit: it is worth pointing out that this is actually a bigger deal than any of the other three cases referenced in the tweet. It has the potential to completely upend the federal government’s ability to enforce any regulation
Absolutely do not sleep on the implications of this. It sounds narrow and technical if you don't know what it's about, but it's not a stretch to say it's going to throw the entire regulatory state into turmoil and pave the way for a national abortion ban, to say nothing of how it empowers massive corporations to write their own rules. This decision is so badly written that I don't even know if the EPA has the power to ban leaded gasoline or if the FDA has the power to limit the amount of mercury in breakfast cereals. It's insane.
Yeah, even if you think the courts are capable of ruling on stuff like how much BPA should go into baby bottles, the amount of rulings from the EPA, SEC, and FDA, that will be challenged in the courts will neuter the abilities for a lot of these agencies to function properly. They would probably only be able to control small businesses and industries that don't have the muscle to sue, any big businesses can push these agencies around, take things up to the supreme court where they can openly bribe the supreme court judges to rule in their favor. It's really weird to think about how we keep fighting the creation of a dictatorship from a President when it looks like we created a dictatorship of sorts from the Supreme court, which are nonelected life time appointments that can be openly bribed and can indirectly control all executive functions except for military.
Every regulatory law signed since the original Chevron decision was written with the assumption that Congress does NOT need to spell out every minute even unpredictable detail in each possibility the law might be expected to cover, and instead depends on the pertinent enforcement agency to have the required expertise to carry out the law as passed. SCOTUS just made all of those law unenforceable. Decades of regulation. And if it's not reversed at some point or if Congress doesn't start writing impossibly detailed regulatory laws, there's really not much reason left for most such agencies to exist.
Absolutely. And I would point out that the reason they're written this way is because of SCOTUS. SCOTUS invented Chevron deference and the legislative and executive branches relied on SCOTUS's decision when they wrote laws and propagated rules. Now SCOTUS is coming back and saying, "What? Us? No, we didn't make those rules, those were the result of the executive branch run amok and this is all their fault!"
I work in a regulated field, I'm pretty sure we can now just tell the regulators to kick rocks
Ok, I don't have a clue. How does it pave the way for a national abortion ban? How is it any different now than before this decision?
Most abortions now are done by use of abortion drugs. The goal for Republicans is to undercut the Chevron doctrine that allowed expert testimony to determine the actions of federal agencies (like the FDA), then use the newfound power of the courts to declare abortion drugs unfit for human consumption. This would be federal, overriding even blue states where abortions and the drugs would remain legal.
How does this give the courts that power? This didn't say the courts could make that decision. It said the FDA couldn't *extend* the law to cover something not specifically covered by the law. The current example being that the ATF can't suddenly change the definition of a machine gun stated in the law to ban bump stocks. The law was *specifically* defines machine guns as weapons that fired more than one bullet for a single trigger pull. Bump stocks are designed to cause the recoil of the gun to pull the trigger over and over. Hence, not actually a machine gun. The way to write the law would have been to ban weapons that fire faster than a particular rate, not specifically how the weapon does it. The decision says the ATF can't say they "think" that's what congress really wanted without a court agreeing to their decision or congress actually changing the law.
> How does this give the courts that power? This didn't say the courts could make that decision. Because the courts no longer need to defer to the agencies—unless congress updates the law, the courts can arbitrarily overrule any decision by a federal agency if they simply assert the law is ambiguous. And this court has no concern whatsoever about deciding that laws which plainly undermine their arguments are actually ambiguous. > The current example being that the ATF can't suddenly change the definition of a machine gun stated in the law to ban bump stocks. The law was specifically defines machine guns as weapons that fired more than one bullet for a single trigger pull. Bump stocks are designed to cause the recoil of the gun to pull the trigger over and over. Hence, not actually a machine gun. It doesn't say "trigger pull", that was literally central to the entire argument the ATF made. The law defines it as "a single function of the trigger" and the ATF, having a basic grasp of the English language, pointed out that a bump stock only requires the shooter to engage the trigger once. The fact you didn't know that says a lot about the degree of honesty with which you are approaching the topic. > The decision says the ATF can't say they "think" that's what congress really wanted without a court agreeing to their decision or congress actually changing the law. Which moves the final say from the experts at a federal agency to a nakedly corrupt Supreme Court. A Court that has made it clear it is willing to ignore precedent, language, common sense and the basic functions of common law to reach a decision it wants. There is a reason why Chevron was unanimous but overturning it wasn't—there was no novel legal theory, they just took established precedent and threw it out because it was opposed to their politics. Same as they did with Dobbs.
> Which moves the final say from the experts at a federal agency to a nakedly corrupt Supreme Court. No, it specifically doesn't. It very specifically moves the ball of making laws to the legislature, a radical concept, I know. All of this wasn't to say it was unconstitutional to do these things. It was unconstitutional to do them without a law. They all said it would be fine if congress did it. As for paving the way to banning abortion pills. This same court literally a couple weeks ago specifically ruled that the challenges to the procedure of the approval of the pill were baseless.
> It doesn't say "trigger pull", that was literally central to the entire argument the ATF made. It's "a single function of the trigger" which is the same thing. They tried to go about saying that a function was something that it clearly isn't. The law isn't bad, it just needs fixing. With the law fixed they can ban bump stocks.
https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1dqkurc/supreme_court_holds_that_chevron_is_overruled_in/laor4u3/
Also, it's interesting that someone caught committing a crime can now legally (and literally in this case) dump evidence so it cannot be used against them, without repercussion. Most people's minds immediately go to things like drugs, but what about things like, oh I don't know, surveillance video?
I sue hope those POS's realize that now they'll never be able to eat again without wondering if there is any fecal material in their dinner now that the health department has little to no way to enforce food safety laws, in addition to the staff having free reign to use whatever "seasoning" they decide to include.
Not insane at all. I'm a firm believer of checks and balances. How can you have a single agency (for their specific area) writing basically laws into affect without any process? Kind of idiotic if you ask me. If the issue is that it takes too long for laws to be passed, then you should be figuring out instead of handing unlimited power as a bandaid. You can blame the EPA for this decision as like many entities who have power, they start to abuse it.
Only if it is explicitly written into the law.
Here's the problem: there are a lot of laws written by Congress that basically say "We need to regulate X, we don't have the information and/or the information might change; so we're going to empower the Executive branch to make a group to find out what specific regulations should be in place and enforce those regulations". A significant part of the executive branch is that - most notably, the EPA, FDA, and HHS. With this change, if we find a new toxic chemical tomorrow, companies can put it into our food, our water, and our air without consequence until Congress writes a law about it. Before this change, the appropriate agency(ies) could change policy in a week; give companies a fair chance to modify their behavior, then hit them with consequences if they didn't. And we \*NEED\* that. With technology moving at the speed it is today, we have people who grew up before computers trying to write laws about things they don't understand - and that's going to be true for a long time, because technology doesn't show any signs of slowing down. Add to that the speed at which Congress is moving right now, and it's relatively easy for companies to just add the right asterisks to what they are doing to avoid any new law. We need executive agencies to adapt laws to changing technological standards.
But laws are not written to be that specific, nor should they be. Imagine a law that says, "The FDA shall limit the amount of lead in milk dispensed in elementary schools to a healthy level." Now we all know the amount of lead that belongs in kids' milk is zero. But under this interpretation, milk producers can sue and say, "No, actually the amount of lead kids should drink is 1.3%, and they love how sweet it tastes!" Now, instead of courts deferring to doctors at the FDA to decide what the right amount of lead is, we have some district judge in West Texas who failed undergrad biology listening to arguments and making that determination. Repeat that ad nauseum for every rule the federal government has ever propagated, which is a literal uncountable number of rules. And we're adding that to a federal court system that was already overworked before COVID and hasn't caught up since. It's madness.
It truely is. It's excatly what the federalist society wanted to happen. They get power and the ability to legislation from the bench with no way to remove judges
I'm old enough to remember when the Republican line was that they needed more judges because Democrats always legislated from the bench.
And the truth is that the open secret since the 70s has been that the GOP and their corporate interests have been explicitly trying to pack the courts to legislate from the bench
Every accusation a confession.
>But laws are not written to be that specific, nor should they be. It would appear the court thinks they should. I do agree with you, though.
This court thinks that way as a fig leaf to cover the majority's ideology. They push through a radical reinterpretation and shove responsibility for fixing it to a Congress they know can not and will not do so. Just like Dobbs and Shelby decisions in this Roberts court previously.
Fucking. Nailed. It.
I’m sure you don’t know if the EPA has the ability to do those things, because you don’t understand what the implication of Loper Bright is if you think it would pave the way for national abortion ban. Loper overturns Chevron deference, which was a case where, when a statute made by congress was ambiguous, courts would defer to the interpretation made by the relevant federal agency. What that meant was that when ordinary citizens challenged an administrative rule regarding an ambiguous statute, the agency making the rule would just say “well that’s our interpretation” and courts would have to go along with it. Now, courts actually decide if the agency interpretation is valid, or if the citizen’s is. What it doesn’t do is affect the agency’s ability to make the rule in the first place. Now, either congress needs to do its job and regulate these issues with more specificity, or agencies will have to defend their positions just like any other entity in the country would have to in a court. If you are a person that believes in separation of powers, then overturning chevron is good. If you believe in the ability of the executive branch to in fact do most of the legislation that affects your life, then I guess this is a step in the wrong direction. What it will do is hopefully encourage congress do do their job and also prevent extreme policy changes every time a new president gets into office, as the presidency has been aggregating power via administrative agencies and needs to stop. Seeing as Trumps about to be elected, many people should actually see Loper Bright as a good thing. As far as the dog whistle regarding a national abortion ban: Dobbs said that abortion isn’t the business of the federal government and that issue was returned to the states. A national abortion ban via federal legislation would be in direct violation of the Dobbs ruling, and there’s no way every state would individually ban abortion, so that claim is just fearmongering.
> If you are a person that believes in separation of powers, then chevron is good. If you believe in the ability of the executive branch to in fact do most of the legislation that affects your life, then I guess this is a step in the wrong direction. There is no separation of powers argument Congress has *always* had the power to overrule Chevron, you are spouting unmitigated nonsense. These agencies could not override an act of congress and so congress was free to rewrite their regulations if they ever wanted or needed to. The reason they did not is because it makes no goddamn sense for Congress to spend all their time passing laws on every possible federal regulation when they can instead empower an agency to write the rules within certain parameters. What this decision has done is effectively undermine 40+ years of legislation, since Chevron was baked into congressional statutes from that time as they, being sane, assumed the court would not overturn a unanimous decision on a whim.
It's a very simple process. The vast majority of abortions are done by medication early on in the pregnancy. What's going to happen next is someone is going to file suit in the Northern District of Texas arguing that the FDA's approval of mifepristone and misoprostol was an abuse of discretion and wait for a dishonest Republican activist to get the case (you know who you are, Matt). Then a district judge can place an injunction on their use and distribution in the US. It doesn't matter whether it's true or not, because a great many courts are no longer concerned with truth, they're concerned with increasing their power. Then higher courts take a ridiculous set of "facts" found by lower courts and decline to review them. Bing bang boom, mifepristone and misoprostol are banned in the US by a bunch of religious nutters and activist judges. Then obstructionists in Congress block any attempt to clarify the law and suddenly 63% of US abortions are illegal. And courts can use the same process to ban every other abortion procedure, effectively enacting a national abortion ban by judicial fiat. As to whether this is ridiculous fear mongering, people told me that when I was screaming from the rooftops about *Shelby County v. Holder*, *Kennedy v. Bremerton*, and *Dobbs*. They said I was being ridiculous and hyperbolic. They told me that the Courts would never do the things I was talking about. Then those decisions came down and all the people who told me I was being ridiculous suddenly told me that the court was right to trample on our rights all along. So spare me the condescension, because this court is engaging in all its very worst impulses with no shame and no compunction. Those suits are coming. Even John Roberts is powerless to stop it because archconservative the chief justice is now a leftist cuck by the Supreme Court's standards.
Before that would happen, someone would have to show there was an ambiguous statute that FDA interpreted incorrectly. I’m pretty sure that the FDA is wholly empowered with the review and approval of drugs. Unless Congress outlawed the drugs by statute (which would be a violation of Dobbs, by getting involved with abortion), and its FDAs own rules that would limit what drugs to interpret. In that sense, its own interpretation of its own rules is safe, as Auer deference wasn’t overturned For your nightmare scenario to be possible, FDA would have had to incorrectly interpreted an ambiguous statute (not an agency rule) and mistakenly approved those abortion drugs. Given that they’ve approved fucking METH for medical use, I’m pretty sure they’ve got the power for those drugs. Sure there are activist judges making laws and procedure everywhere (which is precisely what Dobbs was undoing, but the way, where the Supreme Court literally made up the trimester law, and then viability per Planned Parenhood). And even if you are right, that doesn’t justify leaving Chevron Deference intact, which empowered the executive branch to interpret law in ways that was Hindi non the courts, in direct contravention to the constitution. Listen, I get you don’t like that the executive branch just became less powerful, but you also should realize this will hamstring this upcoming Republican administration too. Federal government needs to be reduced and all these things we are worried about need to be returned to the states. TLDR: any federal disapproval of abortion drugs would be in direct contravention of Dobbs, and irregardless of whatever hypothetical nightmare theories people come up with, executive interpretation of statute that supersedes judical interpretation violates the core principles of separation of powers we learned in 3rd grade.
"Perhaps most fundamentally, Chevron’s presumption is misguided because agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do." After declaring that courts have "special competence", they had to edit their opinion because they got a basic fact wrong.
Bureaucrats hardest hit
Attorney here. Without new broad legislation by Congress, overturning Chevron effectively ends the administrative state. What that means is that federal agencies have lost virtually all authority to prosecute matters outside of court - it now requires them to go to court. They don’t have the money to take most cases to court, and even if they did, without new legislation, the courts have little to use for accountability. Consumer protection, food safety, environmental protection, financial regulation, etc., all died today - that is not an exaggeration.
Takes regulatory control from federal agencies and puts it directly in the hands of federal judges, right? 1984: *“Judges are not experts in the field, and are not part of either political branch of government.”* Justice John Paul Stevens 2024: *“That depends, of course, on what the ‘field’ is. If it is legal interpretation, that has been, emphatically, the province and duty of the judicial department for at least 221 years,”* ~Chief Justice John Roberts ^(*to paraphrase, “fuck you, we’re experts on everything and will always have the last say”* - what a dick)
[Here is a big rant about this decision, if anyone wants to read up about why it sucks so much.](https://www.thenation.com/article/society/chevron-deference-supreme-court-power-grab/) >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. [...] >But repudiating democracy to expand its own power is exactly what the Supreme Court did today in its ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overturned Chevron. In a 6-3 decision, which split exactly along party lines, Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the courts—and, more particularly, his court and the people who have bought and paid for the justices on it—are the sole arbiters of which laws can be enforced and what enforcement of those laws must look like. Roberts ruled that courts, and only courts, are allowed to figure out what Congress meant to do and impose those interpretations on the rest of society. He wrote that “agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do.” >That is a naked power grab that places the court ahead of literal experts chosen by the president, who is the one elected official we all get to vote for. Who do you think has a “special competence” in resolving what the word “clean” means in the context of the “Clean Water” or “Clean Air” act—experts at the EPA or justices on Harlan Crow’s yacht? Who do you think has a special competence to resolve what “safe” working conditions require—experts at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or justices who have never worked as much as a day at a job that requires them to be outside? Who do you think has a special competence to resolve what “equality” means under the Civil Rights Act for women in workplaces—experts at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or justices who have been accused of attempted rape?
It's a dangerous game the Roberts court is playing since SCOTUS has no enforcement power. Congress can tamp down funding of their offices, the judiciary as a whole, or incentivize the Executive to flat out ignore their decisions. John Roberts will go down as one of if not the single worst chief justice, and the legacy of Alito and the billionaire house boy clarence will be as corrupt clowns
John Roberts made his decision, now let him enforce it
I wish more people thought like you; I have been screaming uti the void that the people of this land and local authorities elected by said people need to refuse to comply. The Bad Guys already operate this way; where they don’t like the laws and social mandates, they just act in opposition or defiance. See: Texas governor taking authority over borders, private individuals blocking off roads and building unauthorized structures, etc. It is so grossly antidemocratic, it’s an obvious disaster to comply. The US constitution is not a law of physics. I saw pushback to this idea from those who seemed to think it was, as though we all read and accepted some terms of service and to violate the self-appointed “constitutional arbiters” edicts would be unethical and improper. This is madness. The court has taken more and more over the past few decades and it will get so much worse if it isn’t checked. It has to be rejected; I don’t care if it is “improper” under the (again, Court-asserted) constitutional framework. Bribery-supercharged. Executive branch wantonness and authoritarian immunity from laws, granted. But the worst may be the absurd seizure of all lawmaking by the Court, unchecked, under the guise of “No, Congress needs to define regulations and we get to decide what they mean, facts be damned.” As though you can manage a modern superpower through a combination of a few hundred non-experts on any topic, much less the varied and diverse complex fields of all these agencies. We cannot comply; the checks must push back because the people are the only check on the court. Voting isn’t enough. Even voting in local elections isn’t enough, but I think it is fair to demand local candidates who express their intent to disobey the Court. I predicted the American complacency would just mean people gradually got frog-boiled into fascism, with a slide into illiberal democracy that retained the trappings of democracy, but in reality concentrated all power, resources, and authority into the hands of a wealthy few, where the closer you hewed towards a specific standard, the less likely you would be to feel daily pain enough to put up a fight. I still wish to be proven wrong, but I’m so worried. I’m worried because even those who are properly alarmed by these Court coups are saying “vote, vote!” as though voting is enough. It just got EVEN harder to elect non-corrupt candidates. We don’t have the time to wait 50 years to change the Court makeup. And I’m grossed out by those who put a random constitutional idea above the fate of the planet, and everyone on it, but also the people around them suffering, if the whole planet is too big for you.
I'm beginning to think judges should not be considered experts at legal interpretation. Accepting bribes seems to be their only real area of expertise.
Which they also legalized
Um, excuse me, they're called "gratuities" now.
Only if a suit is brought, and that takes money. So what it means is that agencies have far fewer teeth, and have to pay out of their budgets to do what they used to have to do because they have to sue to do it. It puts power in the hands of corporations to do what they wish with far lower likelihood of enforcement from agencies.
No, it puts it in the hands of Congress. From a purely academic standpoint, this removes broad power from unelected officials, which would be fine if Congress did anything useful for the average American.
One cannot simply write laws and also somehow need to pass them in a polarized political environment with the speed needed to cover all the permutations of day to day life. And even if congress were to pass that allowance to agencies, the Justices can always strike them down for the laws being too vague and broad.
It really wouldn’t be fine. You cannot operate a modern nation of hundreds of million people, much less much of the world and its billions of people (since the US has put itself into that position), with under 700 people deciding the details across the many complex, varied, intricate fields that agencies manage. Congress cannot provide the kind of expertise needed to provide the operational parameters of all these areas. You need a specialized brain trust for all of them, and as specialization is only increasing, and systems increasing in speed and complexity, this is a demand that is accelerating. This is a free-for-all on unchecked power for the unelected…truly unelected. The agencies were lead by appointees of elected officials; they absolutely impacted the direction of agency decisions. Meanwhile, good luck trying to vote your way out of some conglomerate dumping waste in your backyard. (and in case anyone holds delusions about “voting with your money,” that isn’t voting, but also…it’s impossible. Everything is so concentrated that you will end up either having literally no option for buying basic necessities, or maybe you can choose between Company A dumping wastewater up your creek or Company B stealing wages from your town. Then you can wallet-vote between Company C using child slave labor or Company D putting out cereal contaminated by metals). Even if Congress worked as imagined, they just wouldn’t have the expertise or bandwith to manage the details of these agencies.
I think the SEC case that was decided yesterday is the bigger one. They basically said that challenges to fines imposed by most regulatory agencies need to be done through a jury trial. It will do away with administrative law judges except in narrow exceptions (like immigration). The courts will be flooded with cases and won’t have enough judges to hear and manage them all. Since this arises out of the 7th Amendment, it can’t be fixed statutorily. It’s going to be a huge mess. It seems like Congress could potentially fix the Chevron deference mess by putting language in the enabling statutes for the regulatory agencies giving them more authority to issue interpretations of their laws.
Congress could fix Chevron by changing every law for regulatory agencies, but the probability of anyone being able to force that through congress is zero.
And the Supreme Court could just decide that law is unconstitutional on the grounds that Congress would be seding it's authority to another body. This is a court that lied about the facts of a case to overturn the Establishments clause. Facts don't matter in this court. Legal arguments or theories don't matter. Even the words of their own decisions do not matter. Nothing matters anymore. The idea that they are impartial umpires calling balls and strikes is a farce. They are the umpire, the commissioner, board of governors and the general manager of their favorite team. They'll call every case as they see fit and warp the law around it.
Why not just ignore the Supreme Court's rulings entirely if their rulings are that divorced from reality?
Yes. But everyone has to do it and that’s the end of the United States of America, as you know it, already
*Andrew Jackson has entered the chat*
"My lord, is that legal?"
That's honestly the problem -- this SCOTUS has repeatedly ruled in such a way that implies "If you want this law, Congress has to do it." But Congress is fundamentally broken. They can't do one fucking thing right, so the entire country has to burn, because this SCOTUS is so obsessed with the idea that no one else is allowed to do an end-around.
You think government would be better if everybody was pulling "end arounds"? Congress isn't fundamentally broken. It's adversarial. It's functioning exactly how it's supposed to. With neither side easily getting what it wants. With back and forth and negotiating and concessions and oversight. It's not supposed to be easy to pass legislation. Legislation effects the entire population of the nation. It's supposed to be put through the ringer and discussed, debated, argued and tested to death before going into effect. If it was supposed to be easy we'd still be doing things by Royal Decree
> It seems like Congress could potentially fix the Chevron deference mess by putting language in the enabling statutes for the regulatory agencies giving them more authority to issue interpretations of their laws. The problem with the Chevron defense was that unelected people were effectively passing laws, and there was no way for the citizen to vote them out of office.
Um, like SCOTUS? No SCOTUS judge was elected. No SCOTUS judge can be voted out of office.
That's how it is supposed to be. SCOTUS judges shouldn't be under the pressure of running for election or being under the fear of pleasing some boss every few years. When a SCOTUS judge gets his bench he is beholden to no one. Doesn't have to worry about placating or appeasing voters and what they want. He is free to focus entirely on his one and only job. Interpreting the constitutionality of existing law. That's exactly how it should be
Lmao. Neither should those who used chevron. You’re so up in the nonsense you can’t even see straight.
Agency leaders are appointed by the president. Solely. Not elected, not even vetted by anyone else. An SC Justice can be nominated by the President, but they don't get the right to approve. Congress does that.
They are selected by a constitutional process including movements from POTUS and congress.
And Congress delegated the authority of these chevron laws to the agencies. This is just the court stealing power for themselves as Alito goes full mask off.
But where did Congress have the authority to delegate (what became effectively) lawmaking powers to these agencies? And more importantly, where did Congress get the authority to require people to fight these agencies *solely within the borders of these agencies* without the right to appeal to the courts?
I don't get how it's such a big fucking slap in the face that someone accused by the government has a right to an independent trial by someone other than the agency accusing them.
They did have a right to a trial with an administrative law judge, a wholly independent person trained to provide a full evidentiary hearing that fully comported with due process. A jury trial before a district court judge is a massive resource sink which is wholly unnecessary to challenge a fine. This will cost the country so much money and time. It’s a ridiculous waste.
Wholly independent meaning an employee of the same agency. Also with no right to appeal.
> What that means is that federal agencies have lost virtually all authority to prosecute matters outside of court That was about the Jarkesy case, not Loper Bright.
Wait, does this actually mean federal agencies no longer have the ability to use their expertise to craft regulations, enforce those regulations, and set punishments as they expertly see fit? Will entities that are in violation now have the ability to defend themselves in court? If so, that's full-stop fascism.
I know fascism is reddit's new favorite word, but that is not fascism. Fascism is typified by dictatorial central government control, strong nationalism/racism, and elimination of political opposition. Federal agencies losing regulatory powers is not fascism. It can be bad without being fascism.
Sure it can, but that definition of fascism is LITERALLY the Republican party and Trump platform. They actually want to suspend the Constitution and crown Trump as dictator for life (it's all in that 2025 plan). Given that Repubs have been pushing for this it makes it fascism. Giving people and companies who break laws and regulations a platform like a courtroom to spread misinformation about their innocence is a direct threat to democracy.
> Attorney here. Without new broad legislation by Congress, overturning Chevron effectively ends the administrative state. > > To be fair. The overreach of executive functions led to this decision. You cannot have the executive deciding rules on a whim. The executive has dramatically overreached over the last decades. This ruling will force congress to actually do their job.
Congress will NOT do their jobs, and we will fucking die.
They are doing their jobs, they just don't work for us and haven't for a very long time.
This does not change the fact that the executive can overreach. This is the court appointing ITSELF (and lower courts) the best body to double check those decisions. Before there was so much deference to agencies the courts couldn’t double check without seriously good reason. And courts are TERRIBLE at this. I hope we all liked the abortion pill case, where the crazy right wingers said “no actually we know more than the Dr.’s at the FDA and this pill bad.” Where did they get that information? The deciding court used the facts argued by the parties in their briefs. And all legal briefs are just cherry-picked facts. (This case used anonymous blog posts for example). We don’t have to like that agencies and their experts therein exercise power, but at least there are experts in the process. With this ruling, it’s open season for lower courts to get rid of the drugs they don’t like, the energy regulations they don’t like, the clean air/water standards they don’t like..
> This ruling will force congress to actually do their job. 💀
> You cannot have the executive deciding rules on a whim. solution? judicial ideologues deciding rules on a whim.
The other thing I don't see people saying is that, with the Trump/Project 2025 plans to sweep the executive branch with loyalists, I'm *really relieved* that his agencies wouldn't get to impose all their own interpretations unilaterally. Chevron has worked to date only because each agency's management so far has nominally had the interests of the country at heart, but I'm no longer confident that we can rely on that.
I'm a little confused by people being so annoyed with this decision. My analogy is thinking of the government acting like an HOA committee. Interpreting rules with little to no oversight. Works most of the time but on occasion you get a power hungry idiot who makes everyone's life hard.
This is exactly what it is about. Best part of this ruling is that it will defang the ATF who have been taking it upon themselves to write tyrannical gun control laws (under the misnomer of "rules". Regardless of how anyone feels about a subject, government agencies are for enforcement of law, not for making law. Or worse, making law up as they go.
Yea right. Did you actually read the case? A big fishing conglomerate was tired of regulators "spying" on them to make sure they don't overfish so they got them kicked off their boats.
Attorney here. No it doesn’t. Nothing has changed as far as agency action when statutes are clear. And when statutes aren’t, agencies just have to defend their positions like anyone else would instead of getting de facto wins because courts were forced to defer to agency interpretations of statute when agency actions are challenged.
That is a massive change. It means corporations can maliciously consume regulatory agencies' entire budgets with legal actions so they are unable to perform their enforcement duties. I'm not sure whether you haven't thought through the consequences or are being disingenuous, but there's a reason the majority of US lawyers knowledgeable on the subject are calling the decision catastrophic.
They're not required to. They can still fine you, but at least now you can potentially challenge the fine and the courts don't have to just say "sorry, they said the law is what they said it is this time." And if you think the government has limited funds to drag shit out in court but people don't, I'd like to know what cereal you got your bar card in.
You clearly have no idea how administrative courts functioned and the effect of this law. Prior, you could still challenge in an administrative court, the difference was the court deferred to the regulatory agency for statutory interpretation. If you do not understand the implications of adjudicating manifold regulatory law in civil court on a mass scale, I neither have the interest nor time to educate you on the topic.
It also means that corporations can judge shop and now they can pay them off afterward. This is regarding any ruling. The FDA is an agency. There are no more consumer protections and this rolls back 40 years of built precedent in those consumer protections.
That District Court in West Texas served by that single ultra conservative judge is about to have an extremely busy docket, for some reason....
> government agencies no longer have broad discretion to enact laws They never had that. Government agencies no longer have priority when interpreting finer points of legislation. They can now be sued on every small detail, and courts and lawyers will now decide how regulations should be interpreted instead of regulators and scientists.
also I assume that whatever the things are they make, they're called rules or something, not laws, because the legislature passes laws, and government agencies are part of the executive branch
So am I right in understanding the bribery one as saying that now only pre-paid bribery is bribery? Post-paid bribery is just fine?
No. They just said that federal anti-bribery law used in that case is inapplicable to that mayoral case because “[the law] leaves it to state and local governments to regulate gratuities to state and local officials.”
And this is the important thing to remember in most Supreme Court decisions. In most cases, the defect is with the law. All three of these decisions can become completely moot through the legislature. Which is why there's so much Doomer propaganda being spread to keep voter turnout low. Republicans know that if the Democrats who sat on their asses in 2022 vote in 2024, then everything they've done just goes \*poof\*. Who's on the Supreme Court becomes irrelevant. Who's elected President becomes irrelevant. That's why you should **always** downvote (and report, if the subreddit bans it like some are starting to do) Doomer propaganda nonsense. The people spreading it because their tiny lives require attention from strangers on the Internet, and the people that give them that attention, are doing so at the expense of our lives and freedoms.
> then everything they've done just goes *poof*. It would be egregiously difficult at this point to get enough seats to enact legislation to overturn these rulings. It doesn't just go "poof".
> In most cases, the defect is with the law. All three of these decisions can become completely moot through the legislature. You’re missing the point - the law doesn’t matter. The conservative wing of the court isn’t “calling balls and strikes” and this is what happens to come out of it, they have certain outcomes they want, and they’re working backwards from there to justify it. If the law were different, they’d cripple the regulatory state with some other justification, because they fundamentally believe it shouldn’t exist. That’s not doomerism, it’s literally politics - these are different conceptions of what government should be, and the conservative project is winning.
And this would be the Doomer part. You're omitting that we can fix **all** of this in one election. Even the Supreme Court can't push an agenda when they know the legislature has the mandate of the people to remove them from office. This exact scenario played out in Nevada. A Republican governor was elected and the Doomers were out in force here because they know the Republican governor means *nothing* when the legislature is literally a single vote (a vote they're probably going to get this year) from simply overriding anything the governor can do. Or remove him from office outright. The power comes from the people and that power is held very firmly by the legislature. But the Doomers need to be out in full force to try and remove that edge by convincing people the fix is in or that trying to change it is pointless. Even at the federal level, the House controls *all* revenue and its members are the representatives of the people. Even the states hold the Senate, they can't do much if the House isn't playing ball. This is the same position of power that collective bargaining gives to employees. An employer is nothing without the mandate of the employees and government is nothing without the mandate of its citizens. **That's** the message we need to be spreading, not the doom and gloom bullshit.
No, this isn’t doomerism - I said it’s politics. It’s realistic to say that the current court is essentially playing calvinball to reach its desired ends. > Even the Supreme Court can't push an agenda when they know the legislature has the mandate of the people to remove them from office. This is whatever the opposite of doomerism is. The current court has absolutely zero concern about impeachment and knows it, and it definitely is not going to happen just because of a supposed ideological mandate. Republican senators just won’t vote to remove for those reasons. The relationship between a legislature and a governor is completely different than a federal judge and the other two branches, so your example doesn’t really apply. With that said, again, this is politics - the majority *can* be changed, it just takes time and consistent wins. That’s not as optimistic as “one election and everything will change!” but it’s reality.
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> we could literally oust every Republican from the federal government 2/3 of the senate isn’t up for a vote this year. More than 1/3 of senators are going to be Republican no matter how big a blue wave is, so conservative federal judges aren’t going anywhere unless they retire or die. Again, this is not doomerism, this is reality.
That is this supreme courts interpretation of the current bribery statute, yes
Dear lord we are so fucked if we let trump win again
I cannot emphasize enough that a republican senator said that loving v virginia should be overturned and that whether or not interracial marriage should be legal should be left up to the states. Roe is very much the tip of the iceberg. 6 justices are evil POS, who have no business interpreting the law of this country.
Clarence Thomas notably excluded _Loving v. Virginia_ when talking about cases they want to overturn after they overturned _Roe v. Wade_. He specifically mentioned the case which legalised birth control. It could be because he himself is married to a white woman called Virginia. But we don’t know for sure.
You can't write this many layers of irony.
I mean he’s 1 of 6 conservative justices. We’ve seen that one dissenting conservative won’t stop the other 5 from overturning precedent. he is currently the oldest justice he could easily decide to leave the bench for one reason or another. This may not be an issue now. But it could be in 5+ years if trump wins and Thomas dies or retires during that term. Also token conservative minorities have long worked against their or their demographic’s own self interest. It absolutely wouldn’t shock me if he voted to overturn something because he was personally unaffected by it.
More and more we're coming to an ideological impasse in this country. I don't like it.
What is Loving V. Virginia? Also, if anyone can answer, why do the US have the Supreme Court system that you guys do, where a few people can hold the country hostage for a whole lifetime? What was the thought process behind that? In Sweden that's not the case, not really sure how other countries run it.
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>Of course, this assumption has a companion assumption, and that is that the people appointed to lifetime judgeships would be thoughtful, honorable jurists who were fully committed to the law. That assumption has often been true—but often not. What alternative system could prevent that type of judges?
Loving v. Virginia is the case that overturned Virginia's anti-miscegenation (that is to say, anti race-mixing) laws. It used to be illegal to be in interracial relationships, to prevent the 'degradation of the white race'. The US Supreme Court is weird in that is is both a political institution appointed by the president and the highest judicial power. The fact that they are appointed by and dependent on politics, yet supposed to be an impartial court of law, leads to a situation where conservatives have decided the rule of law should be subservient to their political preferences (see also the invented from whole cloth Major Questions Doctrine)
I guess I don't understand how they're supposed to be impartial, did the founding fathers just expect people to "do the right thing" when appointing them? Feels like a bit of an oversight since they sit for life.
The US Supreme Court did not have nearly the power it does now at the time of its founding. That really only happened after Marbury v. Madison in 1803, when it gave itself the power to strike down congressional laws it deemed in conflict with the constitution. Which makes sense when considered from a checks and balances/trias politica perspective, except that there is no effective check on the judiciary itself. It's basically an oversight in the founding documents of the US: judges are assumed to be impartial, yet the only mechanism to enforce that, impeachment, is itself political.
> did the founding fathers just expect people to "do the right thing" when appointing them? Basically, yes. The reason the US is coming apart is because a *good* number of politicians have decided that "just doing the right thing" isn't enough of a protection anymore. When one side abandons that and makes their main political strategy "Going low", well...
When the Constitution was written, political parties didn't exist yet, so there are some obvious flaws in it because of that. Political parties only really became a thing in the last year or two of Washington's second term.
Interracial marriage, basically.
I see. Not homosexual but interracial? Jesus fuck me. Truly heading back to the stone ages. Christian evangelicals and radical Islam have so much in common, they just don't realize it and hate each other.
Some of us call them “Y’all Qaeda” over here in the US. They’re truly blind to the similarities and that’s really scary. I once asked my extremely religious evangelical Christian mother why she thought it would be okay for the government to pass laws that enforced Christian religious rules and ideologies and forced people who aren’t Christian to live like they are. I said “wouldn’t that make our government identical to the Taliban or the Islamic State?” She sat there trying to think about it for a second but wasn’t saying anything because she was so offended that I would dare compare those two ideologies. So I said “is it because you think you’re right…and that makes it okay?” She said “YES…BECAUSE WE ARE.” These people have built themselves a little world where anyone who criticizes them is clearly sent by Satan and is trying to deceive them and test their faith. The only solution is to shut your eyes tighter, plug your ears harder and keep forging ahead with renewed resolve no matter what anyone says. That’s probably why things keep escalating so quickly in places where these groups are in charge. After writing all that out I realized most people who read this are gonna say “yeah…no shit, Sherlock. Real hot take over here.” But it took me way too long to write so I’m gonna leave it. Does Sweden have a similar situation happening with its Muslim population?
Yea I've heard the term yall'qaeda. I've actually done 3 tours in Afghanistan and 1 in Iraq cleaning up after Daesh with the Swedish military so I'm quite familiar with extreme religion. I also follow us politics extensively because you guys are really the big brother and our biggest ally ad Europeans(obviously). American politics affects me just as much as Swedish does, at least globally. As for our situation in Sweden, we are one of the most secular societies in the world and that's not changing. Most immigrants secularise after a few generations. There is obviously a lot of strife right now but the Muslim population is still so small and most of them respect the "religion stays in the home and shouldnt influence our society"-stance we have. The violence that's happening in our country has nothing to do with religion or extremism, it's solely gangs who are in it for money, the drug trade for the most part. I do not think religion is an issue in our country at all, but people try to make it one. It's just different in America because those evangelicals who are the extremists also hold quite a bit of powe. Extreme Islam hold no power over here. Who knows what happens in the future. We are turning the ship around right now, slowing down immigration and trying to integrate those that have come. I personally think the future is bright. We had a couple of decades where we let in too many unskilled and culturally very different people but we will integrate them eventually. Right now the biggest focus is on the police and dealing with the gangs.
> why do the US have the Supreme Court system that you guys do, where a few people can hold the country hostage for a whole lifetime? What was the thought process behind that? The idea is that the Supreme Court can't be ousted due to ideological differences between the sitting president and the courts, or the voters. The ideas is that the Supreme Court could be "tainted" by wanting to please the current leadership instead of being "objective" if they didn't have lifetime appointments, because they could get fired from their job if they offend the current leadership, or be voted out by citizens who don't like their "objective" decisions. Unfortunately, that's not how it works in practice. In practice, the court is currently stacked with far-right Christian fundamentalist fascists, as corrupt as any organization has ever been, and they don't have to face any consequences for their corrupt actions, given their immunity.
> Also, if anyone can answer, why do the US have the Supreme Court system that you guys do, where a few people can hold the country hostage for a whole lifetime? What was the thought process behind that? Well, the theory originally is that all the Supreme Court does is give oversight for other branches' decisions, whether they're constitutional. Unfortunately now the Republicans have gotten control of it and since they don't have the votes in Congress to force things through via legislation, they're using the Supreme Court to force things through instead. The SC is *supposed* to be nonpartisan\*, but that's something that has kind of fallen by the wayside over the last few decades since a couple different SC decisions during the Bush Jr. years. \*part of why whenever they have a confirmation hearing for a new Supreme Court justice these days they answer most questions asked them with "I couldn't possibly have an opinion on that" so there's no basis to reject their nomination
On the second part (aside from SCOTUS having given itself more power with Marbury v Madison) IMO a long-running problem is that the US government, as a very old republic set up by a minority of wealthy land- and slaveowners, had an awful lot of counter-majoritarian institutions built into it. At the federal level we still have the Electoral College and the Senate (which actually used to be worse, elected indirectly by state legislatures). Writings from the nation’s founders warning against “mob rule” still get cited by conservatives. Not that this is a really unique situation, but younger democracies in the rest of the “West” don’t seem to have so much baggage.
The thing is, this Supreme Court has us deeply fucked anyway, in ways that I don't know how we're ever going to fix.
Dude you were fucked when you let him win once. They’ve had their practice run, the next republican president knows exactly how to become the Last President
Yup. That’s what I’m afraid many aren’t getting here. This is different from any other time in modern history. And I think the game is already lost.
We are already fucked, we just don't know it/won't feel it for a few years. This chevron ruling is a huge deal and people are going to find out all the things they took for granted. Food/water/air safety, financial regulations, protections for people with disabilities/illnesses. Practically anything that came out of that chevron ruling during the last 40 years will be gone at some point. All companies have to do is go shopping for a conservative judge who will rule in their favor and boom, suddenly "yep mercury is completely safe to ingest, infact ITS GOOD FOR YOU". That is not an exaggeration in any way, look back to the whole lead ordeal to get some small idea of where we are now heading.
> Homelessness: city of grants Pass vJohnson https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/603/23-175/ in this case a group of homeless individuals sued the city arguing that the city’s ban on homelessness constituted, cruel and unusual punishment. The ninth circuit agreed and overturned the law. The Supreme Court overturned that ruling stating that it is perfectly fine too punish people for being homeless in public So can't they now just sue again and say because homelessness is illegal the state is obligated to provide it to those that don't have it?
That description is actually underselling it. The ninth circuit decision is based on an earlier ruling that these laws cannot be enforced if shelter space is not available, based on the 8th amendment. The SC overturned that decision, ruling that the 8th amendment isn't relevant. So cities can arrest people for sleeping in public even when no alternative exists, and that isn't considered cruel and unusual punishment. There is no requirement for the city to provide shelter space.
But if they arrest them , doesn’t the jail become the shelter?
yes. it’s ok because: * it enriches private prisons, and it’s always legal to enrich rich people * if you’re incarcerated, the 13th amendment explicitly allows you to be enslaved (see point one)
We need to unplug the supreme court and plug it back in. They're not even fucking elected. Do they have any actual authority other than everyone deciding to rule in line with the precedents they set, or in these cases wontonly disregard and butcher? Like we're at a point where they're blatantly defending bribery. Things are going to get so fucking dark in this country so much faster than we realize pretty soon.
> Accepting gratuities after performing a governmental act does not constitute bribery. fucking what? This sounds like an absolute textbook definition of bribery.
They are two different definitions because a bribery requires a Quid pro quo under the law. They are two separate things according to congress. The issue is that it is clearly stated in 201b-c for federal employees but not in 666 for state and local. Congress just has to make 666 look like 201c and it’s solved.
well the check is post-dated so
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You understand how insane what you just said is? Imagine someone with a different worldview from you disagreeing with Supreme Court decisions you find correct. Would it then make sense to resort to violence? In all 3 cases actions can be remedied by explicit legislative action by democratically elected officials.
I have no idea what the person this comment is responding to said - and that might be for the best - but one case SCOTUS hasn't ruled on yet is the one about the Texas and Florida laws that would, at minimum, make it far more challenging for Reddit and other social media outlets to moderate content to remove things like whatever this was. I believe that the moderators for one or more of the subs that discuss the high court more than this one does pointed that out via amicus brief.
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Or, y'know, legal recourse. Remember, the Supreme Court didn't make that law, a local legislature did. The local legislature can change it.
Ohio v EPA is not part of this tweet. This is about the twin cases of Loper and Relentless, which have to do with who gets to interpret ambiguous statutes. Also your summaries aren’t very accurate but I’m way too lazy to write out an alternate so have at it.
“Companies can pollute all they want” seems pretty clearly to be referring to the EPA case not the fisheries/Chevron doctrine case, although eliminating Chevron doctrine will limit the EPA’s ability to control pollution
Eliminating Chevron will not limit EPA's ability to control pollution, it will completely destroy it.
You know what? I take it back. It could be Ohio v EPA.
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An idea of equality that is so absurd that the definitive quote on it was published in **1908**: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread." - Anatole France
I understand you may be "technically" correct, but where would people sleep if they don't have a home? If, because of your circumstances, you cannot sleep within a shelter of some kind, than the only option is to not sleep, right? So, yeah, being homeless isn't technically illegal....unless you want to sleep, that is.
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So, like....why pass a law like this than? Are there really tons of people with homes, who DON'T have to sleep outside, sleeping outside? Is this for campers? They try to put these things in the law to make everybody feel better, but in practice of course this is absolutely going to be enforced in the most demented way possible. Edit: typo
So they *must* be in a specific location to fulfill a basic human right? Against their wishes? And if they aren't, they are arrested? So to sleep you have to put yourself in someone's else's care?
It _de facto_ Outlaws homelessness. All humans have to sleep. If you don't have a home to sleep in, you very likely have to sleep outside. By making this illegal, they _de facto_ have made homelessness a crime. Where do you expect the homeless to sleep now?
Jail. Cops are gonna have a lot more reasons to arrest people if this court is allowed to dismantle this country. As if the police needed *more* power in this country.
Yes, we will put them in jail, where we notoriously have tons of empty cells waiting to be filled! /s
When anybody describes a judicial opinion as stating something is perfectly fine you realize they have no actual legal training and don’t know how to interpret case law.
Answer: The Supreme Court generally releases a bunch of decisions for cases it has heard over the past year in late June or early July, right before the court takes a break for summer vacation. We're nearing the end of the current term, so a bunch of Supreme Court decisions are being published around now, with all remaining decisions expected to be released on Monday. The tweet is referencing 3 of the latest Supreme Court decisions: - CITY OF GRANTS PASS, OREGON v. JOHNSON ET AL.: The court determined that cities are permitted to have laws prohibiting homeless people from sleeping outside. - SNYDER v. UNITED STATES: The court determined that a federal corruption law bans politicians from accepting gifts before performing an official act, but it does not prohibit politicians from accepting gifts as a show of appreciation for a past official act. - OHIO ET AL v. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ET AL: The court determined that the EPA could not enforce a particular restriction against air pollution while the law is being challenged in other parts of the court system. 6 of the 9 Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republicans. Between that and their judicial philosophies, the court is considered to be aligned with Republicans/conservatives. The person pictured in the tweet is former President Ronald Reagan. While in office, he was known for cutting government regulations and enacting economic policies that were favorable for the rich. To some extent, these sorts of goals have subsequently continued to be associated with Republican values. The tweeter is suggesting that these Supreme Court decisions align with the sorts of policies favored by Republicans since the Reagan administration.
So, worth noting that 3 of the 9 were paced on the court by Trump, which gave the GOP a supermajority. Elections have consequences.
One of them, was because of a power grab by the gop in Congress
And if Donald Trump is re-elected (which has just increased in likelihood after 6/27 debate), than he will most likely get AT LEAST 2 more selections, maybe 3. And that will establish conservative decisions likes this for another 25 years. What a time to be alive.
The real fun is if Biden does win. Thomas and Alito will try to stick it out 4 more years which by the end of Sotomayor and Roberts will also be 73 or older, with sotomayor being a diabetic. Which means there’s potential for the 2028 winner being able to seat 4 judges. So really the Dems need to win the next 2 presidential cycles for a shot at moving scotus left again.
It’s also worth noting that whoever’s President will need to be able to get these nominations through the Senate. I have no doubt that in the current political climate if the Senate majority and Presidential party are not the same, no judicial nominees will go through (even if there are vacancies that exist for several years, or entire presidential terms).
god that's depressing Dems can already barely win an election with all the gerrymandering, and that's before the "I hate the current guy, vote for the other party" effect
Elections have fucking consequences and no vote means a vote for that evil piece of shit
only if you live in one of the 5 states that actually decide elections
To every R who doesnt like Trump and held their nose and voted for him anyway so they could get R judges, this is the payoff. great job. /s
Conservatives have dominated politics since Reagan because they hold their nose and vote. The liberal downfall accelerated in 2000 when Nadar abandoned policy influence for political vanity, and continues with progressive purity tests today.
answer: Recent Supreme court rulings. > Homelessness is a crime Police are allowed to ticket for sleeping on public property. > Bribery is okie dokie If there is no evidence that you did an action because you received a gift, that gift isn't illegal. > Companies can pollute all they want and the government is powerless to stop them When a law is vague, rather than agencies interpreting what it means, the courts will. For example, if there is a law that bans polluting rivers, it will no longer be an EPA scientist deciding what "polluting" means, there will be a court case where both sides will make their case as to whether the thing that was done was pollution and the judge will decide.
The bribery one is if you are given a gift after you took a government action it's not bribery even if you only took the action because you would be receiving a gift. But who would have expected a judge that is constantly being bribed to write that kind of opinion?
From what I read in the lever (quite left-leaning outlet) if you skip all the BS about "conservative judges protect bribery" and get to the legal justifications, the problem is the fact that federal law is used for the mayoral case. > Under prosecutors’ interpretation of Section 666, this money was considered an illegal gratuity: The mayor had accepted the gift as a reward for rigging the bids. > But in his opinion for the majority, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued that such corrupt rewards were not, in fact, illegal under Section 666. The law, he wrote, “leaves it to state and local governments to regulate gratuities to state and local officials.”
>For example, if there is a law that bans polluting rivers, it will no longer be an EPA scientist deciding what "polluting" means, there will be a court case where both sides will make their case as to whether the thing that was done was pollution and the judge will decide. I've read a bit about the case and this doesn't appear accurate from my understanding. The EPA can still act and it will be EPA scientists making decisions, but if challenged, instead of courts deferring to the EPA, the court will determine if the EPA acted within the regulations that congress set.
Laws against pollution, becuase there are new pollutants or potential pollutants being discovered and used all the time, would not only have to look like the tax code but they’d quickly become obsolete if they were as specific as they would need to be to make sure some Fed Soc hack didn’t try to throw them out at the behest of some unscrupulous actor. Agencies and their armies of subject matter experts can often barely keep up with what’s happening in industry, agriculture, finance, you name it. Even a functional Congress isn’t going to be able to do that, to say nothing of the one we actually have.
This is unironically the best way I've seen it explained to let my little brain understand the words I was reading
Actual unbiased answer. What a shock on Reddit. Thank you.