CV NEWS FEED // On June 28, the Supreme Court overturned Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a major legal precedent that had allowed unelected bureaucrats and federal agencies to play a quasi-legislative role without oversight from elected officials in Congress.
The fall of Chevron came through the Court’s landmark ruling in the case of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the ruling that Chevron is “unworkable” and “has proved to be fundamentally misguided.”
Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh joined Roberts in the majority.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Jackson did not participate in the case’s decision because she was recused for having previously participated in the case as a federal appeals court judge, according to the New York Times.
As CatholicVote previously reported, the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Chevron case in 1984 set a precedent allowing federal agencies to determine a “reasonable” definition of the terms Congressionally-passed laws, if those terms are deemed ambiguous.
“Not only that, the Court’s ruling indicated a ‘greater institutional competence’ of agencies – rather than courts – to resolve policy questions,” according to CatholicVote. The Chevron deference effectively held that federal agencies are more competent in interpreting laws than the judicial branch is.
The Chevron deference has since been cited in thousands of legal cases.
The New York Times’ live updates on the ruling highlighted that the decision may affect a broad range of agencies and regulations, including the IRS, the Treasury Department, and laws touching on the environment and abortion. The Times also highlighted that the Food and Drug Administration will likely be met with an increase or “perhaps an onslaught” of lawsuits in the wake of the decision.
POLITICO reporter Alice Miranda Ollstein posted on her X account that the ruling “has MAJOR implications for health care (drug prices, regulation of abortion pills, what ACA covers and more)”.
The conservative legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom hailed Chevron’s overturning in a June 28 news release.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has rightly held that unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats can’t weaponize federal laws to violate Americans’ most fundamental rights,” ADF Senior Counsel Julie Marie Blake stated.
The Supreme Court’s ruling eliminates “a major roadblock” for Americans who seek to hold federal agency officials accountable, and protects the right to freedom of speech from being misused by those in the executive branch, Blake added: “This is a landmark win for the Constitution, the separation of powers, and the rule of law.”
