Court deals body blow to unchecked bureaucratic power

[rangerrebew]

Court deals body blow to unchecked bureaucratic power
By
Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.
|
July 11th, 2024
 
By striking down a 40-year-old legal precedent that allowed unelected and unaccountable federal bureaucrats to interpret ambiguously worded statutes as they see fit, the Supreme Court has jerked the chain of an administrative state that had become accustomed to riding roughshod over the Constitution’s Separation of Powers.

The high court’s 6-3 ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo jettisoned what was known as Chevron deference, which required courts to defer to federal agencies’ interpretation of unclear statutory text if the interpretation is merely “reasonable.”  (Chevron refers to the 1984 Supreme Court opinion in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.)

By ceding such vast authority to the permanent bureaucracy, Chevron deference helped stack the deck against anyone who had run afoul of the policy preferences of ever more powerful federal agencies. Now, federal judges can no longer defer to entrenched bureaucrats to determine what Congress intended in crafting a law; the courts themselves must make that call.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts noted that a doctrine that allows bureaucrats to make such distinctions “is misguided because agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do.”

https://www.cfact.org/2024/07/11/court-deals-body-blow-to-unchecked-bureaucratic-power/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=court-deals-body-blow-to-unchecked-bureaucratic-power&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=court-deals-body-blow-to-unchecked-bureaucratic-power

[rangerrebew]

agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do.”
 

   How so?  Do judge have special competence classes?  Do the competences come as a Christmas present?  Passed on from judge to judge?

[Smokin Joe]

Legislators (who should be writing the rules, not the administrative state) are mostly attorneys and should be cognizant of semantics and verbal precision. There is no excuse for ambiguity.
The phrase "unconstitutionally vague" comes to mind, and any rule, law, or regulation which is, should be void.

[DefiantMassRINO]

Any law, rule, or regulation which imposes a cost upon private citizens and upon private organizations, should be authored, debated, amended, and passed by Congress.