Chevron deference and SCOTUS

Here's hoping all the right people are super-annoyed by the upcoming decision.

If (like me) you favor free markets and small government and the decentralization (or total elimination) of political power, you are probably very disgusted by the enormous federal regulatory apparatus that we suffer under.

Maybe there’s reason for optimism (link to left-leaning publication’s analysis used for purposes of irony).

The Supreme Court of the United States is considering a couple cases, Loper Bright v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerce. In ruling on these cases, SCOTUS may decide to do away with a 40-year precedent known as Chevron deference, which originated in the 1984 case Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.

Chevron deference is the principle that the court should give very broad latitude to regulatory bodies when they get down to the nitty gritty of writing regulations that were only very hazily specified (if at all) in the underlying legislation in question.

A veeeeeeerrrrry broad latitude.

This seems very wrong to me, and I think the framers of our Constitution would agree. I think it’s a disaster for law and order that these regulatory agencies can supersede the will (such as there is) of Congress.

Who knows. Maybe the current incarnation of SCOTUS will concur. We should know soon. They have been deliberating on the matter since January 2024, and as I write this, it’s mid-April 2024.

I hope they do it. All the typical big-government-loving shills are pulling their hair out over how critical Chevron deference is, which usually signals that eliminating it will be good for us and bad for them.

On the other hand, SCOTUS will almost certainly receive a wave of incoming cases if they overturn Chevron, as people seek relief from the tens of thousands of pages of federal regulations that we all (seemingly) are in violation of at any time.

Here’s a fun read on that point: Harvey A. Silverglate’s Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent.

So again. I hope they do it. So do these two wackos.

Shrink the state. It’s way past “too big”. This is an abomination. If the Founding Fathers could see how we’ve allowed their tiny Republic to metastasize into this horror, they would come back and slap us silly.

C’mon SCOTUS! Fingers crossed!

Naturally,

Adam