Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine • Hacker News Board

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#521

Post by spurgu » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 6:46 PM UTC

dangoor wrote: post #472

itsdavesanders wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And imagine how our allies feel. If you can’t count on the U.S. for more than about 3 years at a time, then you quickly move away from them and insure you aren’t so tied to them that a foreign election suddenly makes you vulnerable. Which then makes everyone weaker as a whole and easier to pick off. Which is why U.S. foreign adversaries have been actively sowing chaos for a decade.

I don't think our allies felt quite so flung about until Trump came along. Sure, administrations might engage a little differently from one another, but fundamentally they could count on the US for a very long time. Presidents did not, before Trump, throw NATO under the bus, for example.

Reminding NATO countries to adhere to the 2% of GDP spending stipulated in the terms of the alliance is "throwing NATO under the bus"? Or did he do something else I'm unaware of?

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#522

Post by mike_hearn » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 6:46 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #506

mike_hearn wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth reading the judgement itself. The court has indeed voted to give the courts more power, but not on the basis of nothing. It did so because it views it as taking back powers that were incorrectly/lazily given up without basis in what Congress wanted. From the judgement: Congress in 1946 enacted the APA [Administrative Procedures Act] “as a check upon administrators whose zeal might otherwise have carried th…

This feels like one of those topics that may sound ok in theory, but breaks down in practice. The implication is that the judges must be well-versed enough in any domain brought before them to interpret the laws effectively. This seems like a tall order for nine people. We have already seen this trouble in expecting strict interpretations regarding tech. To be fair, Congress has the same problem. I believe that was i…

The Supreme Court doesn't resolve cases directly, they resolve questions of law for lower courts to take into account. They are meant to be experts in law, so there's no problem there. The lower courts can't be experts in everything, but bear in mind two things:

1. Courts have expert witnesses and a whole system around how they are called, challenged and questioned. Judges are trained to learn what they need to know from witnesses.

2. Good court systems do have expert judges they can draw on.

I recently took part in the Craig Wright case in the UK as a witness. Wright forged enormous quantities of evidence and proving the forgeries often required deep technical knowledge about file metadata, how computers worked etc. Fortunately the judge was deeply technical himself, being often a judge on complex patent cases, and had no difficulty with any of the complexities.

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#523

Post by e40 » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 6:46 PM UTC

diob wrote: post #483

mullingitover wrote: post #421

[flagged]

Combine this with the project 2025 schedule F stuff and republicans got a stew going. This country is going to go down hill so fast.

Given the train wreck of last night's "debate", project 2025 is that much more likely and fsm help us all.

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#524

Post by intended » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 6:47 PM UTC

chasd00 wrote: post #436

vundercind wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As explained in the dissent, they literally have to delegate the kind of authority in question here. It’s the hostile-genie problem: you can’t close all the loopholes in some iron-clad unambiguous way in finite space.

those loopholes and ambiguities should be left to the courts to decide with representation from both sides of the argument making their case and not some department head full of political bias and possibly an axe to grind favoring one side.

This assumes a US Supreme Court that doesn’t exist in 2024. If you want it changed, you would have to either wait till the judges change, or expand the courts.

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#525

Post by idiotsecant » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 6:47 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #406

consumer451 wrote: post #43

From Justice Kagan's dissent on page 82: > This Court has long understood Chevron deference to reflect what Congress would want, and so to be rooted in a presumption of legislative intent. Congress knows that it does not—in fact cannot—write perfectly complete regulatory statutes... > It knows that those statutes will inevitably contain ambiguities that some other actor will have to resolve, and gaps that some other…

To put it a bit differently: Congress has not been able to pass substantial laws in decades. The executive branch has filled in by interpreting these laws very loosely in order to adapt to the changing situation and—importantly—to adapt to changing presidencies. That last part is the single biggest problem with the administrative regime as it has stood hitherto: it means that almost everything that happens in the fed…

This will not force Congress to suddenly become a responsible and capable legislative body. It will result in there being less government. Fewer rules to protect consumers, fewer rules to keep our air, water, and ecosystem healthy, fewer rules to prevent the powerful few from exploiting the many.

Make no mistake about it, this is about giving more power to the powerful, and it's working. This is the swan song of America if we don't wake up.

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#526

Post by mywittyname » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 6:47 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #406

consumer451 wrote: post #43

From Justice Kagan's dissent on page 82: > This Court has long understood Chevron deference to reflect what Congress would want, and so to be rooted in a presumption of legislative intent. Congress knows that it does not—in fact cannot—write perfectly complete regulatory statutes... > It knows that those statutes will inevitably contain ambiguities that some other actor will have to resolve, and gaps that some other…

To put it a bit differently: Congress has not been able to pass substantial laws in decades. The executive branch has filled in by interpreting these laws very loosely in order to adapt to the changing situation and—importantly—to adapt to changing presidencies. That last part is the single biggest problem with the administrative regime as it has stood hitherto: it means that almost everything that happens in the fed…

> The existing system of administrative rules absolutely sucks for stability.

This new system is even worse. At some point, the Judiciary will make a poor ruling. Perhaps this ruling is impossible to hold to, but maybe the executive branch decides to usurp the court of its own volition. Then what?

The checks and balances system of our government only works when everyone plays nice. But if push comes to shove, then the executive branch is the one that holds all the power. They don't have to obey the legislator nor the judiciary -- neither has any real capability to enforce their will.

The country has been slow rolling into single pillar government structure for decades now. IMHO, this ruling is a huge step towards solidifying the executive branch as the de facto sole branch of government. Government agencies were provided a mechanism for all three branches of government to work together, legislators provided scope and leadership, the judiciary provided checks, and the executive provided the operations.

Once the agencies are all gutted, a future administration is going get an opportunity to act on their own via executive authority and they will ignore any attempts by the court to stop them, because the court is literally powerless in all but word. And that's what opens the door to a president who begins seizing assets of political opponents.

Lots of authoritarian countries masquerade as democracies because legislators and judiciaries are inherently powerless to stop executives.

I know plenty of people will counter with the old way was supporting an authoritarian executive. But to them, I'll point out that the agency system has ~100 years of efficacy behind it.

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#527

Post by karmasimida » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 6:48 PM UTC

I would prefer less regulation than more, so this is welcome.

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#528

Post by megaman821 » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 6:48 PM UTC

k33n wrote: post #489

megaman821 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Congress had their shit together enough to reign in the federal courts, there wouldn't be so many federal laws that were ambiguous in the first place. Not sure what the shockwaves of this Chevron decision will be, but I am a fan of forcing the legislative branch to legislate again.

How do you suggest that Congress "rein in" a coequal branch of government?

They could expand the courts, institute justice term limits, or in this specific case, pass a law that says ambiguous terms in a law are to be interpreted by the Executive branch. If they are lazy, they could probably just stick in a clause that says the specific rules for this section will be created by the EPA or whatever relevant agency; and that would also comply with the ruling.

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#529

Post by catlikesshrimp » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 6:49 PM UTC

bell-cot wrote: post #244

kergonath wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not a question of good guys and bad guys. It’s just that a system where the legislative branch micro-manages things like electrical safety in new homes to what you’re allowed to put in baby formula is completely unworkable. If “the bad guys” get into power, then the agency is still checked by the courts that are perfectly able to stop blatant overreach. OTOH, congress physically cannot keep abreast of the sta…

Currently, in the minds of much of the American electorate, it is good guys and bad guys. You are correct that the US Constitution is poorly suited to governing a nation of ~1/3 billion people in the modern world. Unfortunately, the current political environment make fixing things impossible.

What political environment makes fixing things possible? Countries scraping their constitutions tend to be poor ones just finishing revolutions which more often that not creates dictators (1799 France included). Except, very few exceptions

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#530

Post by eightysixfour » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 6:49 PM UTC

salawat wrote: post #258

throw0101c wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They believe that Congress makes the laws, the Executive branch enforces them, and the Judicial branch interprets them. They believe that the Executive branch and the Judicial branch have been compensating for Congressional failure for too long and they have been very clear that they're intent on undoing that and rolling the system back to how they believe it should be. If Congress wants to delegate authority for m…

>If Congress wants to delegate authority for micro-managing things to agencies, why shouldn't they be allowed to do so? Because the Constitution defined the Legislative branch as the entry point for new laws. Not the Executive . Period. The Legislative branch, with the Power of the Purse, is more than capable of establishing the requisite in-house research apparata to allow the Branch to become quickly read up and fl…

> more than capable of establishing the requisite in-house research apparata to allow the Branch to become quickly read up and fluent on anything.

Not only can they not “become fluent in anything,” it shifts more power to lobbyists and industry where expertise exists that can draft the language they want with the loopholes they want. The scale of federal governance is literally impossible without the looseness of intent interpretation that can be challenged and validated by the court.

You may as well say we can replace the regulatory bureaucracies with expert systems, because we should be able to predict every possible outcome beforehand and just make a giant if/then out of it.