‘THIS IS HUGE’: Chevron Deference gutted, Administrative State apoplectic

In a ruling that’s MASSIVE good news for freedom, and by extension to gun owners across America, the US Supreme Court threw the “Chevron Deference” into the dustbin of history today.  This 40-year-old precedent gave government agencies carte blanche to increase their power dramatically, even to the point of throwing people in prison for daring to violate their edicts.  It ends now, thanks to a 6-3 decision in the case of Loper Bright v. Raimondo.  You can read the Court’s ruling here.

While the case on its face dealt with National Marine Fisheries Service over-reach, the ATF certainly had its wings lopped off today to put it nicely.  Remember their edicts on bump stocks, pistol braces, and rules that made possession of fender washers as constructive possession of a suppressor?  Those days are over.  No doubt Biden’s bozo appointee Deedlebecker or whatever the heck his name is probably still digesting this as his aids are talking really slowly trying to use single-syllable words for him to better understand what just happened.

ZeroHedge has it:

The Supreme Court has ruled to overturn the so-called ‘Chevron Deference’ dealing a huge blow to the so-called ‘administrative state’ that have enjoyed

In an 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority upended the 40-year administrative law precedent that gave agencies across the federal government leeway to interpret ambiguous laws through rulemaking.

Conservatives and Republican policymakers have long been critical of the doctrine, saying it has contributed to the dramatic growth of government and gives unelected regulators far too much power to make policy by going beyond what Congress intended when it approved various laws. The authority of regulatory agencies has been increasingly questioned by the Supreme Court in recent years.

Those on the other side say the Chevron doctrine empowers an activist federal government to serve the public interest in an increasingly complicated world without having to seek specific congressional authorization for everything that needs to be done.

As The Hill report, judges previously had to defer to agencies in cases where the law is ambiguous.

Now, judges will substitute their own best interpretation of the law, instead of deferring to the agencies – effectively making it easier to overturn regulations that govern wide-ranging aspects of American life.

This includes rules governing toxic chemicals, drugs and medicine, climate change, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and more.

The move hands a major victory to conservative and anti-regulatory interests that have looked to eliminate the precedent as part of a broader attack on the growing size of the “administrative state.”

The Biden administration defended the precedent before the high court.

Of course they did.

The liberals on the court are not happy:

“In dissent, Justice Kagan says the conservative supermajority “disdains restraint, and grasps for power,” making “a laughingstock” of stare decisis and producing “large-scale disruption” throughout the entire government. She is both furious and terrified.”

That sounds pretty close to ad hominem attacks, Elena.

Over at Shooting News Weekly, they’re describing it as this:

Loper Bright, along with yesterday’s ruling in SEC v. Jarkesy, has dealt a body blow to the ATF’s firearms regulatory regime. No longer will gun laws be whatever regulators want them to be, just because unelected bureaucrats say so. Regulators will still be able to make rules…but they’ll now have to defend them in court and convince judges that their rules are consistent with black letter law.

The regulatory deck is no longer stacked in the bureaucrats’ favor.

LKB, a Constitutional Law attorney who contributes to SNW wrote this in comments earlier today:

I’ll be doing a longer post, but the impact of the Jarkesy + Loper Bright decisions cannot be understated.

This is the biggest constitutional earthquake in decades, and is going to turn DC inside out. This is HUGE!

For decades, the DC bureaucracy has been allowed to run amock. They could “interpret” federal law to suit their own views, and under Chevron and Auer, the courts were generally required to defer to the bureaucrats’ interpretations of the law and regulations the bureaucrats created. Plus agencies could function as their own police, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner if you violated their rules / regulations. And as the bureaucrats aggregated more and more power, they got drunk on it, expanding their remit constantly . . . leaving us with the Deep State mess we have.

No more. Auer deference was quietly killed a few years ago, and Chevon has been dead law walking for a while. Now Chevron’s officially dead, with a very nice sweetener of Jarkesy thrown in. The bureaucrats in DC will be going absolutely nuts as reality sinks in.

Phillip Hamburger, a law professor, was one of the first to shout very clearly and persuasively that this emperor has no clothes — the modern administrative state has no constitutional basis, and in fact violates numerous constitutional provisions. But he did more than just write . . . he put together the organizations that brought the test cases that have now smashed the modern administrative state.

I communicated with Phil yesterday, and he acknowledges the feds will fight tooth and nail to keep their power, so the fight isn’t over. But as we’ve seen in the post-Bruen world, the right has learned the left’s old tactic of how to forum shop test cases into friendly venues and circuits. Look for lots of them to now be filed in the usual places.

There you have it.  Expect more litigation as the administrative state venue shops cases, but they’re gonna have to work to keep their extra-legal powers in play.