As a kid, I wanted to be a constitutional lawyer. Taking Constitutional Law changed all that. I realized that for the most part, what is constitutional is what 5 Justices say is constitutional. It’s mostly, a play on words, and what your interpretation of the Constitution is.
The recent Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo has overturned the Chevron case, which served as a linchpin of administrative law over the past 40 years.
The Chevron doctrine required courts to give a lot of leeway to an agency’s construction of ambiguous statutes, even as to the scope of those agencies’ authorities, so long as the agency’s construction of the ambiguous statute was reasonable and thus a “permissible” one.
Loper Bright eliminates agencies of this presumptive deference, the power of interpreting these ambiguities will be with the judiciary. This will increase new litigation over interpretations of statutory language on the Federal level.
I believe Congress and the agencies will need to be more careful in the drafting of laws and regulations, to limit the chances of ambiguities and court challenges.
