On July 21, the Liberty Justice Center (LJC) filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to rein in federal agencies’ power by overturning a 1984 decision under which federal courts deferred to agencies’ interpretation of their own powers under the law.
The earlier decision, Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., has allowed agencies to interpret laws broadly, which has expanded unelected bureaucrats’ power.
The Liberty Justice Center’s amicus brief in this case now before the Court, Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Raimondo, argues that the Supreme Court should overturn Chevron because by deferring to agencies’ interpretations of the law, the courts have abdicated and delegated their primary constitutional responsibility — interpreting the law. The brief argues that courts should interpret laws giving agencies’ power the same way that they interpret all other laws, with no special deference to agencies’ opinions.
“When federal agencies get to decide how much power they have under the law, of course they are always going to give themselves more power rather than less,” said LJC attorney Loren Seehase. “The Court should overturn Chevron to rein in unelected bureaucrats and restore our Constitutions’ system of checks and balances.”
The Loper Bright case gives the Supreme Court a crucial opportunity: to overturn Chevron and return the power to interpret that law to the judicial branch, restore the Constitution’s the balance of power, and reduce the abuses of the administrative state.
The Liberty Justice Center’s brief is available here.