[cogman10]

Yup, this is very much the key to why I think this will be killed.

This supreme court is very much on track to eliminate any authority federal agencies have that aren't explicitly written into law. Effectively destroying federal agencies ability to make rules.

[iamthirsty]

> This supreme court is very much on track to eliminate any authority federal agencies have that aren't explicitly written into law. Effectively destroying federal agencies ability to make rules.

Very dramatic. Really, it's a reaction to Federal Agencies — unelected governmental representatives — unilaterally making their own rules out of the gray areas.

[runako]

> it's a reaction to Federal Agencies — unelected governmental representatives — unilaterally making their own rules out of the gray areas.

Eliminating Chevron will trade "unelected governmental representatives" who work at Federal Agencies like the FTC with "unelected governmental representatives" who are work for Federal Agencies that are the US Courts. Progress?

[cryptonector]

> Eliminating Chevron will trade "unelected governmental representatives" who work at e.g. the FTC with "unelected governmental representatives" who are paid by the US Court system. Progress?

Where do you get that from?

Reversing Chevron will mean that Congress will have to work harder to get the regulations that it and the Executive want. If Congress were not disfunctional that would be a very good thing. And heck, reversing Chevron might well function to help Congress function more normally.

[runako]

Congress won’t instantly have written laws to cover every regulation currently enforced by the federal government. Reasonably, it could take many years for those gaps to get filled. In the meanwhile, that means the courts are the key decision makers for large areas of government policy.

[macintux]

Republicans originally celebrated Chevron because it took regulations out of the courts' hands.

[cryptonector]

Did they? I wasn't there. But a reversal of Chevron doesn't necessarily mean that the courts get to do what they like. It may mean that the courts simply get to gut the bureaucratic state and kick the can to Congress -- that what's not forbidden by statute is allowed rather than that the courts act as regulators. There will be lower courts who will want to push their role as regulators, but the SCOTUS seems uninterested in playing that game given its "major questions" doctrine.

It would be very strange for the court to create the major questions doctrine then impanel itself as the ultimate regulator.

[macintux]

Someone has to fill in the multitude of gaps that exist between a law and its enforcement. Chevron moved much of that decision-making authority out of the court system into the executive branch.

Even a fully-functional representative body can't write laws that are explicit enough to cover every possibility. And the U.S. Congress is far from functional.

[ixwt]

Which is what Congress created them to do. And they are appointed, which the appointers are elected. In essence, they are elected, through the elected representatives which themselves are elected.

This is like saying that the US President is an unelected governmental representative. The population actually votes on a Representative for the Electoral College (EC). The Representatives in the EC then vote for President and Vice President. And yes, the EC Representatives are voted for because they say they will vote for a particular candidate (and as we figured out in 2012, many states have laws penalizing EC Representatives who don't vote how they committed to).

[iamthirsty]

> This is like saying that the US President is an unelected governmental representative

No, that's not how that works, ironically because in the name — Electoral College — the President is, elected. Regardless by the populous or not.

Appointees are politically chosen, yes by a representative, but usually with major political leanings built into the rules they make, with little to no oversight.

[cryptonector]

The SCOTUS had its "federalism revolution" in the 90s, and it ended in the Raich case when Scalia decided that leaving drug policy to the States was too much.

Under current precedents all the State decriminalization of marijuana and other drugs that we've seen are all unconstitutional. It was the liberal justices + Scalia who made it so. Those State laws decriminalizing various drugs are being tolerated by the feds -- for now.

The federalism revolution and its opposite both cut both ways.

On the whole I would prefer that the court resume its federalist revolution, even though some results I wouldn't like.