1) Courts should interpret statutes, not executive branch agencies
2) The separation of powers that the founders went to a lot of trouble to implement in the constitution must be respected
3) Judges can't gin up new "rights" from "emanations from penumbras" in the Constitution.
These are not "far right" positions--they are obviously correct. They're the version of government you learned in 8th grade. If they weren't inconvenient for your preferred policy preferences, you would think that too.
This is not a particularly fair representation of the general state of the Federalist society's goals (I don't even think it's a particularly good representation of FedSoc's position on this case, but it certainly isn't a good representation of FedSoc's position on e.g. religious freedom).
> Courts should interpret statutes, not executive branch agencies
This is, of course, impossible. If a statute creates a federal agency, the agency must, definitionally, interpret the statute. The agency cannot simply wait for a court to rule on its legitimacy to exist, much less its ability to take particular actions. This doesn't mean that executive overreach shouldn't be curtailed by the judiciary, but using a standard that good-faith, "reasonable" executive interpretations of a statute are valid is a fine standard.
> Judges can't gin up new "rights" from "emanations from penumbras" in the Constitution.
The 9th amendment (and federalist #84) would have some things to say about this.
> The separation of powers that the founders went to a lot of trouble to implement in the constitution must be respected
This is pretty dubious, there's a clear history and tradition, going back to before the founding, of debate on the level of federation and separation of powers, and the shape of the branches' and federal vs. state powers wasn't clearly established until at least 50+ years after the founding (Marbury v. Madison and to an extent Worcester v. Georgia).
> > Judges can't gin up new "rights" from "emanations from penumbras" in the Constitution.
> The 9th amendment (and federalist #84) would have some things to say about this.
Funny how the 9th amendment was meant to be a bulwark against textualism, isn't it? Much like the "well-regulated militia," this original text of the constitution is ignored in favor of latter-day ideology.
The idea that FedSoc is even particularly coherent in its members views is blowing my mind. I dislike plenty of recent actions by the org, but FedSoc has always been a very broad organization -- not even a "coalition" on much of anything. When I was in law school you could find people representing 2/3 of the entire political compass in its speaker directory. Maybe that's shifted a bit since Trump, but without digging I can even think of a handful of FedSoc-aligned people opposed to overturning Chevron.
1) Courts should interpret statutes, not executive branch agencies
2) The separation of powers that the founders went to a lot of trouble to implement in the constitution must be respected
3) Judges can't gin up new "rights" from "emanations from penumbras" in the Constitution.
These are not "far right" positions--they are obviously correct. They're the version of government you learned in 8th grade. If they weren't inconvenient for your preferred policy preferences, you would think that too.