The case that overturned a longstanding decision (1984) by the Supreme Court--"Chevron."

Around 1982 an environmental group sued Chevron for some variation of destroying duh Erf.  In 1984 the Supreme Court ruled that when a law was ambiguous (or silent on a particular question) regarding a decision made by an unelected bureaucrat in one of the myriad agencies congress and the preznit have created to run your lives, all lower courts were now ordered to "defer" to whatever rule that agency issued, unless that rule was specifically barred by the law.

If you're not a lawyer you probably don't grasp the significance of that innocuous line.  It was "Whatevah RULE bureaucrats running a 'federal agency' decree would now be treated as LAW."  Got it?

If that wasn't apparent right away, don't feel bad: last week's decision noted that "the Court did not [realize Chevron was a watershed decision]," but that after it was issued the lower courts obediently did what it ordered: if a RULE issued by an executive branch agency--no matter how egregious or absurd-- was not specifically prohibited by law, that rule was upheld as U.S. LAW.

It doesn't take a PhD to predict the result of that.  

Now: It takes a lot of courage for a court to overturn a prior ruling by the Supreme Court.  As we saw so clearly with the response to overturning Roe v. Wade, there's always a big chunk of people who have a huge interest in the earlier ruling not being upheld.  And while pure logic says that shouldn't matter, human nature says the justices would think harder before they overturn an earlier decision.

This one needed to be overturned.

50 years from now young Americans are likely to look at the 1984 decision and think "What the hell were those members of the court thinking?" 

Last week's opinion notes that the Constitution says only Congress can pass laws, period.  It also states that the preznit is required to enforce those laws as written, not as the preznit or his lackeys might prefer they'd been written.

Similarly, the Constitution specifically charges the "judiciary" with interpreting the meaning of laws.  But in order to achieve a result desired by liberal judges on the 1984 court, their decision in Chevron took that power away from judges and juries, instead ordering lower courts to defer to whatever an agency claimed.

Thus that ruling gave the authority to interpret laws to unelected bureaucrats working for the preznit.

In 1984 the Supreme Court essentially ruled that judges and juries weren't qualified to decide questions involving complex issues.  Think about that for a minute.

Judges and juries weigh and decide complex every day.  Dueling "experts" testify, and juries must weigh the conflicting testimony.  But the Chevron decision removed that, in favor of ordering courts to defer to whatever an administrative agency claimed as fact.

Again, the 1984 Chevron ruling ordered that whatever rule agency bureaucrats issued was presumed to be legal unless specifically barred by law.

Now Democrats and Leftists are screaming bloody murder, because for 40 years they've been using the Chevron decision to allow unelected bureaucrats--all leftists--to issue RULES the courts were ordered support as LAW, to achieve whatever result the Left and Dems wanted.

Last week's decision took away that power.  No wonder they're screaming, eh?

Top Democrat strategists already know where this will lead: all the RULES the Deep State bureaucrats have issued to supposedly "fight global worming"--and all future rules--will now be thrashed out in court without courts being forced to defer to leftist bureaucrats.

And that's just one of many areas where juries will get to challenge agency claims.

Ooohhh, game changer, eh?

Hat tip to Karl Denninger, a.k.a "market-ticker guy."  He seems to be a top-notch thinker.

https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=251588

If you're interested in the legal reasoning, here's the link to the full written opinion.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.pdf