Chevron Deference Doctrine Deep Dive Part 6c: Justice Gorsuch, Loper-Bright v. Raimondo 2024 (Ep 19)

Gorsuch concurring.

Start with a look to how our predecessors traditionally understood the judicial role in disputes over a law's meaning from the nation's founding.

They considered the interpretation of the laws in cases and controversies the proper and peculiar province of the courts.

Perhaps the court's most famous early decision reflected exactly that view.

There, Chief Justice John Marshall declared it emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department.

to say what the law is, Marbury v. Madison, for judges have neither force nor will but merely judgment and an obligation to exercise that judgment independently.

That's Federalist 78.

No matter how disagreeable that duty may be, this court has said a judge is not at liberty to surrender or waver it, sorry, waive it, This duty of independent judgment is perhaps the defining characteristic of Article III judges.

To be sure, Gorsuch continues on page 15 of the slip opinion of his concurrence in Loper Bright versus Raimondo 2024, which struck down, well, It decided against the Biden administration, remember, overturning Chevron deference, which was a decision from the early 80s during Reagan.

To be sure, this court has long extended great respect to the contemporaneous and consistent views of the coordinate branches about the meaning of a statute's terms.

But traditionally, that did not mean a court had to defer to any reasonable construction of an ambiguous law that an executive agency might offer.

Let's look back at this footnote here.

Okay, we're going to skip that footnote.

Page 16 at the top.

It did not mean that the government could propound a reasonable view of the law's meaning one day and a different one the next, and bind the judiciary always to its latest word.

Nor did it mean the executive could displace a pre-existing judicial construction of a statute's terms, replace it with its own, and effectively overrule a judicial precedent In the process, put simply, this court was not bound by any and all reasonable administrative constructions of ambiguous statutes when resolving cases and controversies.

While the executive's consistent and contemporaneous views warranted respect, they by no means controlled the action or opinion of this court in expounding the law with reference to the rights of parties litigant before them.

Sensing how jarringly inconsistent Chevron is with this court's many longstanding precedents, discussing the nature of the judicial role in disputes over the law's meaning, the government and dissent struggle for a response.

Who's the government? It's the Biden administration.

Remember, this is 2024.

Gorsuch concurring.

Start with a look to how our predecessors traditionally understood the judicial role in disputes over a law's meaning from the nation's founding.

They considered the interpretation of the laws in cases and controversies the proper and peculiar province of the courts.

Perhaps the court's most famous early decision reflected exactly that view.

There, Chief Justice John Marshall declared it emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department.

to say what the law is, Marbury v. Madison, for judges have neither force nor will but merely judgment and an obligation to exercise that judgment independently.

That's Federalist 78.

No matter how disagreeable that duty may be, this court has said a judge is not at liberty to surrender or waver it, sorry, waive it, This duty of independent judgment is perhaps the defining characteristic of Article III judges.

To be sure, Gorsuch continues on page 15 of the slip opinion of his concurrence in Loper Bright versus Raimondo 2024, which struck down, well, It decided against the Biden administration, remember, overturning Chevron deference, which was a decision from the early 80s during Reagan.

To be sure, this court has long extended great respect to the contemporaneous and consistent views of the coordinate branches about the meaning of a statute's terms.

But traditionally, that did not mean a court had to defer to any reasonable construction of an ambiguous law that an executive agency might offer.

Let's look back at this footnote here.

Okay, we're going to skip that footnote.

Page 16 at the top.

It did not mean that the government could propound a reasonable view of the law's meaning one day and a different one the next, and bind the judiciary always to its latest word.

Nor did it mean the executive could displace a pre-existing judicial construction of a statute's terms, replace it with its own, and effectively overrule a judicial precedent In the process, put simply, this court was not bound by any and all reasonable administrative constructions of ambiguous statutes when resolving cases and controversies.

While the executive's consistent and contemporaneous views warranted respect, they by no means controlled the action or opinion of this court in expounding the law with reference to the rights of parties litigant before them.

Sensing how jarringly inconsistent Chevron is with this court's many longstanding precedents, discussing the nature of the judicial role in disputes over the law's meaning, the government and dissent struggle for a response.

Who's the government? It's the Biden administration.

Remember, this is 2024.