Chevron Doctrine

Kerby Anderson

The last five decades have been marked by judicial overreach. But we are now seeing judicial activism replaced by judicial restraint. Before the Supreme Court adjourned for the summer, it delivered four opinions on religious liberty (Groff v. DeJoy), free speech (303 Creative v. Elenis), racial preferences in college applications (Fair Admissions v. Harvard), and student debt cancellation (Biden v. Nebraska).

You might now ask: what is next? Senator Ted Cruz has been building a coalition of lawmakers urging the Supreme Court to overturn the Chevron doctrine, often called Chevron deference. This is the idea that the court should always give deference to an administrative agency when it interprets an ambiguous statute.

The case involves the New England-based family-owned herring fishing company which is challenging a government rule. It requires every fishing vessel to have a government monitor on board to track compliance with federal regulations and requires that the fishing company pay the monitor’s salary (which amounts to 20 percent of their earnings).

The Chevron doctrine may sound harmless. It isn’t. A case in 1984 involving the Chevron corporation seemed reasonable at the time because conservatives in the Reagan administration wanted relief from rulings by liberal judges on the DC Circuit Court. Now it gives too much control to bureaucrats and the deep state.

Ted Cruz put it this way: “If the voters back home in Texas are ticked off at an idiotic rule that comes from the bowels of the Biden administration, there’s nothing they can do to fire that bureaucrat. And frankly, that bureaucrat does not give a flip what a small-business owner or hard-working family in Texas believes or how they are hurt by the rules they are decreeing from on high.”

I think the Chevron doctrine might be the next big battle before the Supreme Court when it reconvenes this fall.