It sounds like we disagree on who is better equipped to make the kinds of interpretations necessary for effective policy. Like I said in another post, I don’t think we can pretend law can be abstracted and cleaved from the systems it regulates. The court admits they don’t have expertise in those systems. That makes me feel they are ill-equipped for the types of interpretations.
I think a lot of the reason this thread has blown up is that the Chevron doctrine was really very strange and not at all how you'd expect the US legal system to have been working. It doesn't line up with any standard teaching of civics, for instance. The Supreme Court clearly felt the same way and has now instructed courts to go back to doing what everyone thought they were doing already.
To be clear, I think there is a distinction between declaring if a law is constitutional and resolving ambiguities for non-constitutional, domain specific issues. I think the court is eminently qualified in one area, but much less so (by their own admission) in the other. I think those are two different aspects that often get conflated.
I think the court should reserve power for constitutionality (their domain expertise) and leave resolving the ambiguity outside that to the regulatory experts of those respective domains.
No, you are definitely misunderstanding. Chevron delegated a core duty of the judiciary to executive branch officials with no expertise in that field. The "reasonableness" standard you was a limited and constrained version of reasonableness standards devised and applied by courts in normal statutory interpretation, and deprived the courts of the power to fully exercise their duty.
> Now the court gets both aspects.
No, there is only one aspect here.
> Our difference is that I think that is a less good outcome because I believe domain expertise is necessary to effectively clear up ambiguity and the court admits they do not have that kind of domain expertise.
The domain expertise of the regulators in the field of regulation is irrelevant here, because the cases that go before the court are not about what measures are likely to be effective in fulfilling the agency's mandate, it's about what measures are legally permissible.
> I think the court should reserve power for constitutionality (their domain expertise) and leave resolving the ambiguity outside that to the regulatory experts of those respective domains.
The only domain at question here is the domain of interpreting the law, and the relevant experts in that are the judiciary themselves. You are conflating together completely distinct matters.
If you look to Chevron for a concrete example, the issue was about the ambiguity of the scope of a “source” of emissions. That is not a law question because the law already deemed that sources can be regulated. It’s really a question of non-law domain expertise in terms of the definition of an emission source.
No, I'm not claiming that. I'm not sure what that has to do with this discussion at all, though, because non-law domain experience has nothing to do with domain experience in interpreting laws.
> If you look to Chevron for a concrete example, the issue was about the ambiguity of the scope of a “source” of emissions. That is not a law question because the law already deemed that sources can be regulated.
Huh? If the law says "sources can be regulated", then the question of what the statute means by "source" is 100% a legal question of statutory interpretation!
> It’s really a question of non-law domain expertise in terms of the definition of an emission source.
No, it absolutely is not! Congress -- not the domain experts in the regulatory agency -- used specific language to establish and circumscribe the scope of the questions that agency's authority would extend to. It is 100% the role of the courts to analyse the statutory text written by Congress and determine whether the agency is or is not operating within the authority that Congress established.
I would argue that is the central claim. Something can be law and ambiguous. The role of the court previously was to ensure the first part: that the law is Constitutional. Outside of Maybury I don't think anyone is disputing that. The difference is that this now says the arbiter of ambiguity is now the court.
Not everything related to interpretation should be up to the court. The court's primary role is in determining constitutionality; that is a much more narrow scope than what you're presuming. In many (most) court rulings, they are very deliberate in keeping the scope as narrow as possible. This ruling is one of the exceptions, not the rule. But you don't have to take it from me. Justice Kagan states:
"Some interpretive issues arising in the regulatory context involve scientific or technical subject matter. Agencies have expertise in those areas; courts do not. Some demand a detailed understanding of complex and interdependent regulatory programs. Agencies know those programs inside-out; again, courts do not...In one fell swoop, the majority today gives itself exclusive power over every open issue—no matter how expertise-driven or policy-laden—involving the meaning of regulatory law. As if it did not have enough on its plate, the majority turns itself into the country’s administrative czar."
>Congress -- not the domain experts in the regulatory agency -- used specific language to establish and circumscribe the scope of the questions that agency's authority would extend to.
I don't think this is correct. The court has acknowledged that Congress cannot make perfectly unambigious laws. The question is about who gets to clear up those ambiguities. Again, the role of the court is best suited to what they have expertise in: determining constitutionality. Defining what an "emission source" (or any other domain expertise question) is outside that scope.
I would argue that becoming an "administrative czar" oversteps the bounds of a judiciary responsible for determining constitutionality to one that blurs the lines with the executive branch. In Kagan's words, it becomes an act of "judicial hubris."
No. The role of the court is, and always has been, to determine what the law is -- constitutional law, statute law, common law, all of it. Forget Maybury and think Marbury. Chevron was an unjustifiable deviation from what has been the unambiguous responsibility of the courts for the entirety of their history.
> Not everything related to interpretation should be up to the court. The court's primary role is in determining constitutionality;
No, as above, the courts role is determining the meaning of the law. The constitution happens to be the supreme source of law, but it is and always has been the courts' job to interpret law from all subordinate sources as well.
> I don't think this is correct. The court has acknowledged that Congress cannot make perfectly unambigious laws. The question is about who gets to clear up those ambiguities.
I'm not sure what you are saying you don't think is correct. No one claimed that Congress makes perfectly unambiguous laws -- that is impossible. Rather, Congress passes statutes using specific verbiage, and the responsibility for -- and expertise in -- interpreting that verbiage and clearing up ambiguities is and always has been the domain of the courts, and absolutely not the unaccountable province of people with no expertise in statutory interpretation who have an inherent interest in interpreting their own authority to be as expansive as possible.
I fully acknowledge the difference in opinion here. One side thinks the court has the duty to clear up ambiguity. The other thinks that better resides in the agencies. It’s literally the difference between the ruling and dissenting opinions of the court decision.
My claim is that in a modern society, clearing up that ambiguity requires domain expertise. Just hand waving it away and saying “this is the way it’s always been” (even though that’s not true since that wasn’t the case for the last 40 years) doesn’t actually address that point. So in your opinion, do the complexities of modern society not matter? If not, you’re implying we can bring back a Justice from the 1790s and they can effectively rule on issues related to climate change, the internet, genetics, pharmaceuticals etc. After all, they don’t need any domain knowledge. I disagree; I’ve steelmanned your argument elsewhere in this thread and still find it lacking. The point isn’t “to do things like they were always done before” but the “create a more perfect Union.” I think allowing domain experts to clarify complex issues, within the confines set by the court, is a better system and you haven’t done anything to explain why it isn’t. It comes across as much more about ideology than effective governance.
No -- subject matter expertise is not relevant per se, as what is being evaluated in these cases is not whether the policy advanced by a given agency is sound on its technical merits or factual basis, but whether it is within the bounds of the authority granted to that agency by the applicable statutes.
The courts aren't concerned with "crafting effective regulations", they are concerned with ensuring that the people who are tasked with doing so are operating consistently with prevailing statute law and the constitution.
And, considering that the judiciary is staffed with the world's foremost experts in statutory interpretation and constitutional law, this arrangement makes sure that all of the disparate facets of the process are being undertaken by the most qualified people available.
It's not appropriate to make officials who are hired on the basis of their knowledge of medicine, RF transmission, economics, etc. to bear the entire burden of determining the complex legalities of their authority. They have to step far outside their field of expertise and engage in textual analysis of statutory law or delve deep into constitutional theory to determine whether their rule-making process is indeed legally permissible. It's better to let the courts do their job here and tell them when they are out of line, so they can focus on doing their own jobs properly.