The rationale behind these decisions is well explained by Harvard’s Adrian Vermeule in a law review article published today on the subject of deference and due process. He points to the argument that “on grounds of both expertise and accountability, agencies are better positioned than courts to interpret governing statutes.” He also points to a growing body of case law incorporating Chevron principles and to the “Court’s recent emphatic pronouncement that Chevron may actually grant agencies the power to determine the scope of their own jurisdiction.”
This is why a legislative solution is badly needed. Rep. John Ratcliffe (TX-04) has therefore introduced a bill, H.R. 4768, the Separation of Powers Restoration Act of 2016 (SOPRA), which amends the Administrative Procedure Act to direct courts to conduct a de novo review of all relevant questions of law, “including the interpretation of constitutional and statutory provisions and the provisions of agency rules.”
If this guy looks familiar to you, it might not just be because he looks like a contestant in a Michael Scott look alike contest.
It’s because before he was Trump’s CIA director, he was a congressman trying to get rid of the Chevron deference: https://youtu.be/RWmCI-iSWdk
His bill didn’t pass, but it turns out it didn’t need to since the Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference last last year.
2016:
Apparently Vermeule eventually came around on Chevron, but interesting he popped up back in 2016 when Ratcliffe first introduced the bill https://thenewdigest.substack.com/p/chevron-by-any-other-name