In the legal world, the biggest news event this year had nothing to do with assassination attempts, campaign shake-ups or convicted ex-presidents. It was the Supreme Court’s decision in June to kill the 40-year-old Chevron doctrine, which directed courts to defer to federal agencies’ interpretation of ambiguous statutes.
The question now, which the House Administration Committee considered Tuesday, is what a post-Chevron world will look like: Will unelected judges — some conservative, some liberal — create a hodgepodge of conflicting interpretations of laws? Will Congress reclaim the policymaking power it has slowly ceded to the executive branch over the past century by writing more precise statutes? And, if so, what will that look like?
While the Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision left conservatives mostly excited and liberals mostly anxious, both sides testifying at Tuesday’s hearing broadly agreed that Congress should increase its lawmaking capacity in response.
