The Supreme Court took a sledgehammer to executive agencies’ power Friday by overruling a prominent precedent that bolstered their ability to implement regulations in wide areas of American life, including consumer and environmental protections.
In an 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority upended a 40-year administrative law precedent that gave agencies across the federal government leeway to interpret ambiguous laws through rulemaking.
Known as Chevron deference, the now-overturned legal doctrine instructed judges to defer to agencies in cases where the law is ambiguous.
Now, judges will substitute their own best interpretation of the law, instead of deferring to the agencies — effectively making it easier to overturn regulations that govern wide-ranging aspects of American life.
This includes rules governing toxic chemicals, drugs and medicine, climate change, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and more.
“Chevron is overruled,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by his five conservative colleagues.
“Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority.”
How can this affect us and will this affect us or will they implement ways around the new ruling so they can keep PFR’s under executive overreach by merrick garland?
I’m guessing this is good news.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.pdf
(btw, I had my tier 2 Iowa modification granted, and I would like to thank everyone here for the moral support in helping me have a semblance of hope, even though I don’t post here much)
On a side note: Atwo Zee, even on his tier 1 info is highly incorrect. I called about every warm state that I would like to move to and as a tier 2, I also asked about tier 1 and states like AZ are highly incorrect on his site (though I appreciate his hard work.) So make SURE you call first if you travel, because that info is wrong mostly.
My best recollection from way back when federal SORNA was first implemented, there were a lot of gray areas that AG Gonzales took upon himself to essentially create law that did not exist. First and foremost of that was it’s retroactive application.
This also makes me wonder if such practices as blanket green notices for international travel can be challenged because I don’t think that is codified as law but the government carries out as part of IML.
I think Janice would be the best to explain this and hope she is working on something to post about the Chevron Descision I believe only good can come of this needed restraint of Government 🙂 SORNA and The IML need to be brought back in
Pretty much, the AG and the Department of mis-justice will not be able to levy SORNA rules and regs as they have in the past but Congress will need to do it for presidential signature to make it the law. Unfortunately, Congress doesn’t exactly have the most stellar record when it comes to sex offense related laws with discussion and voting on them as we all remember the dark of the night voice vote history.
I think some interesting things will come out of this such as appointed versus elected judicial bench riding officials and how they decide to use their new powers of interpretation.
I would love to see how this is going to roll into the SORNA case that ACSOL, et al have filed in Fed court of CA.
Seeing this do away with govt fiat ruling abilities is a wonderful restoration of checks and balance, IMO.
Let’s see what @AJ, et al think about this ruling…
I don’t think the Registry played any role in this decision. It may not have even been thought of, or considered. This has to do with a whole lot of other “Administrative State” results? However…
Perhaps some members of the court are done with this pogrom, the injustice it produces, and all the Pretzel Logic decisions it requires to maintain it? Not the motivation for this decision, but an opportunity to end the madness by simply making the formerly unquestionable pretzels, questionable?
“We didn’t kill it, we just stopped feeding it logic pretzels…then it died.” 😇
Also…J6? ALL the “insurrectionists” that were “involved”? Even the “insurrectionists” that never actually engaged in any “insurrectionist activities”…but were “contributing to insurrection” by looking at stuff they found on the internet? If 1 Proud Boy is… aren’t they all?
Never forget, there are countless acts of insurrection that go unreported to the Police every single year!!! How can we leave our poor, innocent, defenseless Constitution at the mercy of these… Democracy Predators! 😁
What’s “Regrettably but unquestionably necessary” for one kind of “Predator”…???
I really do not see how this makes anything better for us. In my opinion, no matter the branch or agency of the government, interpretations and making of rules that result due to ambiguity from the law will never benefit us as facts and constitutionality issues will continued to be ignored.
So, I take this have impact on us as well? If so, then in what way?
Since it is the last regularly scheduled business day of the month of the supreme court’s 9 month session, you’ll also maybe be pleased to hear that they ended the tribunals or non-jured internal court system as well of agencies, et al
Moderator,
Here’s an additional source discussing this case to add to the post:
https://www-scotusblog-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-chevron-curtailing-power-of-federal-agencies/amp/
This strikes me as good, even if the registrant community doesn’t see it right away.
Of course, the majority of judges at all levels will still view the registry as perfectly hunky-dory. If anything, they’ll just find another way to wordsmith it. On the other hand, there is a growing number of judges who call the registry what it is who are now not bound to rule with the status quo because of the Chevron precedent essentially giving the authority of agencies to rewrite the law as they see fit.
Hmm. Judges interpreting law. What a novel concept. Makes me wonder why no one ever thought of that before. [/sarc]
This really has a lot to do with ‘Separation of Powers’ which Justice Thomas rightfully clarified.
One who dissented said it will ‘send a jolt to the legal system’ which rightfully it should because a monster was created when it was enacted 40 years ago and it has grown substantially throughout the years and now it has to be dealt with. The Court did say also, that decisions made during the 40 years of Chevron need not be overruled and/or revisited which I personally disagree with. Decisions not made by the Judicial branch of the government should be revisited by the proper governing body and I do believe this is going to make a super-sized toilet paper roll’s worth of old cases to be exhumed and probably forced into revisitation. The forefathers of this nation were not idiots who recklessly created a governmental system, but thought things out carefully to create a system of ‘checks and balances’ that would enable Americans to live lives relatively free of government overreach and to keep any one branch of government from being enabled to have powers not vested to it by the Constitution and every time Congress urinates on the Constitution to do such things it comes back on them with a vengeance and then they scream ‘bloody murder’ because now they have to fix a problem they themselves created.
The fact that it is not retroactive to current administrative laws is troubling.
Don’t bet on this being good news for registrants. This means new uncertainty about the rules we must live by. It could go our way ultimately, depending on judicial judgements of SORNA. Or not. And the federal courts are about to become overwhelmed.
As far as the SCOTUS goes, the majority has been in the favor of the republicans since 1970ish and the recent 6 to 3 votes surely speak volumes. See pic. Just saying, what chances do we as a group expect relieve?
If posted here as an article, I am assuming ACSOL sees a connection to how agencies treat us. Hoping Janice or someone connected will post an explanation soon.
While Skidmore Deference may still be in play the strike down of Chevron is meaningful. Prior to July 27th, 2006, when Bush signed the latest SORNA law the rules were radically different and states were not so compelled to make their laws SORNA compliant in regard to tiers especially. That being said, the latest SORNA law gave purview to the AG as to how to apply SORNA laws broadly but not a retroactive application. Now that Chevron is gone it appears, to my untrained legal eye, that the retroactive application to any person convicted prior to July 27, 2006, by the AG can be challenged successfully now that the DOJ lacks the defense provided by Chevron.
Opinions??
The problem with this decision is that it shifts the responsibility of making policy decisions back onto Congress or, inevitably, onto the courts, neither of which will possess any expertise in making these decisions. Inevitably, they will both make really bad decisions. On the other hand, of course, in areas in which agencies should operate both in good faith and with superior expertise, but do not, such as in the case of, say, DHS in the form of one agency or another, regulating registrants with SORNA or regulating registrants or former registrants with Angel Watch/IML, this ruling could offer some future relief although it appears not for any existing administrative law since it isn’t retroactive. Also, why would we think that Congress or the courts will be much better for us? Already, they regard us with great animus. I think Congress, not at all and the courts, somewhat.
I would say that this ruling isn’t as great a decision as it may appear at first blush but that the existing framework is pretty terrible, too.
We’ll see.
“The justices heard two cases on the same issue because Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson was recused from the New Jersey case. She took part in it at an earlier stage when she was an appeals court judge. The full court participated in the case from Rhode Island.”
The Supreme Court weakens federal regulators, overturning decades-old Chevron decision (msn.com)
So, why was Justice Roberts not recused from Smith, again?
Does his Costco membership grant him legal authority that the other justices don’t have?
There are several points in this decision that are beneficial to people on the registry. However, too many people are commenting here without reading the opinion.
The opinion does not say that courts will ignore the agency’s expertise, as some here are stating. The court simply reasoned that it is inappropriate to ALWAYS defer to an agencies decision.
Gorsuch gave good examples in his concurring opinion. One of those was when the Bush administration gave a law one interpretation, then Obama changed the interpretation, then Trump changed the law to another interpretation and then Biden reversed Trump’s interpretation. Each interpretation was an interpretation of the same law. By each president giving the law it’s own interpretation there was no certainty in the law. The same law could mean different things depending who is president. This is important because many of these laws contain criminal penalties just like SORNA.
Everyone overlooks that the heads of these agencies are appointed by the president, and hence a new meaning to the law every time there is a new president. Nowhere in it’s opinion did the Court tell lower courts to ignore agency expertise. The court said that they still have to take agency expertise into consideration. They also have to take other things into consideration as well.
I’m not going to write a book. I understand this decision well enough that I can say that it contains some very positive things for people on the registry. If everyone here were really concerned about how this opinion affects them or others on the registry, they would take the time to read and understand this opinion.
Before you comment here, read the opinion first.