What is Chevron Deference?

[LaSerpentDEden]

Fuuuuck, the fact that I understood Louisiana audibly but not reading the captions 😂

[bigbird]

The best part of the whole thing is that interpreting laws was also just a job the supreme court gave themselves. The constitution just put in the vague notion of “one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish” it never actually granted it the power of judicial review. The Supreme Court just kinda started doing it in 1803, and everyone was like “yeah that makes sense”.

[Renaissance-fwox]

When the ATF is redefining what a machine gun is using Chevron you know you have a problem.

[thenecessaryevil]

Sort of. Unfortunatly how an 'expert' is chosen varies and some agencies were changing their experts to the expert that agreed with what they wanted. This is infact how it all started, Reagan wanted to change how the EPA tracked factory pollution from individual smokestacks to the entire factory. The EPA wanted to fight it on court expert vs expert so there would be a binding ruling on how to do this. Instead a bipartisan idea of the chevron deference was pushed through. Reagan changed the EPA experts to the ones that agreed with him and he got his way without going to court.

[ObiOne]

Chevron? I prefer Shell or WaWa myself (Kidding, I'm all about Costco now)

[joshuagorrell]

Florida's "only prosecute the ones we want to prosecute" is one of the two big reasons a lot of people didn't like Chevron.

The other reason is that we're getting fewer and fewer actual experts in these agencies, and people with no actual knowledge of the fields are making determinations

[donaldfish]

The problem with Chevron is that it eventually gave the bureaucratic agencies too much power.

Because if the agency can claim that something that’s specific in a law is vague, then it can use its own experts to say that the agency can do this.

Getting rid of it just means that Congress has to do actually their jobs instead of leaving it up to the Executive Branch. If Congress doesn’t feel the need to exercise their powers, then they can do one of two things, either abdicate it and give it to the agencies or they can leave office.

[bretthuff]

The point of the ruling is that the executive branch agencies were effectively writing laws by their interpretations. Like when the ATF tried to ban bump stocks. Congress makes laws, Presidency enforces, Judicial branch interprets.

[RedOcelot]

The problem is that many Federal agencies have abused that ruling to perform what would otherwise be illegal actions. The specific case that caused it to be overturned was when the EPA decided they were allowed to charge civilian business a Fee that was driving some family owned farms into bankruptcy when they had no legal basis to charge that fee.

[crusader-yvzr]

The problem is, government agencies were effectively making their own legislation beyond the authority of Congress. For instance, the ATF was giving itself the ability to turn whatever gun attachment they felt like into felonies. They were turning completely legal items into felonies overnight, and often reversed their own decisions each week. You may say "Why don't you just remove the attachment while it's a problem?" Simply owning the parts to build an illegal weapon is a crime, so long as they are convinced you "intend to manufacture an illegal weapon".

Remember folks, government agencies make money by turning you into criminals, don't give them a chance.

[ashleylaughter]

I am glad you're back. Also dig the hair.

[AgentS]

Letting experts in on rulings intrudes bias that should not be present. The government is not a neutral party so when a law is made its supposed to be the most favorable interpretation to the accused or one that didn't write it. Having experts basically dispute a rule that is to vague means the law needs to be remade.

[Conicee]

Not exactly.... the reason why Chevron was problematic was because if an agency created a law that was unconstitutional or unjust the courts could do anything about it. For example say the TSA created a law that said any electronics they think could be a bomb they could confiscate and destroy. Then when going through security they think your phone is a bomb and destroy it. You could try to go through the courts to get compensation for the gov. destroying your phone. But because it was a law that the TSA created the courts would pretty much say tough luck cant do anything better luck next time. Alot of judges and lawyers hated chevron for this exact reason.

[doughboy_]

Chevron Deference was the assumption that a government organization's opinion was automatically considered an "expert" opinion, which in effect let government agencies create their own rules and interpret them however they wished.

[brylythhighlights]

I don't quite agree on the characterization that this is "because they got bored" - when you have an agency flip-flopping between the same item being a felony or not several times with no changes to the underlying law, there's a serious issue to be addressed.

[karn]

No, the problem is the ATF can't just make its own rules and claim they are laws. thats not how laws are made. an agency doesn't get to make up their own laws that we have to live by.

[aaronfarris]

The chevron deference gave unelected people the ability to force new legal ordinances onto american citizens, which isn't how our government is supposed to work. Case in point, the ATF.

[moonman]

The important thing to realize is, this doesn't necessarily gut regulations or regulatory agencies; it merely grants judges authority to interpret regulatory law and thereby determine which regulations the law allows regulators to enforce. So the EPA will still likely be able to regulate water under the Clean Water Act, it's just the particulars that would be scrutinized.

[longhaullulu]

Chevron Deference ment that unelected bureaucracies could impose unfair regulations on people. If the person tried to appeal, then the unelected bureaucracy could just say no, because they were allowed to interpret the law for themselves.

[gearsofbaird]

If a law if vague, it should always be assumed to work in the way that works in favor of the defendant. If they want laws to work in a specific way, they should pass it to regulate in a specific way