This thread wildly misunderstands "chevron deference". "Ending chevron deference" does not somehow throw us into a Mad Max anarchic hellscape where agencies cannot actually do anything, because there is always some standard for what administrative rulemaking is permissible. There is a broader question of how much leeway they have, but clarifying that AI generated voices count as "artificial" under the statute barely requires a regulation, any more than they need one to say "hit in the head with a computer" constitutes an "assault".
The problem with your argument is that, for decades, congress has been passing and failing to update laws under the understanding that the courts would apply Chevron deference.
If the courts decide to get rid of that, they're intentionally misinterpreting the laws that congress has passed over that time. They're also effectively rewriting a large fraction of US law, despite the fact that the constitution is carefully designed to prevent such a small group of (unelected or elected) people from modifying US law that quickly, and without safe guards.
The current Supreme Court has repeatedly undermined separation of powers, and they're explicitly doing so against the wishes of the electorate. Their behavior is fundamentally undemocratic.
Correct, because in the United States, our model of government is a Democratic Republic, not a democracy. For all of the flaws of our system of law, the Constitution is considered supreme, and any laws that violate the Constitution are to be considered null and void. The job of the Supreme Court is to decide the Constitutionality of laws.
One interpretation of removing Chevron deference is that it's defacto rewriting law, another is that executive agencies have been doing this for decades already. The truth is probably some mix of the two.
>Constitution is considered supreme, and any laws that violate the Constitution are to be considered null and void. The job of the Supreme Court is to decide the Constitutionality of laws.
A plain and non-ideological reading of what you typed is that this is a contradiction at best and saying the SCOTUS supersedes the constitution at worst.
At worst yes, the difficulty of overriding them via constitutional amendment or a restructured law is a vulnerability of our system
But the paradox is that is part of the constitution too. There are several creatures of the constitution that supersede the constitution. Treaties can.
>The problem with your argument is that, for decades, congress has been passing and failing to update laws under the understanding that the courts would apply Chevron deference.
It is literally the job of Congress to update laws. That they are bad at doing that is not relevant to the place of the Court in the structure of this country's government.
>If the courts decide to get rid of that, they're intentionally misinterpreting the laws that congress has passed over that time.
The opposite of this is true. If the Court decides to jettison Chevron deference (you should look in to why that case is called "Chevron") it means that gasp our legislators have to actually listen to constituents and write laws and not just bet that the executive branch in the next election cycle agrees with them.
Overturning Chevron means federal courts no longer have to give deference to agency experts. Unelected judges will have free rein to impose their own views in these cases.
Nothing about Chevron will force Congress to write more precise laws.
Courts acting as authorities of last appeal doesn't sound like some class of people imposing their views. They're just doing their jobs, and I don't see why they should be less trustworthy than (also unelected) bureaucrats.
It's less about being more or less trustworthy and more about spheres of competence. Judges are experts on the laws that are written, but they cannot be experts in all the areas Congress requires regulation.
People are not interchangeable: if you take a financial regulatory expert from SEC and move them to FDA and ask them to regulate drug adjuvants, you're not going to get great results. Dropping Chevron would put judges in the position of being experts in all the fields where Congress requires regulation.
>Dropping Chevron would put judges in the position of being experts in all the fields where Congress requires regulation.
Genuinely curious as to why people think this. This is the standard talking point you see about this issue, and it's just not true. Getting rid of Chevron doesn't mean that judges need to become experts in all minutia of a particular field. It means the executive can't liberally interpret statute to their heart's desire. Maybe you mean that you expect more cases to come to the courts if Chevron is dropped, but cases on complex technical matters already come to the courts all the time in all fields. Are you concerned that the volume of cases goes up or something?
True, but judges should be used to ruling on cases involving technical details they don't fully understand. They could refuse to weigh the opinions of outside experts, but I don't think they would.
Besides, this works in other countries, in the Czech Republic for instance, I'm pretty sure I've seen lawsuits against regulatory agencies here.
Chevron doesn't prevent lawsuits. All it does is require the judge overseeing the case to give deference to the regulatory agency when there is ambiguity in the law.
Really simple example:
Congress passes a law that requires the FAA to regulate the safety of commercial aviation, but doesn't explicitly say "all panels must be bolted to the fuselage".
FAA decides any removable panel must be positively attached to the fuselage using castle nuts and pins or an equivalent design.
Boeing thinks that rule is wrong (overbearing, overreach, poorly conceived, whatever).
Under Chevron, the judge hears both sides, and defers to the FAA on the issue of safety. The law wasn't explicit about design of door panel fasteners, but was clear the FAA should regulate the industry.
Without Chevron, there is no deference to the experts at the FAA. The judge is free to impose their own worldview on the case.
Note that with Chevron in place, the judge can still determine the FAA overreached its authority (like if they decided to regulate car transport on the way to the airport). The judge just can't ignore the presumed expertise of the executive branch in applying details to Congressionally mandated regulation.
Without Chevron, we trade executive expertise for the whims of an unelected judge. While bureaucrats are unelected, they are still beholden to Congress for both funding and legislation allowing their existence in the first place. The President can't simply conjure regulators out of thin air.
>Unelected judges will have free rein to impose their own views in these cases.
As opposed to unelected bureaucrats who serve at the whim of the executive branch and are often political appointees? Do you not remember the meltdown this site had over Trump's FCC commissioner and his views on net neutrality?
If an executive agency steps out of line, Congress can defund it or pass other legislation clarifying their intent.
No such mechanism exists with the federal bench (other than impeachment).
All Chevron does is impose a restriction on the federal courts when deciding cases brought against the executive branch. It doesn't give bureaucrats free rein to do what they want.
Congress can just overrule federal bench by saying their wrong and writing clarifying language. Very popular example of this is Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act that specifically made it that issuing a discriminatory paycheck restarted 180 day clock.
If it were such that individual states with greater agency could negatively impact neighbouring states and in Chevrons original case, environment and agriculture, then it’s a dangerous precedent of opening up states to competitive market at the detriment greater societal impact and responsibilities. Both positive and negative but the incentives are there to push towards later in pursuit of fast profits and deferred responsibilities.
Am I making sense? States can compete for corporate interests, while we know full well who runs the senate: lobbyists with deep pockets.
Imagine the following: The FCC fines a company for using AI-generated voices in robocalls. That company appeals the fine. With Chevron intact, the court would need to defer to the FCC's interpretation of the TCPA and dismiss the appeal. With Chevron overturned, the court would be able to advocate for their own interpretation of the TCPA. A favorable judge could just claim textualism, and insist that the TCPA does not apply because it does not explicitly use the word AI. Then it is a slippery slope of forum shopping and companies moving their operations to districts with sympathetic judges.
Imagine the FCC goes to congress, proposes a new rule and then congresses passes it. Then there is debate and congress can't abdicate its responsibility.
In theory sure but have you been following Congress for the past decade? They can't even come to terms on continuing resolution funding bills, let alone pass complex rules related to new contentious technologies. Perhaps I'm just a pessimist but is something that makes you think this might drastically change?
> In theory sure but have you been following Congress for the past decade?
On one hand, fair. On the other hand, you can only coast along on the old post-cold war bi-partisan consensus for so long without getting new consensus before institutions lose their legitimacy (you can already see this happening a bit).
We can default back to the last time we had consensus for some things, for some time, but you do need to get it again before big changes happen. If you get to the point where the last time we had consensus is before the majority of the people in the system were alive, you either need to hard pivot your society to focus on ancestor worship, or you need to focus on something you do have consensus on.
The problem is that the previous consensus was created by corporate centralized media, and in many ways was actually against the interests of most people who accepted it. Now that corporate consensus has fallen apart, so we've got two tribes each focused on the specific ways they were screwed over, with each ascribing the previous state of affairs to the other tribe. In a vacuum their differences could certainly be worked out to support a consensus. But given how well ragebait sensationalism seems to work, and the popularity of feel-good (well, feel-something at least) authoritarian demagogues like Trump, I don't see much hope.
I would argue that existing setup which abdicates power of congress to courts and agencies is only making things worse. It keeps things running, somewhat, but only by applying bandaids that can be removed just as easily with new set of judges or new administration.
It's something that US political system allowed to fester for decades, arguably since 70s.
Take the entire situation around abortions. Supreme Court determined that there is a right, based in protection of privacy, that prohibits states from banning abortion before certain date. Congress didn't have to make a law about it, or even add amendment to constitution. So they didn't have to explain anything to their constituents. "It's the court! I can't do anything!" everybody was happy.
Except not. People who opposed it, saw it as undemocratic. Taking controversial issue out of the hands of representatives forever. So they pushed against it, and attempted to circumvent the ruling. Mostly they failed. But they never gave up, and their movement never died down. In fact it only became more and more powerful.
And when they finally had favorable judges on the court they finally had their way.
Angering their opponents, who were now using similar "this isn't democratic" arguments. In the end, nobody really won. The only certain result is that people on both sides of political spectrum now have reasons to distrust Supreme Court.
Compare that to the situation in Europe. Lawmakers took their time, but eventually they arrived at set of laws that most of society agrees with, or at very least is able to tolerate.
TLDR: The existing system led to the congress being incapable of making laws. If america is to survive, courts can't keep saving congress from controversial laws.
Imagine that rule is not precise enough to cover every possible specific situation, so nobody can ever be penalized for breaking any rule, as it becomes a fractal problem where the entire year’s “work” from Congress would not be sufficient to exactly define every term needed.
Management has to be allowed to delegate. Those saying Congress should not be allowed to do so are really just saying they want the government abolished.
Imagine an individual or company (who disagrees with the FCC's interpretation of the law) proposes a new rule to congress and then congress passes it. There is a debate and then congress updates the law they passed to reflect recent changes.
Even if it was unclear, ending Chevron deference wouldn’t say “the agency can no longer make these policy interpretations.” It just means that a court ought to test whether that interpretation is in compliance with the law, when that comes up in a dispute (which is something that courts are in the business of in many other areas) more so than simply deferring to the agency’s expertise on the law.
(If you look at the original Chevron decision, they were much more interested in trying to get out of the “understand and make determinations about complex environmental issues” business anyway, more so than the “understand the law” business.)
Postscript: For your next unfairly downvoted reply I recommend that you explain to someone Citizens United was actually a nonprofit trying to air a movie on cable television and was fighting the FEC over it. (Total hackjob of an organization, mind you. But core political speech.) Some facts are unpopular.
Chevron deference would come into play if the FCC tried to say that a test-tube baby was an artificial agent. I support ending the doctrine, because the shadow laws are strong and bad.
So because of this you think we should dismantle the administrative state in favor of the judicial apparatus?
Everything I've read about this says it will result in mass deregulation of industries that must be regulated. (Koch Industries for example) In practical terms, in our current world, not in some libertarian-inspired fantasy that doesn't exist today.
There are definitely areas where Chevron deference can "hurt" us--for example political tampering at agencies.. but overall I think we should rely on experts to do the regulating and try to fix the existing system.
On top of that what happened to judicial precedent? Only good when it suits our ends I guess.
Don't forget about Matt Hoover of CRS Firearms being charged for conspiracy to transfer unregistered machine gun conversion devices. His crime? Advertising a trinket known as an "Auto Key Card", a metal business card etched with the outline of a lightning link, a device that--properly manufactured--can make a semi-automatic rifle full-auto.
The problem is that this device was nothing more than a drawing on a business card sized piece of steel. It amounts to an egregious first amendment violation at the very least.
You'll have to excuse me if I don't take the word of the website "pewpewtactical" as gospel on this matter. Especially with lines like this: "Aside from the fact the ATF hates anything fun..."
There's nothing earnest or in good faith here, and you can't reasonably make me believe otherwise. The person was trying to skirt the law and got caught.
Or let me put it another way: if this keycard isn't a big deal, why do gun owners care?
> The ATF examined the Auto Key Cards and a firearms enforcement officer was able to remove the pieces of a lightning link from an Auto Key Card using a common Dremel rotary tool in about 40 minutes.
So in effect, the ATF was able to manufacture an unregistered machine gun conversion device from a legal piece of steel with a drawing on it, using tools. Steel is not illegal, nor are drawings. As mentioned by rpmisms, we have a first amendment right to freedom of speech in the United States.
The same thing can be accomplished, arguably more easily, by bending a metal coat hanger into the required shape, but Target isn't being raided by the ATF.
And of course, anyone with access to a 3d printer and the gatalog can create a lightning link in about 22 minutes. Guess it's time to ban the Internet!
Consider this: the kind of people who wouldn’t know how to do this otherwise are exactly the kind of people I don’t want given a die cut model for how to do it.
Meanwhile illegal full-auto Glock switches are flooding into urban areas such as Chicago across the country, ordered overseas from Aliexpress completely unimpeded, because the ATF would rather go after people that aren't violent criminals.
Funnily enough, they're pushing towards common use, which makes for an interesting legal argument that giggle switches are no longer dangerous and unusual.
> The person was trying to skirt the law and got caught.
What law? The law that says you can't distribute a chart of a lightning link? That's not a real law. The point here is that the ATF created the law out of whole cloth.
> Or let me put it another way: if this keycard isn't a big deal, why do gun owners care?
Are you serious? The guy is going to jail under the charge that he distributed a machine gun, for distributing legal information in a country that has freedom of speech as the first amendment. He didn't even violate ITAR. I have a shirt with the CNC instructions to create a lightning link printed on it. Should I go to prison too?
A large part of my life has been dedicated to distributing the means to self-defense to as many people as possible. The right to armament is inherent to humanity, and encoded in our DNA as a nation. I design, prototype and build guns. Too bad for you, everything I do is legal. There's no moral difference between what I do and installing a giggle switch to magdump into trash faster.
Machine guns aren't evil because they're regulated.
The idea of freedom of speech, and the Constitutional amendment that enshrines and protects that human right, doesn't exist to protect sending birthday cards to your grandkids.
In 1944 hundreds of thousands of liberator pistols were air dropped to the French resistance to fight Axis occupation.
In Myanmar today, 3d printed FGC-9 rifles are being used by rebels to resist a coup staged by the military.
In Ukraine, as I'm sure you're already aware, weaponry donated by NATO and the United States is being used in combination with improvised munitions delivered by drone to resist a large scale genocidal invasion by Russia.
Weapons are tools, no more good or evil than the person wielding the tool. Freedom of information destabilizes monopolies on violence and empowers people to communicate, organize, and defend themselves from aggressors.
You miss my point. I don't think any court would see the reasonable reach of Chevron to be the FCC being capable of determining what qualifies as an artificial person between people of natural or artificial insemination. "Reasonable" is part and parcel to the decision.
This is great that this is line of comments are under an article about banning something most people here would like to see banned. That is in fact doing something good, unless I guess you're on the side of robocalls. Perhaps choose to make this argument in another thread, it'd be far more convincing.
