(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Overturning Chevron, The SCOTUS Serves Up The Judiciary On A Platter. Billionaires Will Gorge. [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-28 While Biden’s debate performance took up the nation’s headlines and headspace, the SCOTUS upstaged it all with a momentous decision that promises to dismantle regulatory regimes that operate from expertise on the merits of Congressional statute, and the Executive branch agencies tasked with interpreting and enforcing those statutes, and effectively turns over all of that to the Judicial branch of government. It’s Steve Bannon’s ‘dismantling of the administrative state’ by other means. In Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo, the SCOTUS willy-nilly removed a 40 year old precedent of executive branch regulation, based on a 40 year old case known as Chevron v National Resources Defense Council (1984) on the back of a case involving fishermen who objected to an agency rule that required them to collectively pay for the federal monitors enforcing the regulations of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). It provided the enforcement of federal fisheries law, at very low public cost, based on science-based metrics that stymied industry tendencies to put profits over the health of fish populations. While wrapping your head around that, here’s what’s been happening across the nation with the judicial branch of our government over the past few decades, across states, and traversing circuits. Judges that used to be appointed, or who used to run for office on a non-partisan basis, or had much stricter fundraising rules than politicians, have had such rules relaxed or removed completely, making running for a judgeship almost indistinguishable from running for political office. Now comes the Supreme Court, telling all those judges, up and down the judicial branch, who are already finding themselves forced to behave just like politicians by having to keep an eye out on fundraising for the next judicial election, putting the golden goose of public sector regulatory regimes on their platter. Industry, and the wealthy who own those industries, know an opportunity when they see one, and they’re going to come running. Now, the SCOTUS was under no obligation to respond to the Loper Bright suit by removing an Executive branch function of statutory interpretation by executive branch agencies, but they did. Of the six judges that ruled to overturn Chevron, we know of three, Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch, that have either been discovered taking, or have reported receiving, donor money in the form of gifts and travel, and have been seen frequenting social events organized by such donors. Just as Citizen’s United delegitimized campaign finance laws that were legitimate expressions of public concern about electoral corruption, Loper Bright promises to delegitimize equally legitimate legislative expressions of public concern about public and workplace safety, as well as food and drug safety, along with environmental protections. Equally pernicious, and equally justified on specious grounds, the SCOTUS has endorsed delegitimizing the American electoral process, in Rucho v Common Cause (2010), by refusing to recognize apportionment abuse strategies of federal, congressional districts, as anti-democratic, such as the GOP’s ‘election strategy’, called REDMAP (first announced in the WSJ on March 4, 2010, with the subtitle “He who controls re-districting controls Congress.”), which gave birth to the politically-unaccountable, and election-denying Freedom Caucus in 2012. Now, thanks to this decision, taking financial and industrial regulations from professionals working in the Executive branch, and transferring them to quasi-elected people seated as judges, who are allowed to decide who the experts are and what they think about regulatory enforcement, industry will go to work to corrupt the judicial process, just as they’ve been allowed to with the legislative process. And what happens when laws of a land are no longer predictable? Or when they only apply in these states, but not those states (some of whom will be suffering massive legislative misrepresentation due to REDMAP)? Economies of scale no longer apply. Business suffers and stagnates. Supply chains will be forced to adjust for political reasons rather than logistical ones. The labor pool becomes redistributed on the basis of ‘most favorable business environment’, as businesses and states don’t walk off a cliff of their own volition, but are stampeded into a race to the bottom by two branches of government that have essentially been privatized. Lastly, what happens to labor unions? When both the judicial and legislative branches become easily corruptible, labor unions don’t stand a chance. When federal labor laws are only enforced in the breach, dependent on the occupant of the White House, the task of organizing for decent pay and affordable healthcare quickly becomes pointless, if the gains are always a judge, an election, and maybe a ‘discreet gift’ away from being overturned. Last night wasn’t a good night for Democrats. But today’s SCOTUS decisions will reverberate for years and potentially decades and affect virtually everything we encounter from corporate America in our daily lives. The quickest remedy to reverse this, is to expand the Court after Democrats control all three branches of the federal government, and wait for a case to work it’s way back up the judicial circuit. Nobody ever said self-governance is easy. To close, and if you’re still unsure what to make of all this, consider this: The same too-clever-by-half parsing of the English language to arrive at overturning a 40 year precedent governing federal regulations, also contributed to removing one of the few anti-corruption laws still on the federal books, on Wednesday, in Snyder v US, By a 6-3 vote, the justices overturned the conviction of a former Indiana mayor who asked for and took a $13,000 payment from the owners of a local truck dealership after he helped them win $1.1 million in city contracts for the purchase of garbage trucks. In ruling for the former mayor, the justices drew a distinction between bribery, which requires proof of an illegal deal, and a gratuity that can be a gift or a reward for a past favor. [emphasis, mine] They said the officials may be charged and prosecuted for bribery, but not for taking money for past favors if there was no proof of an illicit deal. www.latimes.com/... No wonder Thomas and Alito see no problem with living on the Billionaire Dole. There’s always a distinction that can be made to salve the conscience of the afflicted. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/28/2249550/-Overturning-Chevron-The-SCOTUS-Serves-Up-The-Judiciary-On-A-Platter-Billionaires-Will-Gorge?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/