The Chevron Doctrine: Its Rise and Fall, and the Future of the Administrative State

by Thomas W. Merrill

A leading expert on the administrative state describes the past, present, and future of the immensely consequential―and equally controversial―legal doctrine that has come to define how Congress’s laws are applied by the executive branch.

The Constitution makes Congress the principal federal lawmaker. But for a variety of reasons, including partisan gridlock, Congress increasingly fails to keep up with the challenges facing our society. Power has inevitably shifted to the executive branch agencies that interpret laws already on the books and to the courts that review the agencies’ interpretations.

Since the Supreme Court’s 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council , this judicial review has been highly courts must uphold agency interpretations of unclear laws as long as these interpretations are “reasonable.” But the Chevron doctrine faces backlash from constitutional scholars and, now, from Supreme Court justices who insist that courts, not administrative agencies, have the authority to say what the law is. Critics of the administrative state also charge that Chevron deference enables unaccountable bureaucratic power. Thomas Merrill reviews the history and immense consequences of the Chevron doctrine and suggests a way forward. Recognizing that Congress cannot help relying on agencies to carry out laws, Merrill rejects the notion of discarding the administrative state. Instead, he focuses on what should be the proper relationship between agencies and courts in interpreting laws, given the strengths and weaknesses of these institutions. Courts are better at enforcing the rule of law and constitutional values; agencies have more policy expertise and receive more public input. And, unlike courts, agencies are subject to at least some political discipline.

The best solution, Merrill suggests, is not of the either-or variety. Neither executive agencies nor courts alone should pick up the slack of our increasingly ineffectual legislature.

Genres: Law, Nonfiction, Politics, History

368 pages, Hardcover

Published May 17, 2022

Reviews

[David Wineberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's no secret that the United States has become a bureaucratic nightmare. What most do not know is that there is a whole Administrative complex in government that burdens the courts while it pains commerce and industry. In The Chevron Doctrine, Thomas Merrill examines one Supreme Court decision that symbolizes all that is difficult in administrative law, if not what is completely wrong with it.

When a government agency tells a corporation it must change its ways (for reasons of safety, equality, pollution and so on), the firm's first inclination is to sue the agency. This provides endless work for the DC Circuit Court, which handles little else. The arguments are academic, meaning whoever loses will likely appeal to the Supreme Court (SCOTUS), helping reduce the number of other kinds of cases it can take on during its ever-shrinking term. Almost all cases SCOTUS agrees to hear are corporate or government, not individual.

One such case was Chevron Corporation versus the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the 1980s. The whole lawsuit was over the term "stationary source" (of pollution). Chevron said it referred to the whole plant, while the EPA looked at all the sources within the plant. Not only do the Justices have to go back through all the relevant older cases for precedents, but they also have to look at the legislative record, what Congress set out for this new agency, and if the agency was within its rights to make such policy. And we haven't even approached whether the policy was right or wrong.

In the Chevron case, Justice John Paul Stevens hit upon an elegant solution, though he didn't know it at the time. He said first the Court needed to know if the agency was properly set up by Congress to make such policy. If so, the Court should simply defer to the agency, because that was where all the expertise and history lay. Also, the properly enabled agency reported to the president, so it wasn't a rogue action or player. Therefore the Court should keep out of it. If it didn't have its legislative ducks in a row, step two was to answer the question - was its action reasonable. SCOTUS was unanimous in agreeing to Stevens' majority opinion.

Then a funny thing happened. The lower courts started using this Chevron decision, now Doctrine, themselves. It had everything going for it. It was simple and elegant. It made judges' lives much easier. For once, there was actual direction from the highest court. Employing the Chevron Doctrine meant fewer of their decisions would be appealed and overturned. In the 35 years since, it has been employed over a hundred times, Merrill discovered.

But it has been a rough ride. Lawyers attacked it, as only lawyers can. What does reasonable mean? What does clear (as in the enabling legislation) mean? What are the degrees of deference to the agency, and how was that range determined? What does respect for the agency's work mean? How much judicial agreement is to be expected from this so-called respect?

It got so bad that the elegant two step process got saddled with a third step - step zero. It was no longer elegant. Then, the prejudices of the Justices came into play. When Antonin Scalia was appointed to SCOTUS, he actually held that Stevens' specifications on how the Chevron Doctrine would work were wrong. Not that Scalia wanted to undo it. Quite the contrary. He was so enamored of it he wanted it enshrined as the only way to judge these cases. Just three years after Stevens' opinion, Scalia was calling it the traditional solution. But when he got to the top, he claimed Stevens was wrong.

Scalia was nothing if not inconsistent. One never knew what his opinion would be, contradicting himself, attacking other Justices, rewriting history, or insisting on his way again and again endlessly, despite no other Justices ever supporting his position in case after case.

New SCOTUS Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are skeptics of the Chevron Doctrine, which doesn't help speed things along. Stevens came to think he was wrong about the whole thing. Justice Thomas too. Politics and personalities took over from "saying what the law is," the longstanding mission of the Court. Conservative-leaning judges tend to be against agencies regardless. They want less government at whatever cost, including the intent of Congress. And will twist the facts to make it so. This was a Scalia specialty.

The legal maneuverings, the microscopic examination of single words and the battle of the precedents makes some SCOTUS decisions unfathomable. Merrill says: "The Court, in an opinion by Justice Scalia, would later make explicit the theory that ambiguity constitutes an implicit delegation (of powers). Grounding deference in theory of implicit delegation based on ambiguity - which even Chevron proponents concede is a fiction - creates a very large puzzle," to put it diplomatically. So you can have your cake and eat it too in this Red Queen world of SCOTUS.

There is, unfortunately, a real need for these legal processes, and a need for them to work smoothly and sensibly. For example, SCOTUS has ruled that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not have the right to regulate smoking tobacco, because it didn't specifically say so in its enabling legislation. This gave Big Tobacco a Get Out of Jail Free card that was valid for decades while its customers kept dying in ever greater numbers. Then just this year, SCOTUS ruled that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) did not have the right to implement rules on occupational safety and health in the workplace when it came to the COVID-19 pandemic, because the legislation that created OSHA somehow never mentioned a COVID pandemic. The agency's very name was apparently not considered a valid clue.

And then consider, as Merrill does, overseas offices of American companies. If an American transfers to an overseas office of the firm, do American benefits for its employees follow? Does the company get away with providing nothing? Congress did not specify this situation in enabling legislation, so it's up to the courts as to whether or not this is reasonable.

In other words, the need is real.

Any reader who didn't already get lost in the weeds would quickly see the solution to all this nonsense. When Congress creates a new agency, it must include its powers and range prominently, so even a SCOTUS Justice can find it. So for example, the (non-existent) Climate Change Administration would be empowered to regulate, limit or ban any substance that could have an adverse effect on the air, soil, water, or living being, or any combination thereof. The mandate would be domestic or overseas for any business in America or any American business with a nexus overseas. So even if someone sues, the Justices could point to the legislation to say sorry, but this is a lock. This agency is well within its powers to stop the use of this artificial chemical compound.

Just that move would free up endless capacity in the courts.

There is a law, the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) of 1946, that sets out rules of engagement. But it doesn't nearly cover the complexities of life today, including the gridlock in Congress. And it provides no reliable solution to all the lawsuits over jurisdiction and powers of agencies. For the purposes of this book the most important clause is §706. This directs courts to reject agency actions when they exceed their delegated authority. This is why everyone sues.

And there's another problem. Merrill says the business of delegation is settled. He has to say this because the Constitution says Congress does not have right to delegate its powers, which it does every time it creates a new agency. Instead of making the rules as required, it charges the agency with making the rules for itself, because Congress is dysfunctional and couldn't possibly do this. But it's illegal. And these agency-made rules then act as enforceable laws, which only Congress can create, at least according to the Constitution. Instead, Americans are enduring a fourth branch - the Administrative Branch - unrecognized in the Constitution.

The self-enabling of agencies has been going on so long, lawyers like Merrill think it is settled, without amending the Constitution, which is what needs to happen for this to be legal. The way Administrative law works is therefore completely unconstitutional, as other authors have posited and continue to claim. From my reading, it is not in any way settled. Is it any wonder firms keeping suing over it? They might win an OSHA-like decision if Neil Gorsuch has his way.

This, by the way, is nothing new. For 150 years, governments at all levels have operated as if the Civil War amendments did not exist. Equality, equal treatment and all the other facets of these amendments were an inconvenience that could be safely and totally ignored, even by SCOTUS. The US Constitution is not so much a guiding light as a lunch menu

The Chevron Doctrine is an autopsy. It slices and dices every conceivable aspect of the case and the doctrine. It examines in detail the four legal values it addresses, or at least which it needed to address. And how thoroughly the process and the decision took them on. There are also six values/concepts for a successor doctrine that would operate more consistently smoothly than the Chevron Doctrine does today. And there are endless cases where the doctrine was applied, and how they differed, often in ways invisible to the untrained eye. It is, in a word, everything.

The book suffers from being painfully dry and flat. Merrill adds no color to anything. He shows no attitude or emotion. At the extreme, he approves or disapproves of some court decision. I'm sure he's quite proud of his use of language that is careful to the point of being unimpeachable. But if I didn't know better, I would have guessed the whole book was machine-generated. It's a hard read.

David Wineberg

[Sebastian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Federal administrative agencies like the FDA, FTC, Federal Reserve, and EPA create and adjudicate adherence to rules that impact every facet of American life. But in spite of their relative importance, no mention of these agencies is to be found in the US Constitution.

"That's troubling," you might say, "but I'd imagine the scope of their responsibilities and powers is well-defined by statute, right?"

That would be a logical thing to think -- but it would also be wrong. Congress has declined to speak authoritatively on the scope of agency powers that stem from legislative delegation. There is only a thin body of relevant statute (e.g. Administrative Procedure Act of 1946). In its place we have but an ongoing saga of Supreme Court cases, starting as early as the 1940s, that in its totality paints a picture of what agencies can and cannot do.

The Chrevron Doctrine is both a history of administrative powers as defined by the Supreme Court, exposition on merits and flaws of our current approach, and speculation on a possible future. It is quite dry but also illuminating, shocking in some parts, and occaisionally entertaining. It decidedly will not be a book for everyone. I came away with a much better feel for how we as a country have ended up where we are.

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It isn't clear how many federal agencies there are in the United States, but as of 2022 the answer is probably north of 400. With names like the FDA, SEC, and Federal Reserve, you probably know a fair number of them. They are important institutions that affect you every day if you live in the US (and probably if you live outside the US too).

In most cases, Congress authorizes the creation of new agencies and outlines their scope of responsibilities at a high level in statute -- to e.g. regulate the emissions of ozone-depleting chemicals (as the Clean Air Act of 1963 offers to the EPA). But what levels of each pollutant are acceptable? On what timeline? Should we regulate at the level of states, counties, factories, or smokestacks? What are penalties for not meeting code? These are all implicitly delegated to the agency (***). As you can imagine, if Congress had to pass a new law every time we wanted to tweak emissions rules that would add up to a lot of little bills. And it isn't clear Congress is especially well-versed in the ins and outs of industrial pollutants.

(***)
Can Congress can just give power away like that?

In practice, yes. The Supreme Court has generally held that "delegation is permissible as long as the statute lays down an "intelligible principle" for the agency to follow" [21]. It's totally valid to write a law instructing an agency to establish e.g. "just and reasonable rates" for train transport, and e.g. "feasible" work safety standards. (Merrill also mentions that "many Supreme Court opinions ... state flatly that the legislative power given to Congress in Article I of the Consitution cannot be delegated" [21], so, good luck finding out what is truly permissible.)
(***)

But issues emerge when we begin to examine the limits of these vaguely-delegated authorities. What if there's a dispute over what chemicals are actually ozone-depleting, or the concentrations that matter, or groups that have a claim to be exempt from rules and so forth? What if the EPA abused its authority to destroy a private company or favor another? What if an agency flip flops on standards right after a facility invests in an expensive new filter? Can EPA regulate cars and waste dumps and gas grills as well as industrial sites? You can begin to see that this approach also creates ample opportunity for legal challenges against agencies on the basis of how their rulemaking comports with statute, the Constitution, and common sense.

In the late 1930s, the size and scope of the federal government greatly expanded and FDR made dozens of new contributions to the federal alphabet soup that exists in 2022 [37]. Against this backdrop, the first major Supreme Court rulings on the scope of administrative agency powers began to emerge in the 1940s:
- Hearst, where the National Labor Relations Board and Hearst Publications argued over whether paperboys were defined as "employees" (term referenced in statute, interpreted by NLRB), which would entitle them to collective bargaining rights; [39]
- Skidmore, which raised the question of on-call firefighters' eligibility for overtime pay as determined by the Department of Labor based on statutory authority derived from the Fair Labor Standards Act. [43]

The Supreme Court found that in each case, the relevant agency had the authority to interpret statute and determine e.g. who counts as an "employee", or if on-call time counts towards "overtime" as referenced in governing statute. The SJC set a precedent of deference on these interpretation questions, and in Skidmore, further suggested that deference to agency interpretation should apply when agency reasoning is "persuasive", with some weight also given to rule of law values [i.e. keep longstanding rules in place]. [53]

Supreme Court rulings like Hearst and Skidmore lack the authority and weight of legislative action. Recognizing this, and with many Republicans wary of administrative overreach under these relatively ill-defined standards (i.e. "persuasive"), Congress passed the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 (APA). The APA created processes and transparency rules like notice and comment procedures and the Federal Register. Relevant to this story, it also enshrined some thinking on administrative scope that is less deferential to agencies and hands more authority to courts. (Section 706: “the reviewing court shall decide all relevant questions of law.”)

But REMARKABLY, two activist law professors who had served in the FDR administration (Walter Gellhorn of Columbia and Kenneth Culp Davis of Chicago) successfully executed a campaign to IGNORE the APA's deference language and emphasize the preceding case law instead in legal education: "The implicit message was that a statued enacted unanimously by Congress had nothing of significance to say about the court-agency relationship in interpreting statutes, and that students should devote themselves to pondering the ambiguities of Hearst" [49]. In practice, the APA provisions on deference standards were summarily ignored, preserving an opportunity for agencies to act expansively, relatively unchecked by the judiciary, and governed instead by the loose precedent in cases like Hearst and Skidmore.

In 1984, the Burger Court heard the eponymous Chevron USA, Inc v. Natural Resource Defense Council case. Like most cases about agency interpretation of statute since the 1940s, the majority opinion written by Justice Stevens is a long and careful analysis weighing many factors examined in preceding cases: did the agency interpretation overturn any long-settled expectations? Did it conflict with statute? Was it reasonable? Was it persuasive? But the majority opinion in Chevron also contains a two paragraph summary that conflicted with much of the opinion's own internal logic as well as most of the preceding SJC decisions. The summary offers a short two-part test to determine if an agency interpretation is entitled to deference from the courts:
(1) Did Congress speak to "the precise question at stake" in statute?
(2) Is the agency interpretation "reasonable?" [72-73]
If the answer to (1) is "no" and (2) is yes, then the instruction would be to defer -- in other words, "tie goes to the agency".

(Chevron in its majority opinion also includes a truly frightening paragraph that statute can also make "implicit" delegations of authority to agencies [74], which could in turn be used to arbitrarily expand upon explicit statutory authority. Findings of implicit rights and powers, as we have seen recently via Dobbs, can be controversial.)

In any event, Chevron wasn't considered terribly important until the DC Circuit found this two-step summary in the months after the ruling. For reasons that aren't entirely known (favoring simplicity and clarity in administrative law cases?) Carter-appointee Judge Patricia Wald began referencing the two-step summary doctrine from Chevron in various decisions, "treating it as having established a new standard of review for assessing agency interpretations of law" [84]. Somehow, what was essentially a drafting error by Justice Stevens was starting to take a life of its own.

When Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court in 1986 from the DC Circuit, he began enforcing the Chevron review standard at the SJC level. Like Wald, it's tough to pinpoint why Scalia made this particular decision. Was it simply consistency after growing up on the DC Circuit? Some other, principled reason? This whole sequence of events is made even more complex because the twin proponents of the doctrine come from polar opposite political orientations. [99, 119] But as is often the case, truth here is stanger than fiction.

With Stevens laying down the kindling, Patricia Wald igniting the fire, and Scalia dousing the flame in lighter fluid, the administrative agencies were off to the races and haven't yet had to look back.

The balance of the book reviews some key cases decided on the basis of Chevron, as well as some key cases that further elaborate the doctrine.

United States v. Mead Corp. is an important 2001 case and appears to be the only one thus far to significantly modify the Chevron approach. Without getting in to the details, Mead implements a "step 0" to the Chevron review process. If an agency rule or determination was made with notice and comment rulemaking then it is eligible for Chevron deference. If not, then the standard reverts to Skidmore deference. [143-4]

A set of cases later established and enshrined Auer doctrine, which extends deference to agencies' interpretation of their own regulations [160-1]. That is to say: if an agency writes an ambiguous rule, the tie goes to the agency and the judicial will defer to their expertise on interpretation.

Futher cases get in to other Chevron edge cases:
- Rules of the road for agency interpretations conflicting with the Constitution,
- Principles for resolving conflict with state laws (federalism),
- A requirement of "fair warning" for any regulatory changes that impact reliance interests.

--------

Chevron is truly a bizzare story. A drafting mistake from Justice Stevens snowballed into a massive transfer of power out from the legislative branch out to the unelected bureaucrats within our rapidly-proliferating administrative agencies.

I am told that most of the newest SJC appointees (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, etc) are no fans of Chevron -- or even the concept of delegation. I suppose the moral is that when major decisions are set in place by the judiciary, but should be decided democratically, they are liable to eventually be settled democratically.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's no way around the fact that it's an extremely dense overview of a small corner of administrative case law - when I talked with a lot of my lawyer friends, they were pretty surprised to hear I was reading it.

But as Eames told us, the details are not the details: they are the design. As someone interested in state capacity, technocracy, and governance, the core question of Chevron Deference is of fundamental interest. Who decides if six smoke stacks should be thought of as a bubble or six distinct individual apparatuses? Congress? The Courts? The EPA?

The Chevron decision was an accidental misreading of what seems to have been a rush-job by Stevens as the Supreme Court was getting ready for summer recess, the output of a very human process transformed by the DC Circuit Court, and later by Scalia, into a massive transfer of power from the courts and Congress to the unaccountable administrative deep state.

More than anything, this was a fascinating introduction to the reality of administrative law - the fact that ultimately, with the exception to the Administrative Procedures Act, passed in 1946, the basic balance of power between agencies is defined by a massive series of idiosyncratic cases, creating a complex web of legal structures which, especially since Chevron, have yielded a system that delegates most decision making to the agencies. I was reminded of one of my favorite movies, WALL-E - comfortable in their floating chairs and big gulp drinks, Congress has been lulled into complacency by agencies which are very comfortable making decisions.

Ultimately, the question isn't normative - it's procedural, and with the West Virginia decision, the court seems to have overturned this seemingly made-up precedent and returned us to the state of the world articulated in the original Chevron decision, one which necessitates hard and difficult work by judges rather than simply deferring to the appointed technocrats of the deep state.

[Frank Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has a narrow focus. It is entirely about the pre- and, especially, post-history of the Chevron doctrine in the U.S. Supreme Court (with a slight detour to the D.C. Court of Appeals in the 1980s.) There is nothing about the economic effects of regulation, or the political machinations that lead to regulations, or the internal structure of regulatory agencies. But the book more than demonstrates the value of its narrow focus, and shows how judges and lawyers should think about the administrative state and how judges should, or should not, defer to it.

As Merrill demonstrates, before the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946 the Supreme Court seemed, in decisions around the NLRB like Hearst and Packard Motor Company, but also the Social Security Board v. Nierotko, to defer to agencies on some "mixed questions of law and fact" but to decide "naked question[s] of law" on its own. But, after the APA, courts tended to base deference on how clear Congress was in its own delegation of power to agencies. Justice John Paul Stevens decision in Chevron v. NRDC in 1984 changed everything, much to the surprise of Stevens himself. In Chevron, Stevens overruled a DC circuit opinion by Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a case which was originally 4-3, but which came out unanimous when Stevens wrote two additional paragraphs that would seem to give agencies extremely expansive interpreting power, contrary to the thrust of the rest of his opinion, which was a detailed analysis of the legislative background of delegation to the EPA. The DC Circuit, including then DC Circuit judge Antonin Scalia, took the "Chevron doctrine" of extreme deference and ran with it to start upholding many agency interpretations. Scalia then brought this tendency to the Supreme Court, even though Justice Stevens, and later Justice Breyer, warred against this application of Chevron (in the Cardozo-Fonseca case Scalia dissented from Stevens's overruling of a INS interpretation of asylum claims by claiming that Stevens's own Chevron doctrine should have counseled deference.) In later years, the seeming simplicity of the Chevron doctrine led justices and judges to adopt the standard as a catchall for deference to agencies, even if, as in cases like Mead and FCC v. Arlington, the Court began to understand that outlining when such deference should be applied could be tricky in and of itself.

Merrill is no anti-administrative state ideologue, but he shows that Chevron overturns the legislative supremacy of Congress as is embodied in the Constitution (and Section 706 of the APA itself) and it prevents courts form giving weight to reliance interests when agencies keep changing their interpretations. The ultimate arbitrariness of Chevron's two steps (around, first, the "clarity" of the underlying law, second, and the "reasonableness" of agency interpretation of that law) creates exactly the judicial discretion many advocates of the Chevron doctrine claim to resent. Merrill suggests giving deference to agencies only if Congress clearly delegated rulemaking power and the agency has adhered to a long-standing version of that power, if there are no contradictory statutory limitations on that power, and if the agency uses notice-and-comment rulemaking. While that might not be my ideal version of a reformed "Chevron doctrine" (although, as Merrill shows, it's pretty close to Stevens's original conception of the Chevron case) it's one of the most coherent and workable versions I've seen.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Merrill's book "The Chevron Doctrine" provides a fascinating look into the history of one particular Supreme Court case from 1984: Chevron USA Inc vs Natural Resources Defense Council, which focuses on the issue of how courts should review and interpret decisions made by administrative agencies in the Executive branch. The book is a very well-researched account of Supreme Court jurisprudence before, during, and after this case, and in particular, on how what was a rather unassuming Supreme Court decision, become a hugely influential doctrine and standard of legal review. Merrill does a great job explaining the journey of this one Supreme Court case.

That having been said, this book is definitely not for everyone. It is, from beginning to end, a discourse in legal history with sometimes highly-technical legal language. However, you don't need to be an appellate attorney to like the book...I am not a lawyer, and I enjoyed the book. But to make things easier, I offer below my top five ways to know if you will enjoy this book:

1. If you have ever read a Supreme Court dissenting opinion, then you will like this book.
2. If you can name three Supreme Court cases that have been overruled, then you will like this book.
3. If you have ever uttered the words "Skidmore deference" at a cocktail party, then you will like this book.
4. If you read Scotusblog as your fun weekend activity, then you will like this book.
5. If you didn't want law school to end because you were having too much fun, then you will like this book.

This book is a very interesting read, but a challenging one as well. Approach with caution.

[Jack Townsend · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having spent an inordinate amount of time on Chevron and its trajectory (with many false turns), I was anxious to read Professor Merrill's book. I have read perhaps 10-20 of his law review articles, so I had an idea of what his overall theme would be. Given my familiarity with the topic and Professor Merrill's scholarship, I felt I could responsibly peruse (rather than read closely) some of the chapters, subtopics and many of the pages. I felt that perusal would be sufficient for important subjects to catch my eye. And I did bear in on many of the pages that I found particularly interesting. With due respect to Professor Merrill (who I do admire), I think many scholars (including him) and many judges have misdirected the trajectory of Chevron. In a nutshell, my difference with them is that I believe: (i) Chevron only applies to interpretive regulations (rather than legislative regulations in the APA sense); (ii) Chevron tests interpretations and not law making authority; (iii) still, if scholars and courts want to claim that Chevron applies only to legislative regulations, that is harmless if they then call legislative a regulation only interpreting the statute and then proceed to apply Chevron; and (iv) for APA purposes the interpretive regulation lives even if many have muddled the waters in deference context.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Professor Merrill said this book would help me get an A in LegReg. We will see on that front. Regardless, I enjoyed the read.

[feifei · Rating 3 out of 5]

loper bright v. raimondo: the future of the fishies and the administrative state i guess… US constitutional law is soooo funky but lowkey kind of fun