EP 640 Who Really Writes Our Laws: Congress or Executive Agencies?

The Constitution clearly states that Congress shall write our laws. But as the federal government grew larger and more complex, executive branch agencies were given more authority to bring greater definition to Congressional intent because of their expertise in a particular area. Even more power has shifted to those agencies as Congress fails to keep up with the challenges of a modern society. Clearly, courts remain arbiters of whether those same agencies have overstepped the Congressional authority granted to them. Since the Supreme Court’s 1984 decision in what is called the Chevron case, judicial review has been highly deferential and courts are left to uphold agency interpretations as long as they are determined to be “reasonable.” But now the Supreme Court is pushing back on the Chevron decision which has been THE most written about, most cited administrative law decision of all time. Columbia Law Professor Thomas Merrill joins us to discuss the influential thoughts he offers about the decision’s future in his book “The Chevron Doctrine: It’s Rise and Fall and the Future of the Administrative State.”

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