When a statute is ambiguous the tie should go to the citizen not the government

https://reason.com/2024/03/07/scotus-takes-on-federal-regulators/

by delichon • 2 years ago

47 11 2 years ago

bell-cot• 2 years ago

In practice, the Chevron deference undermined the Court's independence, since it forced courts to just accept executive branch interpretations in many tough cases.
The doctrine also creates perverse incentives for the other two branches. For example, by giving deference to agencies in ambiguous cases, it gave executive branch regulators incentive to hunt for ambiguities in order to expand their own power. This led to decades of executive overreach, as administrations used convoluted readings of statutes to pursue agendas Congress never imagined.

Reaction I: Does Reason magazine consider a corporation to be a citizen?

Reaction II: Do they envision Congress feeling any inclination to write less-ambiguous laws, to preserve their own power?*

Reaction III: With the size of the Federal law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_...), and the massive overhead of deciding even trivial matters via the Federal Courts - just how many hundred hours per week is Reason thinking that the average Federal Judge should be working, to keep up?

*Yes, part of me says "The only power that Congress cares about is their ability to extract political donations. And so long as the last donation check has clear the bank before the first legal challenge to the Incomprehensible Blather Act of 2024 is heard by a judge..."

Gunax• 2 years ago

I think it's pretty much impossible to write unambiguous laws. That's just reality.

Congress are already criticized for writing laws which are too long.

But there is a conflict here between writing laws which are unambiguous and laws which are easy to understand.

Also, I don't know that corporate citizenship matters in this case.

serevi• 2 years ago

Opinion devoid of evidence.

klyrs• 2 years ago

Standard fare for reason.com

wmf• 2 years ago

Isn't there precedent in common law that ambiguity in contracts should be interpreted in favor of the party that didn't write the contract? Reason is making essentially the same argument here but for laws.

adbachman• 2 years ago

I like the, "if you slice, your sister gets to pick first" energy.

olliej2• 2 years ago

Can’t speak for common law but as I understand it international law has settled on “the version of a treaty written in the native tongue is the definitive text”, so that might be equivalent?

CogitoCogito• 2 years ago

What is the “native tongue” of a treaty written my two countries with no common native tongue?

cvalka• 2 years ago

The rule of leniency

lern_too_spel• 2 years ago

In prosecuting certain citizens, the government is acting for the benefit of all citizens, so Suderman's sloppy argument is actually for the Chevron deference.

The regulators can't argue that an ambiguous statute applies just because they dislike the defendants. They are required to show that the ambiguous statute applies because it is for the public benefit that the statute was originally written for.

When a statute is ambiguous the tie should go to the citizen not the government

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