Deference to Chevron

The Supreme Court gutted executive power right as conservatives are on the brink of winning the presidency.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to overturn the doctrine of Chevron Deference last Friday. The doctrine, first implemented by the court in 1984, granted federal agencies broad powers to interpret laws that lacked specificity from Congress. The decision Friday transferred significant power from the executive branch to the judiciary — not Congress, as some may believe.

As expected, conservatives cheered the decision as a victory for “small government” against the ostensible abuses of the administrative state. On the left, the reaction was far more negative. Most lamented that the Biden administration could no longer use the bureaucracy to push for progressive policies on issues such as housing and climate change.

The Supreme Court gutted executive power right as conservatives are on the brink of winning the executive branch, kneecapping the second Trump administration before it even begins. Underlying the core of the court’s decision — and the right’s unabashed championing of it — is an aversion to the use of political power that has allowed the left to viciously impose its cultural project onto our country via the administrative state.

Over the last few decades, there is no doubt that the left has weaponized the bureaucracy to push its agenda. This strategy has come through the form of DEI policies, electric vehicle mandates, weakening immigration enforcement, and even the attempted imprisonment of political opponents. Yet, the fact that the left has used the administrative state for immoral ends does not necessarily mean the institution should be powerless itself or not used by conservatives for moral ends.

In fact, the left’s success actually demonstrates how effective of a tool it could be in finally gaining some influence over American culture. A second Trump administration must include a coordinated effort to fill the bureaucracy with conservatives and pushing through political change. An effective, right-wing administrative state would be instrumental in ushering in a positive agenda that promotes the family, Christian values, social order — and halts the excesses of the left. 

In overturning Chevron Deference, the Supreme Court has undermined a once-in-a-generation opportunity for conservative political change. While the decision will be useful in the short-term, the long-term implications are clear. Some on the right are making the argument that the decision hurts both sides equally, as a future Democratic president would also be similarly restrained by the court’s ruling.

Even if this were true, which it likely is not (see Biden ignoring the Supreme Court on student loans), the left ultimately has other sources of power it can fall back on. Progressives control the media, academia, and most of corporate America — institutions that are far less responsive to public opinion than the White House. The bureaucracy is not just the best avenue for conservatives to influence the culture, but it may be the only one. While we wish that Congress did make our laws, it is simply not how our regime operates right now.

In the face of left-wing institutional dominance, the right has continually adopted a posture of political surrender. In the same vein of calling to “abolish the FBI” or “localize the Department of Education,” conservatives now cheer the surrender of executive power to another unelected, institutionalist class — judges. And who's to say these judges will rule in our favor?

The result of these strategies has been decades of docility against left-wing political advances and a collapse in conservative cultural relevance. The Supreme Court may have gutted Chevron Deference, but the real deference the right must rid itself of is that to moronic libertarian dogma that has subverted both the conservative movement and this country.

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