The Supreme Court and the spirit of independence: How the Supreme Court can restore constitutional checks and balances
When it comes to celebrating the day that our Founding Fathers declared independence from Great Britain in 1776, our nation’s second president, John Adams, told his wife Abigail:
It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
While he was referring to July 2 (the day the Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence from Great Britain), the U.S. today undoubtedly lives up to these words during its celebration of Independence Day on July 4 (the day the Continental Congress approved and sent for printing the Declaration of Independence).
How did I celebrate this year? Well, while I didn’t take in any “shews,” I did watch my kids in the local parade (an annual tradition), and I may have partaken of games and sports and a bit of pomp.
Most importantly, I want to believe that President John Adams would have been most proud of two pieces I published about recent Supreme Court decisions with important implications for our constitutional freedoms.
Since I hope you had the chance to log off over the holiday week and spend your time strolling a parade, not scrolling the news, braving fireworks, and not braving social media, I’m sharing them with you here.
On July 2, I wrote for the Washington Examiner about the Supreme Court’s decision to end Chevron deference.
As James mentioned in the last newsletter, this was an incredible win for the fishermen and for my colleagues and friends who litigated the cases.
Here are some key takeaways:
But it was, in fact, the government that made this case about Chevron, not the other way around. Critics say the decision will create regulatory instability, but, like the fishermen, farmers have decried the “messy effects and uncertainty” created by Chevron. And if you’re concerned about defending our democratic republic, taking decisions out of the hands of elected officials and placing them in the hands of unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats is a strange way to show it.
The Supreme Court is simply restoring the checks and balances system vital to our democracy. It reaffirms that government agencies cannot rewrite or reinterpret the rules, almost always in a way that expands government power while burdening everyone else. Lawmaking is the responsibility of Congress, and interpreting the law is the responsibility of the judiciary, not the executive branch.
This week marks the beginning of the post-Chevron era. Now comes the hard part. Congress must do its duty rather than kick the can back to the agencies or the courts. That means clearer laws, more specificity, and more compromise. It also means we the people must take up our responsibility to hold members of Congress accountable for their job of lawmaking and elect those who are up to the task.
Read more.
And the next day, I wrote at The Hill about the Supreme Court decision in online speech case Murthy v. Missouri:
The court passed on the opportunity to order the bureaucrats to comply with the First Amendment. But both the court and Congress can still protect not only our First Amendment rights, but all our other freedoms by reining in the power of unelected bureaucrats to use the coercive power of government against the people it is supposed to serve. It’s for the court and Congress to rein in the bureaucrats.
Return the responsibility where it belongs — to federal lawmakers, as well as to the state and local elected officials closer to the people. And then when they get it wrong and seek to censor our speech, the American people can hold them accountable at the ballot box.
The lesson of Murthy v. Missouri and the Supreme Court’s decision is not that First Amendment rights are not threatened by government coercion of social media platforms. They are. But the solution is larger than free speech rights, as much as it pains me to say it as a First Amendment attorney. Censorship is only the symptom. The root cause is government overreach. The real solution to a problem as large as a censorial pressure campaign by the federal bureaucracy is to rein in the power of the federal bureaucrats.
Read more.
Have any questions? Let me know at freespeech@afphq.org!
— Casey Mattox
