Critical Supreme Court Decision Under The Radar

by Stuart Shapiro

With high profile decisions on affirmative action and gay marriage coming in the weeks ahead, many missed an important Supreme Court decision last week.  The decision was a big victory for President Obama (and written by Justice Scalia no less!).  Cass Sunstein explains:

The underlying question was this: If a law is ambiguous, who gets to interpret it? Federal judges or the agency that carries it out? Who interprets the crucial ambiguities in the Affordable Care Act, the Clean Air Act or the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act?

The divisions within the court defied the usual ideological predictions. In a powerful and convincing opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court’s majority ruled that even when the agency is deciding on the scope of its own authority, it has the power to interpret ambiguities in the law. Scalia was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas.

The decision empowers regulatory agencies at the expense of the court.  It also is a warning to Congress to write clearer laws so that these ambiguities don’t exist.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.