The U.S. Supreme Court Reining in Regulatory Agencies: Implications for the Imperial Presidency

In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 28, 2024, a majority of the justices overruled Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which had been the precedent giving regulatory agencies considerable discretion in coming up with specific regulations, given the penchant of the Congress to write vague laws. In the overturning case, a group of fishermen had objected to having to pay for government observers to board the fishing boats to monitor the fishing. On the merits, it does seem unfair for regulatory agencies to charge the regulated to be regulated. In overturning Chevron, however, Loper has much broader implications, chief among them being in terms of separation of powers—specifically in reining in the expanding power of the executive branch, here at the expense of the judiciary.   

The full essay is at "The U.S. Supreme Court on Regulatory Agencies."

On the E.U.’s Principle of Unanimity: The Case of Hungary

As of 2024, enlargement policy, foreign affairs, taxation, and the budget was “bound by the principle of unanimity,” which means that each state government has a veto in the European Council.[1] With 27 states, the E.U. could in effect be held hostage quite easily. Even in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the state of Hungary was blocking €55 billion in E.U. aid to Ukraine as of June 24, 2024, although revenue from frozen Russian financial assets in the E.U. could be used (because Hungary had not participated in the G7 decision) and Hungary had just reversed its veto against further sanctions against Russia. However, the €1.4 billion from the investment revenue pales in comparison and sanctions do not deliver desperately needed military hardware to the besieged country.

The full essay is at "The E.U.'s Principle of Unanimity."

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “Ukraine Heading for Accession Impasse during Hungary’s EU Council Presidency,” Euronews, June 18, 2024.

On the U.S. Government’s Budget Deficits and Debt: American Democracy Unhinged

It is true that a government’s budget can be read as a blueprint of priorities in terms of what is valued, and what is not so highly valued. The blueprint itself, as a whole, also evinces a priority in terms of values. As the big-ticket items, such as large spending categories and massive tax-cuts, get the most attention, whether a budget is in balance can go by the wayside, and what that says about the electorate (and thus the state of democracy) can easily be missed. Ultimately, public policy and even the votes of the elected representatives point back to the popular sovereign, the People—more specifically, the electorate, and its values. By 2024, the deficit and accumulated debt of the U.S. Government had reached such gigantic numbers that something could be said to be amiss concerning those values. The underlying culprit, which can be said to be an illness that is human, all too human, had by then infected American democracy beyond the wherewithal of virtually any elected federal representative to enunciate well enough that the electorate could look clearly at itself, and thus size itself up beyond the partial diagnoses that can be found in partisan attacks.

The full essay is at "U.S. Government Deficits and Debt."