It's interesting how this court consistently rules to limit the power of government when it is acting against corporations but happily expands the power of government when it is being wielded against people.
What a great example. Only reason this did not happen is because the Supreme Court managed to call foul, belatedly though as it had. Can we always depend on Supreme Court doing the right thing and limiting the government’s overreach? The answer is, clearly no, as history gives plenty examples of SCOTUS rubber-stamping clear overreach. The best example is, I think, Wickard v. Filburn, which opened the floodgates, and gave the federal government powers that the writers of the constitutions would have never believed. There are more recent examples as well, for example Kelo v. City of New London, which ruled that government can kick you out of your home and give it to someone else, if it believes that it will create jobs and bring more tax revenues, even if it doesn’t end up happening.
Your citation doesn't entirely support your argument. The court said "[vast] economic and political significance." This seems like a power grab by the court because now they and they alone can decide what has "vast significance," not the legislature and not the executive.
This isn't such a case. The court is not basing its opinion on immediate outcomes. This isn't like them declaring something constitutionally protected so that people can begin doing it the next day. This is them saying that governments are able to regulate, but only via means dictated by the court. This isn't about returning power to the people. This is about shifting power between various branches of government. Some of those branches are more hamstrung than others. By moving power to a branch that is unable to use it (ie a legislature chronically unable to pass laws) the court asserts its own power as kingmaker.
This supreme court likely holds the opinion that Congress CANNOT delegate it's authority. IMO that's insane, but there are plenty of people who explicitly want that outcome, including the small subset of already rich and powerful people who actually benefit from a government that has to play dumb political games for every little detail of regulation instead of letting a standalone agency do it with express permission.
Others have said this using different words, but I'm going to chime in anyway. I don't think the courts will have more power. SCOTUS is saying that congress needs to actually make clearer (better?) use of its power by being more explicit when legislating (i.e. when writing laws) instead of relying on the executive branch agencies (for those unfamiliar with the US political structure, agencies like the FDA, EPA, etc. are executive branch agencies that, ultimately, report to whomever is the current US president) to interpret and in many cases read into the laws that congress has passed.
The more practical reality of this ruling is, I think, this: there is no world where this is a win for anyone who believes in a bigger US federal government. This is a huge win for those people who believe the power of the federal government should be limited. It's likely the biggest challenge to the size of the federal government in my lifetime and I've been alive for a good bit. The dysfunctional congress that the US currently has makes it a certainty that in the short term countless regulations will be unenforceable and therefore this will be a picnic for anyone who is anti-regulation (note Trump in the debate last night where he talked about scrapping regulation. In comparison to this decision, Trump's regulation-slashing will look like he shot a rifle in comparison to the shotgun SCOTUS just fired).
Last comment: this SCOTUS has made it clear that the federal government will be massively restrained. There are two avenues by which they've made this clear: first, they have ruled very aggressively in favor of state's rights (especially when it comes to social issues like abortion), and, second, with this Chevron ruling, federal agencies will not be able to make decisions unless there is explicit intent in the laws that congress passes.
I'm having an extremely difficult time wrapping my head around just how epic of a change this SCOTUS has brought to the way the US population is governed, at both the state and federal level. Hard to really comprehend the gravity of the coming change, which will take decades and decades to fully understand.
That's the way it's supposed to work. The Supreme Court isn't interested in whether a law is effective, just whether it exceeds Constitutional restrictions on power.
It's up to Congress to make sure things work, and if the court breaks something, Congress can often just rewrite things in a bit less heavy handed fashion and get things working again.
SCOTUS and the constitution act as limiting factors on the government's power, that does not disprove the general rule that government power tends to increase over time.
Essentially the US has been living under wartime powers since 1942. The Supreme Court vastly expanded the federal government’s powers during WWII, because it seemed like a good and necessary idea at the time to preserve the nation. Power once given cannot be taken away and that comical interpretation of the Commerce Clause stands relatively unscathed to this day.
Great move and perfect examples of the Court doing its job i.e. striking down Stupid laws that do not pass constitutional muster.
BUT The fact that this law WAS even on the books is blatant proof that Dollars buy Laws in the United states. I think this has gotten much more egregious since the citizens United Ruling. We are very much veering towards an Oligarchy.
There are powers that Congress does not have the power to designate.
For example, Congress cannot create a branch of government that can simply declare people to be guilty of crimes at-will without a fair trial.
But if corporations are people… and a fine isn’t that distinguishable from a crime…
(Edit: For the down voters, I don’t get it. This is an actual legal case and argument the SCOTUS is hearing, right now, called Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy. This doesn’t mean I agree with it.)
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