SCOTUS Wants to Kill the Administrative State
The right-wing Supreme Court continued to chip away at government agencies and regulations this term. Though the decisions present risks to some important policies, the attack on executive power need not jeopardize the Left’s major initiatives.
The US Supreme Court on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on June 26, 2024. (Craig Hudson / the Washington Post via Getty Images)
As the Supreme Court’s 2023–24 term comes to an end, we have been inundated with decisions on a bewildering variety of subjects. Some of the most controversial involved unprecedented questions, such as: Can a state ban a presidential candidate from the ballot under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment? (No.) Does a former president enjoy some legal immunity from prosecution related to “official acts” when he was in office? (Yes.) Can a local jurisdiction essentially criminalize homelessness? (Yes again.)
Yet beyond these unprecedented questions, this term also indicated — at least for now — a shift in which goals are being pursued by the conservative legal movement and how. In particular, the court stepped back from some of the “culture war” issues that it has ventured into in recent years and stepped deeper into more obscure but potentially more dangerous and consequential questions surrounding the regulatory powers of the federal government.
A Step Back From the “Culture War”
Since 2022, the Supreme Court has issued monumental decisions overturning the right to abortion guaranteed in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, expanding the Second Amendment right to carry concealed firearms, and invalidating the use of racial classifications in college admissions.
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