How do we start the weekend that book-ends one of our favorite holidays? The one we celebrate our Independence from foreign tyranny?

We were going to talk extensively about the end of the Decision Season at the SCOTUS this morning, but it is not yet over. One of the major cases- one involving the people who had the debate was postponed for release until Monday, and the curious results of the Debate overtook our limited attention span.

We will talk about the Chevron case tomorrow. It overturned forty years of the transfer of power from the Legislative branch to the executive, and one of the reasons this court and this court’s agenda were so combative. The impact is potentially huge on how things work in our nation.

So, we had intended to start with that enormous matte but are still feeling the reverberations of the stage show Thursday night.

The immediate reaction had been one of sympathy for the incumbent, who appeared lost and unfocused. The Messaging Streams immediately reflected lack of coordination on the legacy side, which one stream in legacy media radiating the idea that it was time for their candidate to step aside. Then there was some scrambling as former leaders chimed in.

Two ex-Presidents made announcements that is “too soon to tell” about that. The Vice President is apparently unhappy her elevation is not automatic. Two post-debate appearances by the incumbent showed apparently different dosages required to appropriately energize him.

At a Waffle House, he appeared ambulatory but uncommunicative. At a speaking performance in North Caroline, the energized, fist-pumping demeanor last shown at the State of the Union address was displayed.

If this was a business leader, the share-holders would likely be nervous. As taxpayers, we feel considerable unease. So, that is a snapshot of a moment in the endless campaign. Those used to start with the Conventions, at least the public parts, and now they seem eternal in duration.

We wondered at the Production Meeting whether the timing of the release of the Court Decisions was deliberately timed to be in the background of the Debate, whatever the consequences might have been. An attempt to keep the bench out of the spotlight of Messaging that has savaged spouses and flags and travel of the Justices.

There was a huge one released in the immediate aftermath of the debate. It is called “Chevron,” and it may be the most significant of this year, campaigns notwithstanding. Still to come are decisions on laws in Texas and Florida regulating social media giants, one regarding the statute of limitations for challenging regulation, and one directly affecting one of the Candidates. So, more to come in a momentous Decision Season that dramatizes the dynamics in a three-way division of power.

We are going to devote this Saturday to relaxing and chatting about the slew of these decisions on lower court verdicts that determine where our judicial system is going. Those include the status of the homeless camping out in our parks, the status of protestors arrested on 6Jan, and whether one of the candidates has immunity in a current dispute that could have him in prison by election day. So, there is a lot of emotion flying across the flatscreen.

But the Chevron verdict appears to be far more significant than the overturning of Roe V. Wade two years ago. In a vote of 6–3, Chief Justice Roberts announced the overturn of the Chevron ‘deference doctrine.’ It was established in a decision in 1984 (?!?) which established a judicial doctrine in which judges permitted broad interpretation of laws passed in Congress deemed ‘unclear’ in intent. The decision held that Experts in the Government could make those determination at their desks and issue regulations punishable by other laws with extreme but variable in application.

Like the Wade decision that found a Constitutional right to the termination of pregnancy, critics complain Chevron permitted an explosive growth of the U.S. government in matters ranging from the environment to Title IX Sports.

The shorthand version? The new decision will make it more difficult for unelected government officials to generate new regulations. Someone in the White House, we are not sure whom, denounced the new ruling as “yet another deeply troubling decision that takes our country backwards.”

We will try to dig into this and get some more perspective on what it actually means and the possible consequences of what the Court has done on a Sunday morning. That discussion is probably best undertaken on a holy day, you know?

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com