Dear John,
The phrase “Administrative State” long ago entered common parlance in the conservative world. It is shorthand for the many millions of unelected bureaucrats that make up our federal agencies, those men and women who rule—and ruin—the lives of ordinary Americans with each regulatory stroke of their pens.
The Claremont Institute spotted and took seriously the dangers of the administrative state nearly half a century ago when we first formed. That the administrative state is taken seriously as a threat today is thanks to our work.
In 1984, five years after our founding, the Supreme Court ruled on Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council. This landmark case would empower the federal bureaucracy with near-tyrannical power.
In effect—and in result—the court granted judicial deference to administrative agencies in cases of ambiguous Congressional statutes. Since that time, federal bureaucrats have taken this interpretive latitude and run roughshod over the American public.
But Claremont’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence (CCJ) never stopped fighting. And today we were vindicated, as just a few hours ago the Supreme Court, in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, overturned (6-3) the Chevron ruling.
In our amicus brief to the court, we argued, as we have since the beginning, that the Founding Fathers intended a system of checks and balances. The administrative state is an obvious threat to this system. It leaps over—purposely—judicial review.
Whether Congress has improperly delegated lawmaking to a federal agency, or the executive branch has usurped Congressional authority is moot under Chevron.
James Madison famously called the concentration of executive, legislative, and judicial power in one body "the very definition of tyranny." For decades, the administrative state was lawmaker, judge, jury, and executioner, all rolled up into one. But no more.
I am enormously proud of my CCJ colleagues, John Eastman and Tom Caso, and I am proud of the intellectual and practical work many at Claremont did in the past to set up this victory.
As always, the fight continues.
Yours,
