Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Supreme Court’s MAJOR RULING just BACKFIRED MASSIVELY

Episode Date: July 12, 2024

The Supreme Court may have thought they were helping MAGA federalists by trying to dismantle administrative agencies that touch the lives of every American to try to give even more power to the presidency. Michael Popok of Legal AF explains that it will backfire and have the opposite effect, allowing all socially progressive groups to go to their local federal judge and seek to overturn right-wing policies, procedures, and requirements that always favored big industry over the people. For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to https://3DayBlinds.com/LEGALAF Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Join the Legal AF Patreon: https://Patreon.com/LegalAF Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. This is Michael Popak, Legal AF, the United States Supreme Court, Super Right Wing Majority, just screwed themselves, as we like to say around here on Legal AF, because they decided they needed, as an article of faith for their Federalist credentials, to throw out something that's been up their backside for the last 50 years, a decision called Chevron, which touches

every one of our lives one way or the other for the 50 years it was on the books. You may not have known what it was. You may not have known what the Chevron deference was that federal judges were required to give to each agency and cabinet in the federal government and its technical experts about rules and regulations that they promulgated. Congress passes big acts. The Clean Water Act, the Education Act, a voting act, something about Medicare, healthcare providing, labor, employment, big acts. And then up until two weeks ago, they deferred to their agencies and there are a number of

agencies, some where I've seen totals as much as 438 agencies and sub-agencies of the United States government, 137 executive agencies, right? Things like the Department of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Health and Interior, Labor, State, you know, you name it, urban redevelopment. It touches every one of our lives. Social Security, Medicare, you name it.

And what these agencies were doing since 1984 until about two weeks ago, is that when it wasn't that clear, or even sometimes when it was very clear, crystal clear in a congressional act, like let's take the clean water bill. Clean water bill says that the purpose is to eliminate all water pollution or air pollution by 1985. Okay,

that didn't happen. And one of the major reasons it didn't happen is because every time Republicans and the GOP get into the presidency and appoint executive agency positions, they always put some sort of industry person, they put a coal miner, a coal mine owner as the head of the EPA, right? They put all of the people who were once regulated by that industry that can't wait to get in there, hollow out the agency, hollow out its regulations and water down everything, no pun intended. And that happens every time. And yes, if there's a Democrat in between and it's one or two terms, they're able to sort of reverse course,

but it takes a long time. And the reality is that agencies, because of civil servants and the appointments by Republicans, starting with even Reagan, all the way forward, Reagan, double Bushes, and Trump, the result has been a relatively very right wing set of executive action that actually undermines

the very purpose of the congressional acts that have been passed. We don't have clean water and clean air since 1985, and that's because the agencies have been headed for a lot of that period by the right, I almost said MAGA, pre-MAGA right wing. Now the Supreme Court, led by MAGA right wing, have thrown away Chevron, which basically said, defer to agency expertise. Each one of these 450 agencies have experts who do the rulemaking. Now it used to be that the rulemaking,

which was promulgated under something called the Administrative Procedures Act, which is approved by Congress, Congress was fine with it. They can't sit, they can barely write a piece of legislation. You think they can then think through at the moment, all of the sub parts and sub regulations that need to be promulgated in order to give life and to effectuate the policies that they've just initiated? The answer to that is no. They've

always referred to agency expertise. But again, remember the premise of this hot take, the agency expertise has always been generally been in the hands of right right wing industry former industry executives again look outside and look at your look at your your waterways in your town there's a reason they're still polluted since the 1980s now that the Supreme Court led by Justice Robertson of all things Justice Gorsuch whose mother and, Ann Gorsuch, was the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, right, who got Chevron passed under the Reagan administration back in 1984 before the United States Supreme Court, which was a huge win against environmental protection, even though she was the head of environmental protection. But to Gorsuch, who's now completely taken the red or blue pill and is always now sides with the

Mago Wright, with Alito and Thomas, get rid of it! Get rid of mom's old rule! And now what's the result? The result is that environmentalists and people that care about all types of regulation, commerce, education, healthcare, energy, interior, you name it, can now say to a federal judge, ignore the expertise of that agency and the rulemaking of that agency. Just look at the act that was passed by Congress and see if on its paper, on its face, those rules successfully implement

that act. The act is clear. If the act is clear on its face, the United States Supreme Court just said in its recent ruling, you never get to agency deference and you should never defer federal judges. That's your job. You interpret the law. That's what they said. So how do you use it to your advantage? If you've hated all of these ridiculous watered down

regulations that did nothing to provide the benefits that the Congressional Act was supposed to address. Well then you say, judge, you don't get to look at the deference of these agencies anymore. Who cares what the executive director of the Environmental Protection Agency says under Trump? Who cares? You judge, hopefully a Obama, Biden, Clinton appointee. You judge. Look at this anew and you issue a nationwide ban on something because it's not consistent with the congressional position expressed in their act. Look at my recording studio.

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So let me boil it down for you. It was an article of faith when the federalists on the Supreme Court got the numbers and they have it now six to three, that they were gonna do a number of things. First, they hated the right to an abortion. They were always going to get rid of Roe v. Wade, and they did it in the Dobbs decision two years ago.

That's one. Two, expand exponentially Second Amendment gun rights in this country. That is also an article of federalism. Czech did that in a case involving the New York Rifle Association also two years ago, Czech. And the third leg of the stool holding up federalism is destroy the administrative state.

It's grown too big. We believe in the unitary executive branch, seems a little inconsistent. We believe in an imperial president and we don't want anything chipping away at his powers like independent executive agencies. So reel them in, take away the automatic deference that judges used to give under Chevron. They'd be like, well, under the Chevron decision, we really have to give deference to what the agency experts have to say in this particular area,

because as judges, we're not water experts, we're not air, we're not atomic energy, we're not nuclear energy experts, we're not experts on Medicare or Medicaid or the provision of health services. Well, they are now. And you can use that to your advantage if you've never liked the policies made by the GOP and right right wing whenever they get in office. So this already cuts the knees out from under Donald Trump if he decides when he gets back in in the first 180 days as part of Project 2025, Agenda 47, or whatever the manifesto mind-cump thing that he's going to be operating under once or be forced to operate under by the out-of-control right-wing MAGA federalist. I mean, he's got a movement now that is controlling him as much as he's controlling the movement

and people who want to get back in power. And so if he thinks he's gonna do all that, he's gonna use the agencies to roll back regulations and water down regulations in major industries, he's got another thing coming, because all of the counter groups, the green groups and other groups that care about these issues can now run

to their local federal judge in sue and say, hey, that new regulation is inconsistent with the actual act that Congress passed and it should be ignored. And you should ban and block that regulation and force the agency under a mandate, under mandamus to pass a new one. You've got that power under the new rule established by this Supreme Court on their way out. We joked that almost gallows humor that this last term of the Supreme Court almost seemed like a going out of business sale for democracy and our justice system. Everything 100% off on precedent, 50% off on

civil liberties. I mean, that's where we're at. Now, I want to do a shout out. I think it's important that this particular analysis, although it's consistent with what we've talked about on Legal AF, when we said, hey, and I did a hot take on this, I said, hey, look out, because if you don't defer to agencies anymore, how are you going to expand agencies to pass regulations controlled by industry insiders if Trump ever got back in? But Evergreen, which is a collaborative on the green side of the ledger, just issued a very good new article which is called How the Climate Movement Can Use the End of Chevron, this precedent I just talked about that Gorsuch's mother helped establish to close pollution loopholes. It's time for the court

to once again answer to the people. I really liked it because it brought together a lot of the analysis that Ben and me and Karen and I have been doing on legal AF. So here's the summary of it. There's a silver lining at everything. Yes, we now have an imperial unitary president who's got absolute immunity, but that runs both ways. And be careful what you ask for if a Democrat or independent gets into office. So that's one. Two, as we said on Legal AF, the decision overturning Chevron, while you may not have understood or you didn't hear about it,

is probably the most monumental thing that touches everybody's lives. More so than even than criminal immunity about it, immunity for criminal conduct by a president. Your life, whether you like it or not, is impacted every day by the federal government, the social safety net, the programs, policies, rules, regulations, and money that come through agencies. Are you taking Social Security? Did you get a student loan? Are you on Medicare or Medicaid? People

in my family are. If that's the case, you have the Democrats to thank for that because they were all established during democratic administrations. You like clean water and clean air, as clean as we can get it under the current pushback, you know who to thank for that. So the Great Society came out of the Johnson administration, a one-term president, back in the late 60s, early 70s, before it gave way to Nixonian kleptocracy and criminality. Let's hope history doesn't repeat itself. We'll continue to follow it all in the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF every Wednesday and Saturday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.

And then I do hot takes on Michael Popak like this about every hour right here in the Midas Touch Network. If you like what I'm doing, slide over to the Midas Touch Network, free subscribe, look for contributors or playlists under Michael Popak. I have about 1,300 of these hot takes just like this one. And then if you like the law at the intersection of law and politics, join us for a new Patreon that Ben and I established called patreon.com slash Legal AF. We got about 60 exclusive substantive videos to teach you about the law at that intersection of law and politics that we talk about every day on Legal AF

and on hot takes like this one. So until my next hot take, until my next Legal AF, this is Michael Popak reporting. Heary, heary, Legal AF Law Breakdown is now in session. Go beyond the headlines and get a deep dive into the important legal concepts you need to know and we discuss every day on Legal AF. Exclusive content you won't find anywhere else,

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