On the heels of the majority opinion issued by the Supreme Court in Starbucks v. McKinney, analyzed here, the majority opinion given by the Supreme Court in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo declared that Federal courts can no longer defer to the specialized expertise of law enforcement agencies regarding the subject matter that Congress delegated to those agencies. In other words, the majority opinion essentially decided that Federal courts will largely replace law enforcement agencies concerning interpretation and, by implication, enforcement of the governing law. These law enforcement agencies include the United States Department of Labor, the Federal Trade Commission, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and the United States Department of Justice.

The majority opinion in Loper Bright is ironic for several reasons. First, despite the stated commitment to following precedent, the majority opinion overrules decades of settled precedent. Second, despite the stated commitment to law and order, the majority opinion limits the ability of law enforcement agencies to enforce the law for the benefit of employees, consumers, and the public in general. Third, despite the stated commitment to judicial restraint and reducing Federal court caseloads, the majority opinion invites substantial Federal court litigation by corporations and other powerful interests to stop life-improving and even life-saving law enforcement agency work.

Loper Bright appears to be the most extreme response yet to the increasingly aggressive and effective work by law enforcement agencies to hold corporations and other powerful interests accountable for an array of abuses, such as wage theft, employee misclassification, civil rights violations, safety breaches, unfair labor practices, and employer fraud. More to the point, the majority opinion in Loper Bright severely undercuts the rule of law. In that regard, and the day after issuing their opinion in Loper Bright, the majority of Supreme Court Justices released their opinion in Trump v. United States that declared the former President of the United States is absolutely or presumptively immune from prosecution for many types of illegal activities. This opinion is striking given the former President has been impeached twice, has been convicted of committing numerous felonies, has declared he will be a dictator on day one if President again, has announced his intent to exact revenge against his opponents and other dissenters, has called for the use of military forces here in the United States, has publicly encouraged insurrectionist conduct, and faces additional felony indictments in multiple jurisdictions. The anti-democratic impact of the majority opinion in Trump, although shocking, is not surprising given the Supreme Court majority consists of Justices appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote when running for President.