He is Wrong and Dangerous

Of course, Brett Kavanaugh is wrong, and his mistaken (and erroneous) statement only serves to display Kavanaugh’s radical misunderstanding of the democratic process and of the governing principles of the nation. His statement is a defense of his ideological position and does not reflect an understanding of the law. In her argument in the case before the court, Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar declared that overruling the precedent known as the Chevron principle would be an “unwarranted shock to the legal system.” Adam Liptak writes in The New York Times, “The doctrine known as the Chevron principle says that judges must defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes. In many cases, and there are many,” Liptak writes “the views of the agency take priority even if courts might have ruled differently.” Overturning Chevron will make judges rule on matters in which they possess at best marginal knowledge. 

            Responding to Prelogar’s warning that to overturn Chevron would be a shock to the legal system, Kavanaugh responded that shocks to the system occurred “every four or eight years when a new administration comes in, whether it’s communications law or securities law or competition law or environmental law.” But he is wrong: there is no shock to the system with a change of administration because an electorate has known exactly what their vote has meant for the system, and the peaceful transfer of power guaranteed by the United States Constitution obviates any potential shock to the system. Trump’s attempt to not transfer power in 2020 is an example of a shock to the system, and it would seem to me that Kavanaugh’s statement seems a defense of Trump’s actions. If the system receives a shock every four or eight years then certainly Trump’s shocking illegalities are equal to any shock of a new administration.
            Whereas the protest in Israel over the Knesset’s attempt to wrest power from the Supreme Court led to widespread protest and finally a decision by that Court declaring the Knesset’s actions unconstitutional, then ironically a repeal of Chevron will be the Supreme Court’s attempt to grasp power to the court system and take that power from Congress and the federally and legally elected administration.

Kavanaugh is not only wrong, he is dangerous.