Loper Bright Added to Federal Government’s “Constitution Annotated”

Updates to the federal government’s official guide to interpretations of the Constitution—maintained by the Librarian of Congress and popularly known as “Constitution Annotated”—were published earlier this week to reflect the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo on the proper understanding of the Vesting Clause in Article I.  The changes can be found in articles concerning agency discretion and judicial deference, as well as the Major Questions Doctrine and other canons of statutory construction.

The guide’s explanation of the limits of agency discretion emphasized that, in the absence of Congress’s express delegation of interpretative power, courts should no longer defer to an administrative agency’s interpretation of a statute so long as it is “reasonable.”  Judges must instead provide authoritative constructions of alleged textual ambiguities.

As for the canons of interpretation and Major Questions Doctrine, references to Loper Bright have been included to emphasize that, with the overruling of Chevron deference, the Supreme Court’s reticence to find implicit delegations, especially in “extraordinary cases” like King v. Burwell, now takes on new force.

The government’s recognition of the impact of Loper Bright with these interpretations further underscores its historical impact on administrative law and the correct understanding of our constitutional order.