(Washington Post) The conservative revolution at the US Supreme Court has two prongs. One grabs headlines as the justices overturn long-established precedent on big-ticket issues like abortion, affirmative action and voting rights. The second is a less-noticed yet enormously ambitious transformation the judiciary’s job. Put simply, the justices are placing themselves at the top of the tree of governance, radically curtailing the expert administrative judgment long exercised by the executive branch.
The court’s revolutionary program for transforming how administrative agencies enforce the law was on full display last Tuesday in the oral argument for the term’s major immigration case, Texas v. Biden. The case raises three distinct yet related issues: the separation of powers; whether states have standing to sue the executive branch over enforcing federal law; and the ability of a single court to block policy nationwide.
Begin with the separation of powers. At issue in the case is whether and how the president, through the Department of Homeland Security, can set priorities…