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Page Number: 105

24 

LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

practice, which that text was supposed to reflect.  So today’s
decision  has  no  basis  in  the  only  law  the  majority  deems 
relevant.  It is grounded on air. 

III 
And  still  there  is  worse,  because  abandoning  Chevron 
subverts every known principle of stare decisis.  Of course, 
respecting  precedent  is  not  an  “inexorable  command.” 
Payne  v.  Tennessee,  501  U. S.  808,  828  (1991).    But  over-
throwing it requires far more than the majority has offered 
up here.  Chevron is entitled to stare decisis’s strongest form 
of  protection.  The  majority  thus  needs  an  exceptionally
strong  reason  to  overturn  the  decision,  above  and  beyond
thinking it wrong.  And it has nothing approaching such a 
justification,  proposing  only  a  bewildering  theory  about 
Chevron’s “unworkability.”  Ante, at 32.  Just five years ago,
this Court in Kisor rejected a plea to overrule Auer v. Rob-
bins, 519 U. S. 452 (1997), which requires judicial deference 
to  agencies’  interpretations  of  their  own  regulations.    See 
588  U. S.,  at  586–589  (opinion  of  the  Court).    The  case 
against overruling Chevron is at least as strong.  In partic-
ular,  the  majority’s  decision  today  will  cause  a  massive 
shock to the legal system, “cast[ing] doubt on many settled 
constructions” of statutes and threatening the interests of 
many parties who have relied on them for years.  588 U. S., 
at 587 (opinion of the Court). 

Adherence to precedent is “a foundation stone of the rule
of  law.”  Michigan  v.  Bay  Mills  Indian  Community,  572 
U. S.  782,  798  (2014).  Stare  decisis  “promotes  the  even-
handed,  predictable,  and  consistent  development  of  legal
principles.”  Payne, 501 U. S., at 827.  It enables people to
order  their  lives  in  reliance  on  judicial  decisions.    And  it 
“contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the ju-
dicial process,” by ensuring that those decisions are founded 
in the law, and not in the “personal preferences” of judges. 
Id.,  at  828;  Dobbs,  597  U. S.,  at  388  (dissenting  opinion).