Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.pdf
Page Number: 66.0

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

19 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

of the Laws of England §212, *141a.  Yet, under the Chev-
ron regime, all that means little, for executive agencies may 
effectively judge the scope of their own lawful powers.  See, 
e.g., Arlington v. FCC, 569 U. S. 290, 296–297 (2013). 

Traditionally,  as  well,  courts  have  sought  to  construe 
statutes as a reasonable reader would “when the law was 
made.”  Blackstone 59; see United States v. Fisher, 2 Cranch 
358,  386  (1805).  Today,  some  call  this  “textualism.”    But 
really  it’s  a  very  old  idea,  one  that  constrains  judges  to  a
lawfinding  rather  than  lawmaking  role  by  focusing  their 
work on the statutory text, its linguistic context, and vari-
ous canons of construction.  In that way, textualism serves
as an essential guardian of the due process promise of fair 
notice.  If a judge could discard an old meaning and assign 
a new one to a law’s terms, all without any legislative revi-
sion, how could people ever be sure of the rules that bind 
them?  New  Prime  Inc.  v.  Oliveira,  586  U. S.  105,  113 
(2019).  Were the rules otherwise, Blackstone warned, the 
people  would  be  rendered  “slaves  to  their  magistrates.” 
4 Blackstone 371. 

Yet, replace “magistrates” with “bureaucrats,” and Black-
stone’s  fear  becomes  reality  when  courts  employ  Chevron 
deference.  Whenever we confront an ambiguity in the law, 
judges do not seek to resolve it impartially according to the 
best evidence of the law’s original meaning.  Instead, we re-
sort to a far cruder heuristic: “The reasonable bureaucrat 
always wins.”  And because the reasonable bureaucrat may 
change  his  mind  year-to-year  and  election-to-election,  the
people can never know with certainty what new “interpre-
tations” might be used against them.  This “fluid” approach
to statutory interpretation is “as much a trap for the inno-
cent as the ancient laws of Caligula,” which were posted so
high  up  on  the  walls  and  in  print  so  small  that  ordinary
people  could  never  be  sure  what  they  required.  United 
States v. Cardiff, 344 U. S. 174, 176 (1952).