Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.pdf
Page Number: 67

20 

LOPER BRIGHT ENTERPRISES v. RAIMONDO 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

The ancient rule of lenity is still another of Chevron’s vic-
tims.  Since the founding, American courts have construed 
ambiguities in penal laws against the government and with
lenity  toward  affected  persons.  Wooden  v.  United  States, 
595 U. S. 360, 388–390 (2022) (GORSUCH, J., concurring in 
judgment).    That  principle  upholds  due  process  by  safe-
guarding individual liberty in the face of ambiguous laws. 
Ibid.  And it fortifies the separation of powers by keeping 
the power of punishment firmly “ ‘in the legislative, not in 
the  judicial  department.’ ”    Id.,  at  391  (quoting  United 
States  v.  Wiltberger,  5  Wheat.  76,  95  (1820)).    But  power
begets power.  And pressing Chevron deference as far as it 
can go, the government has sometimes managed to leverage 
“ambiguities” in the written law  to penalize conduct Con-
gress  never  clearly  proscribed.    Compare  Guedes  v.  ATF, 
920 F. 3d 1, 27–28, 31 (CADC 2019), with Garland v. Car-
gill, 602 U. S. 604 (2024). 

In all these ways, Chevron’s fiction has led us to a strange 
place.  One where authorities long thought reserved for Ar-
ticle III are transferred to Article II, where the scales of jus-
tice are tilted systematically in favor of the most powerful,
where legal demands can change with every election even 
though  the  laws  do  not,  and  where  the  people  are  left  to 
guess about their legal rights and responsibilities.  So much 
tension with so many foundational features of our legal or-
der  is  surely  one  more  sign  that  we  have  “taken  a  wrong
turn  along  the  way.”    Kisor  v.  Wilkie,  588  U. S.  558,  607 
(2019) (GORSUCH, J., concurring in judgment).5 
—————— 

5 The dissent suggests that Chevron deference bears at least something
in common with surrounding law because it resembles a presumption or 
traditional canon of construction, and both “are common.”  Post, at 8, n. 1, 
28–29 (opinion of KAGAN, J.).  But even that thin reed wavers at a glance. 
Many  of  the  presumptions  and  interpretive  canons  the  dissent  cites— 
including lenity, contra proferentem, and others besides—“ ‘embod[y] . . . 
legal doctrine[s] centuries older than our Republic.’ ”  Opati v. Republic 
of  Sudan,  590  U. S.  418,  425  (2020).    Chevron  deference  can  make  no 
such boast.  Many of the presumptions and canons the dissent cites also