Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.pdf
Page Number: 106.0

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

25 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

Perhaps above all else, stare decisis is a “doctrine of judicial 
modesty.”  Id.,  at  363.   In  that,  it  shares  something  im-
portant  with  Chevron.    Both  tell  judges  that  they  do  not 
know everything, and would do well to attend to the views
of others.  So today, the majority rejects what judicial hu-
mility counsels not just once but twice over. 

And Chevron is entitled to a particularly strong form of 
stare  decisis,  for  two  separate  reasons.  First,  it  matters 
that “Congress remains free to alter what we have done.” 
Patterson  v.  McLean  Credit  Union,  491  U. S.  164,  173 
(1989);  see  Kisor,  588  U. S.,  at  587  (opinion  of  the  Court) 
(making the same point for Auer deference).  In a constitu-
tional case, the Court alone can correct an error.  But that 
is not so here.  “Our deference decisions are balls tossed into 
Congress’s  court,  for  acceptance  or  not  as  that  branch 
elects.”  588 U. S., at 587–588 (opinion of the Court).  And 
for  generations  now,  Congress  has  chosen  acceptance.
Throughout  those  years,  Congress  could  have  abolished 
Chevron  across  the  board,  most  easily  by  amending  the 
APA.  Or it could have eliminated deferential review in dis-
crete areas, by amending old laws or drafting new laws to
include an anti-Chevron provision.  Instead, Congress has
“spurned multiple opportunities” to do a comprehensive re-
jection of Chevron, and has hardly ever done a targeted one. 
Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, 576 U. S. 446, 456 
(2015); see supra, at 14–15.  Or to put the point more af-
firmatively, Congress has kept Chevron as is for 40 years. 
It maintained that position even as Members of this Court
began to call Chevron into question.  See ante, at 30.  From 
all  it  appears,  Congress  has  not  agreed  with  the  view  of 
some Justices that they and other judges should have more 
power.

Second, Chevron is by now much more than a single deci-
sion.  This Court alone, acting as Chevron allows, has up-
held  an  agency’s  reasonable  interpretation  of  a  statute  at
least 70 times.  See Brief for United States in No. 22–1219,