Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-859new_kjfm.pdf
Page Number: 97.0

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

37 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

uniformity,  predictability,  and  greater  political  accounta-
bility.  See, e.g., Brief for Administrative Law Scholars as 
Amici Curiae 30–32.  Others may believe those benefits are
overstated, and that a federal jury is a better check on gov-
ernment  overreach.  See,  e.g.,  Brief  for  Cato  Institute  as 
Amicus Curiae 11–25.  Those arguments take place against 
the  backdrop  of  a  philosophical  (and  perhaps  ideological) 
debate on whether the number of agencies and authorities
properly  corresponds  to  the  ever-increasing  and  evolving 
problems faced by our society.

This  Court’s  job  is  not  to  decide  who  wins  this  debate. 
These are policy considerations for Congress in exercising 
its legislative judgment and constitutional authority to de-
cide how to tackle today’s problems.  It is the electorate, and 
the Executive to some degree, not this Court, that can and 
should provide a check on the wisdom of those judgments. 
Make no mistake: Today’s decision is a power grab.  Once 
again, “the majority arrogates Congress’s policymaking role 
to  itself.”  Garland  v.  Cargill,  602  U. S.  406,  442  (2024) 
(SOTOMAYOR,  J.,  dissenting).  It  prescribes  artificial  con-
straints  on  what  modern-day  adaptable  governance  must 
look like.  In telling Congress that it cannot entrust certain
public-rights  matters  to  the  Executive  because  it  must 
bring them first into the Judiciary’s province, the majority
oversteps  its  role  and  encroaches  on  Congress’s  constitu-
tional authority.  Its decision offends the Framers’ constitu-
tional design so critical to the preservation of individual lib-
erty: the division of our Government into three coordinate 
branches to avoid the concentration of power  in the same 
hands.  The Federalist No. 51, p. 349 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (J. 
Madison).  Judicial aggrandizement is as pernicious to the
separation of powers as any aggrandizing action from either
of the political branches.

Deeply entrenched in today’s ruling is the erroneous be-
lief that any “mistaken or wrongful exertion by the legisla-
tive department of its authority” can lead to “grave abuses”