This is a really poor ruling, in that the upper judiciary is not supposed to interpret the language of laws but their constitutionality. It's been long established by the SCOTUS that it is up to the executive to the interpret law.
Where did you get that idea from? The SCOTUS, for quite a long time, has interpreted statutes. To say that the judiciary is not supposed to interpret statutory language doesn't mesh with Chevron v. NRDC. If only the executive, and never the courts, were allowed to interpret statutes, the executive could do whatever it wanted and avoid the courts entirely, claiming that everything was within its discretionary interpretation. Clearly the courts must have some ability to interpret statutes.
What are you talking about? The Chevron case ruled the executive's interpretation of the law goes. That's exactly the precedent it set.
That's not at all what
Chevron said. You've entirely skipped step one of the
Chevron two-step and gone straight to an adulterated version of step two.
The first part of the
Chevron test is to analyze "whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue. If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the court as well as the agency must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress."
If, however, the intent of Congress is unclear or the statute is silent about Congress's intent, then the court must defer to the agency if the agency's interpretation is a "permissible construction of the statute."
That's an entirely different standard than simply saying that the upper judiciary is not supposed to engage in statutory interpretation but merely determine if a statute is constitutional.
You may disagree with the D.C. Circuit's holding that Congress's intent was unambiguously clear, but to say that the court erred in interpreting the language of the statute is completely contrary to
Chevron.
I have yet to read the full case, but it seems likely that the D.C. Circuit erred, simply because so many people came to different conclusions about the ACA's meaning, and even the D.C. Circuit majority isn't entirely clear as to what it's trying to say.
There was a wide spectrum among the D.C. and 4th Circuits as to whether the statute was ambiguous and/or whether the IRS's interpretation was permissible.
The problem with the D.C. Circuit's opinion is that it seems to contradict itself. In his close of section III.C., Judge Griffith writes, "Accordingly, applying the statute’s plain meaning, we find that section 36B unambiguously forecloses the interpretation embodied in the IRS Rule and instead limits the availability of premium tax credits to state-established Exchanges." Yet in his conclusion, in section IV, just two paragraphs below that quote, he writes, "Thus, although our decision has major consequences, our role is quite limited: deciding whether the IRS Rule is a permissible reading of the ACA. Having concluded it is not, we reverse the district court and remand with instructions to grant summary judgment to appellants and vacate the IRS Rule." That's not at all true. If the statute unambiguously forecloses the IRS's interpretation, then the analysis stops there, and the role of the court ended there, and the court did not have to decide whether the IRS rule was a permissible interpretation. The conclusion seems to be dicta, but I'd have to read the whole case to be 100% sure, but it is clear that the D.C. Circuit majority was at least sloppy in the way that it wrote its opinion, if not wrong entirely.
