Great legal quotes of the week: January 19, 2024

“I would have thought Congress might have addressed student loan forgiveness if that were really such an important issue to one party in Congress. I would have thought maybe they would have fixed the eviction moratorium. I could go on-and-on on these issues. They don’t get addressed because Chevron makes it so easy for them not to tackle the hard issues and forge a permanent solution.” 

— Paul Clement, attorney for Loper Bright Enterprises, during January 17 oral arguments at the Supreme Court in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.  

“I mean, are you just rearguing the point that the Court rejected?” 

— Chief Justice John Roberts, speaking to Deputy Solicitor Edwin S. Kneedler, during January 16 oral arguments at the Supreme Court in Devillier v. Texas. 

“Entrepreneurs and their clients must be able to understand the rules so they can structure their affairs to comply with the law. The Department’s new rule makes this impossible.” 

— Pacific Legal Foundation’s January 16 complaint filed on behalf of freelancers in Warren v. Department of Labor. 

“The First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech is what some legal philosophers refer to as an architectonic, or basic good. As legal philosopher Robert George has written, ‘[p]olitical society has …a special interest in those forms of communication that enable people to co-operate to achieve the goods that political society is devoted to achieving.’” 

— New Civil Liberties Alliance’s January 16 amicus brief in NRA v. Vullo.  

“This is not to say that the doctrine is clear. And perhaps clarity will remain a mere aspiration so long as the doctrine’s foundation includes a decision proclaiming that the FTC ‘exercises no part of the executive power.’ Still, the Supreme Court, while it has limited Humphrey’s, has not yet overruled it. Nor, of course, can we.” 

— Judge Don R. Willett in the Fifth Circuit Court’s January 17 opinion in Consumers’ Research v. Consumer Product Safety Commission.