The Raimondo Ruling Impact on Public Administrators

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Dwight Vick
August 5, 2024

When I was a MPA student at the University of Memphis, one of my required courses was Administrative Law. It was one of the most demanding graduate classes of my student career. I can still hear my professor’s voice asking me to defend if the cases we studied were “ruling making or adjudication” and justify my answer, and separate sentiments from the law.  The Administrative Law course taught me that court rulings cement policies established by the legislative branch and signed by an elected executive. I became a student, a follower of Supreme Court administrative law rulings, but could read and explain everything from city codes to bills to wills to custody case law. Hence my interest in the Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo ruling. This article briefly outlines the history of the case and its impact on our field and the street-level bureaucrats we teach.

The case has historical roots reaching back 48 years. 

Congress passed the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 1976. Under the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and U.S. Department of Commerce, the Magnuson-Stevens Act is designed to manage marine fisheries and prevent overfishing. To accomplish this goal, fisheries may be required to carry federal monitors on their boats at the expense of the fishing company.  However, the law was aimed primarily at North Pacific and foreign fisheries in American waters, not Atlantic herring fisheries off the New England coast. Traditionally managed by a regional business association, the New England Council (NEC), herring fisheries became a concern in 2013 for the NMFS and Commerce Department. Decreased budgets made increased monitoring a financial challenge. In 2020, the NEC established a process whereby allowing the additional monitoring costs to be paid by the industry, despite the ambiguity of the 1976 legislation. In short, expert public administrators with NMFS and Commerce relied upon the spirit of the law in controlling Atlantic herring harvests that was intended for Northwestern and foreign fisheries. To further support their actions, NMFS and Commerce administrators relied upon the Chevron doctrine to support their actions.

The Chevron doctrine was established by a Supreme Court ruling in Chevron USA, Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984). Courts deferred to the expertise of the administrative agency’s understanding and application of any Congressional ambiguity if the legal interpretation of the case was reasonable. Two questions had to be answered: 1) Was there an unambiguous expression of Congressional intent in the statute and 2) Was the statute based on a reasonable interpretation of the ambiguous wording. If the answer was “yes” to both questions, courts would defer to the agency’s ruling.  If “no” the courts intervened. The Chevron case has been used in over 17,000 court cases and 70 Supreme Court rulings over the past 40 years.

The Raimondo case ruling now required judicial ruling on any ambiguous law citing Article III of the Constitution which gives the judicial branch the responsibility and power to adjudicate cases and controversies like those related to monitoring herring fishing off the New England coast. Administrative, Congressional and executive branch interpretations are to be respected and have weight. However, the judicial branch must decide, not the experts, the street-level bureaucrats who work in the field, how to manage these ambiguities.

Several questions come to mind, as a street-level bureaucrat and professor, for me that others may ask themselves as a result of the Raimondo ruling. Given that our intergovernmental relations today can be compared to a combative marble cake, does federal financial support provided to federal as well as state and local governments now impact these agency’s public servants? Are they concerned that the application of standard operating procedures in ambiguous situations puts them at risk? Can they rely upon precedence any longer to guide them? Is there will within the legislative branches to anticipate these future ambiguities or will they become more reactive than proactive? Can they rely upon executive rulings and interpretations? Can the courts handle larger, longer dockets? Are judges now in the same situation that legislators and executives face—must they be experts on every issue or will they have to rely upon expert advisors, who are also public administrators working within the judicial branch, to educate said judges on issues they are not familiar with? In the end, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, not regain their judicial powers from public sector agencies but shift them into their own bureaucracies?

What are we, as public administrators, to do? What do we do, as public administration professors?

The Raimondo ruling requires us to pause. Given the expansion of government programs, stemming back as far as FDR’s New Deal which further expanded our field and demanded trained public servants, we need to expand our courses beyond its focus on the executive and legislative branches to include the judicial branch. Many of my students are career bureaucrats who work in law enforcement, emergency management, education, social services and/or serve in the military. We need to consider focusing more on judicial administration as part of our coursework since so many students work in these fields and make split-second decisions that impact citizens’ lives daily. 

Maybe we need to expand our courses to include more of an Administrative Law focus or offer it as a separate course.  Raimondo will be around a while just like Chevron and Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. 

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Author: A graduate of Arizona State University, Dr. Dwight Vick has been as ASPA member for 30 years.  He is an instructor with Texas A&M International University and Thomas Edison State University as well as works with Texas area high schools teaching government, economics, political science, and English.

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