In Learning Resources v. Trump, the Supreme Court is pondering some important questions about the scope of presidential power under the Constitution.
The legal issues in the case are whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act grants President Donald Trump the authority to enact his wide-ranging tariff platform. The other question presented is if the IEEPA does authorize the president to enact tariffs, does the Constitution allow Congress to transfer that power to the executive branch?
Like all constitutional challenges to political actions, the issue is not whether the tariffs are good policies, but rather whether the president has the power to take that action. Thus, the case is not about whether the president should do something, but rather whether the president can do something.
The case presents some fascinating constitutional law issues regarding the separation of powers. Article I of the Constitution provides that “the Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises” and “to regulate commerce with foreign nations.” The challengers argue that the tariffs exceed both the president’s statutory and constitutional power. On the other hand, as the chief executive under Article II of the Constitution, the president is traditionally afforded wide deference and latitude in matters of foreign policy.
One of the most interesting parts of the case is how those who are challenging the president’s actions are relying on the major questions doctrine, an important legal concept recently invoked in invalidating actions of the Biden Administration as exceeding the former president’s executive power.
In West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court held that the Environmental Protection Agency exceeded its authority in requiring power plants to shift from coal to alternative energy sources because the consequences would have a major economic and political impact, which meant that any such requirement had to be imposed through a vote from Congress rather than a regulation from an executive agency.
In articulating the “major questions doctrine,” the Supreme Court analyzed the separation of powers structure embodied in the Constitution as well as its previous cases on the authority of executive agencies.
The court explained that when an executive regulation involves an issue of “vast political and economic significance,” “both separation of powers principles and a practical understanding of legislative intent make us reluctant to read into ambiguous statutory text the delegation claimed to be lurking there.” Rather, if the executive branch seeks to impose far-reaching regulations, “something more than a merely plausible textual basis for the agency action is necessary. The agency instead must point to clear congressional authorization for the power it claims.”
Critics of the major questions doctrine argued that it was a judicial invention aimed at striking down progressive policies, but the Supreme Court claimed that the major questions doctrine “refers to an identifiable body of law that has developed over a series of significant cases all addressing a particular and recurring problem: agencies asserting highly consequential power beyond what Congress could reasonably be understood to have granted.”
Applying the major questions doctrine a few years later in Biden v. Nebraska, the Supreme Court held that a federal law authorizing the secretary of education to “waive or modify” student loan payments during a national emergency did not allow the Biden Administration to completely cancel more than $400 billion in student debt because a “decision of such magnitude and consequence on a matter of earnest and profound debate across the country must rest with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body.”
Many who criticized the Supreme Court’s development of the major questions doctrine now use it as a central argument in the challenge to Trump’s tariffs. During the oral argument, many of the questions from the justices showed that the doctrine applies equally to reviewing both Republican and Democratic executive actions.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, who has shown a strong skepticism of executive power, noted the important separation of powers concerns in allowing Congress to transfer its authority to the president, stating during the oral argument: “Congress, as a practical matter, can’t get this power back once it’s handed it over to the president. It’s a one-way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people’s elected representatives.”
Separation of powers cases always cut both ways and go beyond the political issues of the present day. The court has demonstrated its concerns for far-reaching constitutional consequences rather than contemporary political controversies. The practical results of such decisions will frequently place both political parties on the winning and losing side of the case.