The Supreme Court Decision That’s Stopping Everything from Background Checks on Gun Sales to Lower Airline Fees
"This was a long time coming, with a lot of corporate and conservative actors investing money on a long, long-term basis."
Long before Elon Musk called for the U.S. government to “delete entire agencies,” corporations, billionaires, and rightwing political groups like Americans for Prosperity were successfully chipping away at the government’s ability to protect our health and safety. A year ago this week, in June 2024, in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court delivered corporations and rightwing organizations the victory they’d been seeking for years. The Court overturned a long-established precedent, known as the Chevron doctrine, and ruled that when interpreting statutes courts must use “independent judgment” and cannot defer to agencies when deciding how a law is to be followed. That might not inspire the same visceral alarm as DOGE eliminating climate scientists, health officials, and inspectors general, but many legal experts say the end results may be similar.
I wanted to hear how Loper Bright is playing out across the country now, a year later, so I called Gaby Goldstein, founder of State Futures, co-founder of Sister District, and regulatory lawyer. She told me that Loper Bright, along with two other major Supreme Court cases from last term, limited federal agency authority to such a degree that when it comes to protections for necessities like safe workplaces and clean water, “The floor we’ve been walking on all our lives has been removed.”
Much like Dobbs decision that struck down Roe, Loper Bright was the culmination of years of strategizing and spending—including to install ideological Supreme Court justices. “This was a long time coming, with a lot of corporate and conservative actors investing money on a long, long-term basis,” Goldstein said. Koch network staff attorneys represented the plaintiffs in Loper Bright as Justice Clarence Thomas attended Koch network events. And it paid off for the network. The ruling “opened the floodgates,” Goldstein told me.
On the very same day the Supreme Court handed down the decision, a federal judge cited it when preventing a new federal overtime pay rule from being enforced. Since then, according to ProPublica, Loper Bright has been cited to block the implementation of rules related to everything from transgender protections to background checks for gun sales to airline fees.
“Unless you live in a state like California, where there's a floor on the state level, there's no longer a floor on the federal level to provide us all with what we would expect a functional country to provide in terms of health and safety standards and environmental standards,” Goldstein told me. But many Americans can’t rely on our states, either. “Loper has opened the door to not just significant deregulatory efforts on the federal level, but importantly, lots and lots of regulatory efforts on the state level.” Goldstein described two main ways that’s happening: States are setting up their own versions of DOGE offices, and state lawmakers are passing bills, based on models drafted by the Koch-affiliated, corporate-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), that significantly weaken state agencies.
At least twenty-six states have started DOGE-like efforts, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, which calls the new deregulatory push, “simply a rebranding [of] longstanding efforts to undermine government in service of the wealthy.” In multiple states, including Louisiana, North Carolina, and Oklahoma, governors are following Trump’s lead and appointing unelected advisors to take Musk’s role. Goldstein says the state-level DOGE offices “often have the purpose of dismantling and attacking state-level regulations,” which “isn’t a direct response to Loper Bright, but Loper Bright opened the door to this kind of state-level regulatory dismantling.”
State legislatures are also considering ALEC bills that would change “judicial deference” in ways that mirror the Loper Bright decision. “The bills essentially prohibit state courts from deferring to state agency interpretations the same way that Loper Bright has changed the deference standard,” Goldstein explained. Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Texas have enacted those bills, and Missouri has passed a similar one. According to The Lever, this year 15 states have introduced this legislation.
“ALEC has also made a huge push for states to pass what's called the REINS Act,” Goldstein says. There’s a federal version and state versions of the REINs (Regulation from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny) Act. The federal version would require Congressional approval for any new rule issued by a federal agency whose cost exceeds $100 million. The state versions require similar approval from state legislatures. REINS Act-like provisions have been floating around for years, Wisconsin and Florida already have them, but they’re gaining new traction this year, and fast: In 2025, five state legislatures passed REINS Act-style bills and three more are expected to pass them this summer.
Consider the ramifications of state legislators simultaneously being able to receive corporate campaign donations and also veto the recommendations of state labor and environmental agencies. The situation is even more frightening for workers, consumers, and the environment when you consider that many of these legislatures are so gerrymandered that even if voters disapprove, they don’t have immediate recourse for kicking the ruling party out of office — especially if corporations and their PAC flood incumbents with donations.
“This is a moment for creativity and cooperation,” Goldstein told me. “There's a tremendous opportunity, it's just a matter of having the strategy and the will to execute and experiment.” Goldstein envisions states working together in compacts, as many did during the pandemic, to share resources and pull off joint projects. “Creating joint programs to share investigations into Amazon!” is just one way that states could work together to protect our health and safety in a post-Loper Bright world, Goldstein said.
Paying attention to what’s happening in your state is more important than ever, too, Goldstein said. States are the primary venue where groups like Americans for Prosperity are pushing to deregulate. While some states that have considered ALEC bills have adopted them, others haven’t. In November, Arizona voters defeated a ballot amendment that would have implemented a REINs Act-style provision. Goldstein told me that we can all spread correct information, counter misinformation, and support for lawmakers who are pushing back and putting themselves on the line: “The way we’re going to get out of this time is by being really collaborative and creative.”
Photo Credit: Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States
A correction was made on June 30th: Gaby Goldstein is the founder of State Futures. An earlier version of this article said Goldstein was the founder of the States Project.