How a Supreme Court Case Involving Herring Fishermen Affects the Little Sisters of the Poor
A Supreme Court case being argued this week could have significant implications for a decade-long religious liberty battle fought by the Little Sisters of the Poor.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this week in Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Gina Raimondo, a case challenging the authority of the federal administrative state to dictate certain rules and regulations related to federal laws.
Herring Fishermen Bring Suit Against NOAA
The Cause of Action Institute, a legal advocacy group, says that the Loper case was brought by several herring fishermen challenging a rule that said they were liable for the cost of federal inspectors on their boats.
For decades, the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) has “given the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the authority to require monitors on commercial fishing boats,” Cause of Action says.
The MSA “explicitly requires the owners of certain classes of fishing boats to pay for their own monitors,” but herring fishermen are not included on that list. As a result, for years NOAA itself paid for the inspectors on herring boats.
However, recently NOAA “suddenly decided that the herring fishermen must now pay for the cost of third-party monitors.” A group of herring fishermen brought suit against the decision, arguing that their exclusion from the original list meant they should not be liable for those payments.
At issue in the case is what is known in U.S. administrative law as “Chevron deference,” stemming from the 1984 case Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. The Legal Information Institute says that the case established “judicial deference given to administrative actions.”
Under this principle, federal agencies are often given considerable latitude in deciding how they will carry out and interpret federal laws, as NOAA is doing in the Loper case.
In a press release on Tuesday, Cause of Action Institute Executive Director James Valvo said the case “brings the livelihoods of family-operated fishing enterprises front and center, as their ability to fish herring is in jeopardy due to unlawful government overreach.”
“More precisely, these fishing families and businesses find themselves compelled to pay a government fee that lacks congressional authorization,” Valvo said. “This fee was imposed by the executive branch absent statutory authority, violating our Constitution’s separation of powers.”
Okay, so how are the Little Sisters involved?
Though the involvement of a group of Catholic religious would seem unlikely in a case such as this, the Little Sisters of the Poor are participants in the Loper case, with the nuns having filed a friend of the court brief last year in support of the fishermen.
The nuns noted that they have spent “a decade” fending off attempts to force them to comply with contraception mandates promulgated by the government.
